Tissue Paper Snowflakes

like tissue paper snowflakes i
break easily
i
get caught up in notions of things like love
and days like tomorrow
and promises like tattoos dyed into the skin of lovers
stuck in memories like first dates and love notes and make up ***.

like tissue paper snowflakes you
are unique
you
are one of a kind.
in kindergarten they told me no two snowflakes are the same
even though probabilistically speaking
you are almost guaranteed to have a twin.

like tissue paper snowflakes you
want to be cold
you
want to be but don’t have the strength.
you could not support the weight
that is frozen water
that is imperviousness to nonphysical things
like longing and sorrow and elation
and things unlike make up ***.

like tissue paper snowflakes i
am deceptively fragile
i tear
from things that are crushing
like dreams
and lies
and arms wrapped tightly.
i weaken from over use,
i ignite from things that overheat
like cigarettes
and us.

like tissue paper snowflakes we
are from one sheet
we
once bled together
our crooked edges match to form
straight lines.
like tissue paper snowflakes we
found beauty in ordinary roots
we
created texture from flatness
and
complexity from things that were not complex
and
like tissue paper snowflakes
we are weakened only by our own accord.

This is not a love poem.
Because
I know nothing about the entrancement of Romance
It’s like watching a mime mimic antics
It makes me panic.
No, I write epics and tragedies.
About political catastrophes.
About the rhythmic anatomy of poetry.
Not about “How do I love thee…”
But let me count the ways that these days
Have grown strange;
The passage of time has seemed to stop.
This black clock’s bold Tock and
Tick have been erased and
I’m still sick with the aftertaste
From the venom of your kiss
Your toxic lips made me itch that
Poisoned twitch One-thousand times
Before my bloodshot eyes
Went blind to your beauty.
“A most unfortunate disability”
Professionals told me
But I just sighed and smiled insignificantly
“No, no, you see this,
Ironically, is immunity.”
Imperviousness to seduction

But this is not a love poem.
It’s a professional epiphany
An observation

All research and annotations state things like
Blind Fortunes and
Heart complications are just
Minor alterations that
Spark fascinations in
Lab coats and stethoscopes.
Isotopes of foreign hopes
Are my safety ropes to cope with my
Distance away from you another day
And there I go again.
Every ******* word I say will start out right
But then convey to betray me with the
Cliché decay
Of a fluttering heart.
And on this day when time has stopped
I’ll re-lock my jaw that dropped
And, with Blind Eyes, this mental case
Will try to trace the chalk outlines
Of  lucid days
With the white spine
Of the brain stem

But this
Is not
A love poem.
Because
I refuse to be Entranced by Romance.
I’m the kind of guy who would Panic in
That Frantic state of mind
And draw away from Sunlight
To find warmth Moonshine
To bite the bullet and lace up these shoes
Because eleven shots and twelve steps
Is the closest I get to refuge.
See, I dream in the Black and White
Of a first version television box set
About Bloodied tragedies
And political catastrophes
Set to a beat based on
The rhythmic anatomy of poetry
Rarely about “How do I love thee…”
Or the bedpost marks of
Fading, Chalk-Laced Memories.

I detach my feelings when treating patients to enable myself to make clinical decisions when doing my job.
Due to that I have transformed
I have transformed to a person that can return to her original shape or position after deformation that does not exceed her limit...resilience
I acknowledge that this wall of resilience has turned me into somewhat an "insensitive" person
So much that when those closest to me are in misery it doesn't break me although I sympathize
With that comes imperviousness
Which for a long time I have confused with strength
I fail to admit  passage of emotions or rather I have become incapable of being affected by situations
I acknowledge that I may reach a breaking point sometime
I just pray to God that I be ready when all of this finally hits me

SPLINTERED - the antidote  

'choosing to remain Impervious until the reflected familiarity enters the body by connecting, presenting the vast realm of awareness - the unbearable lightness of being floats into the atmospheric sound.  vibrating deeply to souls core...are he and I still impervious to others... all the while the dark familiar perched watching our transformation '

with empathy, i understand
as we began the third act,
the moment of ******* ...
fingers at my throat
he would take command.

encased in a tough outer skin
from years of pressing down...of squeezing... his own pain transmuting through the pressure. pushing the anger and hurt back into his own body.

layer upon layer of scar tissue,
release of the useless agony the poison trapped below the surface.

knowing was present when I stood beside him.
as the ritual began,
vermilion borders grazing,
lips, ivory snarling over my skin

i pleaded for just a few moments and denial did not come.  

one. two. three...i counted.
waiting for the sacred sensation.
exploding inside this realm of physical boundaries he filled the vacancy in my heart with each movement.

in perfection, gasping as he penetrated

pushing me down into the space,
thrusting essence of his being into me, touching the awareness of my mirrored imperviousness  
his intensity pulled me into the void
we launched, penetrating our exterior skin...knowingly allowing the shedding to begin.

puncturing his thick skin,
my fangs drew out the poison...
into my body it flowed.

the antidote is him.
my death was a whim
to my surprise
the antidote is him.
~7Au17 Rachael Hays
Published 2Ja20

The tree in the dawn is:
A bronze statue.
A collection of clattering crows,
Besieged, a storm of ink
(they strut, they stab
to break loose.
a quickstart batter of fright, is
the figment, that which sent the birds sprawling)

The tree in the dawn is:
Exuberant ebony versus deathly whitewash,
A cold sculpture
Standing.
(levying the imperviousness
of blank-white backdrops,
a darkness against-
reaching all extents of black and white.)

The tree in the dawn is:
A frightening monster!
...A dark urchin tower,
-aquiver with black tentacles
And squawking feathery runoff
...A beast with its metaphysical yawp
Thrashing every way, a mass of limbs
(drips a blackness off it,
A fluid like dark soot water
   cleansing in dawn light)

The tree in the dawn is:
A tree.
Nothing more.  Nothing less.
     (now that the sun has risen)