After the ice in your eyes melted, I
Bathed in the crystal waters.

When the glaciers moved out from inside me, Sending
Waves that threw themselves down tributaries, Like
Laurels in the ocean-
You,
Arms extended like Christ,
Welcomed each slap of the sea.

By either the gentle flow of your celestial waters, Or my
Flensing tidal waves that engulfed you,
We purified each other- Our
Naked bodies clinging tight, pressing and feeling for some sort of magnetic force. I felt
Your tears on my breast, And watched
You emerge
-holy and pure-
Your face bearing the virtue of what it is like to feel (for once)
Whole.
Rediscovering the undeniable truths you had once forgotten,
(tucked away in a matchbox under your bed).

I wanted to touch you, And press
Every ounce of love I had into you, with
Just my fingertips. I
Wanted you to know that in a city of science,
Miracles could still happen. They
Could still feel as clean as they once felt when
We were children- faces
glowing pink and bright
Marveling at a white blanket in the morning.

I'm seated across from my stomachache.
The diner mutates into a morgue.
The tables are gurneys with checkerboard shrouds.
Is this conversation  -  or autopsy?

I explore an intriguing potential corpse
-unflinching under my lancet eyes
-numb as my curious scalpel pries
as I try to dissect what this means to me.

It might mean a great deal
(perhaps too much).

With delicate pressure cracks appear
STOP!
Questions cause fragile things to break...

Relationships all die premature deaths.
I am maladroit when I handle hearts.
Then I wait for the last breath,
"Let's keep in touch,"
and watch as my wounded friend departs,
sanguine about the mess I've made
of my latest stab at intimacy
when I dropped my guard like a flensing blade
and opened myself up  as well.
Mistake!

you are,

my beauty to behold,
my strength to grow old,
my youth blessed, de-messed,
clean clarity, clear faced best.

you are,

my light in dark stairwells,
my long lingering farewell,
my langishing sighs
and final goodbyes,
rueful, regretful, redfaced rest.

you are,

my trial and tribulation,
my awkard salutations,
my pause in transmission,
stupid, careless intermission,
flayed, flensing, flesh rending test.

you are,

my hope for brighter,
my hearts renewing delight,
my compass' new bearing,
fresh, freedoms flight
upward, ever upward
from dark nights behest.

you are,

my inside, outside, beside,

you are,

my internal, eternal guide,
my passion, my power, my pride.

you are,

looking  back at me,
from the mirrors' inside.

enter me the intense sojourn of our lips
that i might

step upon

each flensing kiss

my toward darkness body

each more of its less and
set into its bite
my own teeth.

For lived experience beyond the carnal;
Topknot explored an inner life.
Then with Slipknot who was his wife,
They embraced art rather than artisanal.
At first their dream fell flat in liminal
Where worm cast actors played the fife,
And whalers waved a flensing knife,
And stoic chic was seen as criminal.

A wall dive away from the stepped revetments
Of leggy fledgling skipped ropes of foam,
Where deep blocks slowed down coast erosion;
(Despite negative equity and mad investments
In sand-sunk rubble from a broken home)
They found a world beyond shallow explosion.

Tongue daps vinegar,
and your face winched,
as if offended,
as if death was a butterfly
fetching nectar from you,
but your soul has never resided
any body other than yours.

Yogurt is enough
to make you scoff,
sandwiches the same,
you shudder at the sight
of my teeth flensing fat
off a rind and the cream
of hardened tallow on steamed
rice.

Your lunch box comes with
this world’s gravy,
mine comes with
I-am-lucky-that-I-am-here
kind of deal.
Mine comes with bricks
my scrawny frame has to bear,
mine comes with my mama’s
expectations that I need to
build a better road for my siblings
and I to walk on.
Mine is more edible than
what papa keeps in his belly.

You have a lunch box,
I have lunch, now go eat.