Puckered lips.
'How should I move' and 'where should she meet me'
Forth on. And I don't. And she won't.
Unconventional.
We're ******, love. Smitten.
Frost-struck fools.
Your hand didn't find mine when I lost my footing,
And you won't understand why people don't come here,
The place where none should stand
to fall.

No response. Unkept, godless silence; pray, pray, I am prey.

That was it, wasn't it?
An exclamation point to a run-off
sentence; we refused.
She'll pray to the gods
We'll later become
And I'll never sip on something pristine as
Lavender tea lemonade.

She said the stars converse as we do.
Shining. Laughing. Slowly dying.
I'll go to your back, then your head to my chest.
Hearing you: softening
Jabs to whispers.
There, a heavy light settled along the edge
Of our spot, our unencumbered field of obsidian
And crafted blades of grass.

Of all the things I can be,
I can't be the last to go.

I feel like I’m dying,
you said, and I wanted to say
you’ve been dead for years.
But you seemed so sad then,
the deep-seeded kind
of sadness with no real root,
and it must be harrowing,
I thought, to be mocked by a life
that so little resembled anything
you’d designed, to shrink
into the shadow of a life
that had begun without you.
And so I did not mention
how the light in your eyes
had waned and withered
or how you would always be
longing because you had nothing
to long for.  Instead, I said
you’re not alone*,
and hoped it was enough.

When I grab scissors from my bedside table,
to draw patterns along the flesh of my thighs,
I try to imagine something beautiful.

I carve daisies and sunflowers into my skin,
like children carve pumpkins at Halloween,
and for a moment my body can bleed out the voices,
until they’re silent.

you are the toska breeding in me like vicious flowers
cannas perhaps lotus or bleeding hearts
haunting the excruciating longing in my sinking chest
a calming and white haunting

I hear a thud in the middle of my body and it seems
that my heart levels itself in between my dimmed ribs
so that it may nervously burst in my core
to let that beautiful yellow childlike  sun into my body

what am I without you, a weltering raindrop
on top of a dark wooden roof
falling into the rustic mud while nobody is watching
being absorbed into the earth while nobody
cares

when I spoke my voice was hallow
and now you fill my speech and the streaks of tunes from my neck
like a starving man who by the grace of God has been blessed
with the feast of kings and queens

the phantom artist of something like a never ending dream
the gentle spirit
the serene incubus

you
daydreamer of withering beauty
heartless and genuine
I rest my smile upon your spine
I suffocate into your talent
of a deep and barren like litost

your calm ocean
as mine
filled with creatures only our imaginations
can begin to decipher
a tender arena of hearts and fowl play
you have taught me more about myself
I am bathing in beauty
drowning in a glorifying deep silk

I would bring my last weeping words  in a coffin
with  dark and rich embroidery resembling
that of your driven eyes
for a simple brush of your hand
upon my cheek

you are the toska breeding in me like vicious flowers
cannas perhaps lotus or bleeding hearts
haunting the excruciating longing in my sinking chest
a calming and white haunting

I hear a thud in the middle of my body and it seems
that my heart levels itself in between my dimmed ribs
so that it may nervously burst in my core
to let that beautiful yellow childlike  sun into my body

what am I without you, a weltering raindrop
on top of a dark wooden roof
falling into the rustic mud while nobody is watching
being absorbed into the earth while nobody
cares

when I spoke my voice was hallow
and now you fill my speech and the streaks of tunes from my neck
like a starving man who by the grace of God has been blessed
with the feast of kings and queens

the phantom artist of something like a never ending dream
the gentle spirit
the serene incubus

you
daydreamer of withering beauty
heartless and genuine
I rest my smile upon your spine
I suffocate into your talent
of a deep and barren like litost

your calm ocean
as mine
filled with creatures only our imaginations
can begin to decipher
a tender arena of hearts and fowl play
you have taught me more about myself
I am bathing in beauty
drowning in a glorifying deep silk

I would bring my last weeping words  in a coffin
with  dark and rich embroidery resembling
that of your driven eyes
for a simple brush of your hand
upon my cheek

I feel like a slug
sometimes I feel like it might be easier just to be one
Faced plainly with my own mental lacunae
I feel the vice grips of creative sterility
Only exacerbated in my willingness to idleness
I am struck by two Slavic language words
Toska and litost
Both have a meaning akin to boredom and existential depression wrapped in one
It is a curse really
To be constantly bombarded with thoughts of my own inadequacies
And having no will to do anything to change them
Maybe that is why I have always been drawn to those long dead souls
Who barely clung to sanity in life and plunged forward like grand ice breakers through the social convictions of modern life
Those desperados of intellect who did simply as will
It is only in the presence of this kind of supreme will that I have found any comfort
And I fear that it is only in the juxtaposition of this and my own disposition
That I have ever lived at all
I mean really is any body picking up what I’m putting down?
This kind of Petulant absurdity is where I thrive
I fear again the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune
Which in this sense is nothing more than rejection and the knowledge that I really am nothing special
For self-conscious references to Shakespearean texts that lie still unread on my bookshelf cannot bar my consciousness from the near constant obsession
Of simply getting so far out there in the water that nobody can even see me anymore
And I can no longer see the shore

to live day by day
watching the clock tick away,

what is it all for?
yet, here i am.