If you ever find yourself stuck in the middle of the sea
I'll sail the world to find you
If you ever find yourself lost in the dark and you can't see
I'll be the light to guide you
Find out what we're made of
When we are called to help out friends in need
You can count on me like one, two, three
I'll be there
And I know when I need it
I can count on you like four, three, two
You'll be there
Cause that's what friends are supposed to do
Oh yeah
Ooohhhh Ooohhhh
Ooh yeah yeah
If you're tossin' and you're turnin' and you just can't fall asleep
I'll sing a song beside you
And if you ever forget how much you really mean to me
Everyday I will remind you
Ohh
Find out what we're made of
When we are called to help our friends in need
You can count on me like one, two, three
I'll be there
And I know when I need it
I can count on you like four, three, two
You'll be there
Cause that's what friends are supposed to do
Oh yeah
Ooohhhh Ooohhhh
Ooh yeah yeah
You'll always have my shoulder when you cry
I'll never let go, never say goodbye
You know you can count on me like one, two, three
I'll be there
And I know when I need it
I can count on you like four, three, two
And you'll be there
Cause that's what friends are supposed to do
Oh yeah
Ooohhhh Ooohhhh
Ooh
You can count on me cause I can count on you (:

frozen in time he was quite the spectacle
thick rimmed frames traced rigid lines
projected from kaleidoscope eyes
sharp with the corners of unknown dimensions
caught hot handed
both in expectation and reminisce
so awkwardly present

most nights
he spins fairytales
double-dipping moons in molten watches
skewered with his arms
      these wooden poles
stirring the coals buried in ashes
he steps lightly.stomps
dances with the rings of saturn
then rolls like thunder
chasing Zeus's sore words
zig-zagging down to earth
ooohhhh…..
he may not melt hearts with that shoodoop
  that bebop
but they break for his habit of
making promises

he who holds time in the cave below his tongue
which now juts left off the reef of his lip
slip into
trip - - - skip
fall.into.this.
go mad for the pitch of his sweat
glaring at the spotlight
Dalí
painting worlds in the moments
between your ears and soul
he is god to their populations
and their hymns excite
rhythms ignite
visions of hard candy
tumbling your teeth smooth as river stones

he does not belong in a gallery
no high tipping wine sipping city slicker big wig
should ever feel comfortable in his blast radius
he makes bombs from tribal instruments
wigwam concoctions
set to test resting souls for pulses
paradiddle defibrillator
triplet stent for arteries
he is tall
and now thin
pressed against the wall as if under interrogation

splitting breath from its carbon
asphyxiated by the frame
he spells his words with motion
I find him
mute

By my standards,
he is a ten.

I'm sure you're
laughing right now--
"ooohhhh, she think's
he's a TEN"--
but that's not
what I mean.

What I am trying to say is that,
on a scale from one to ten,
one being indicative of
experiencing little to no pain
and ten being indicative of
experiencing a pain whose presence
is capable of knocking the wind
straight out of me--
a pain that I do not
dare to fathom
for fear of prolonging it--
he was a hurricane.

My hurricane.

The eye of the storm,
his aloof ignorance
paralleled against the
violently cyclonic nature
of this heartache--
cacophonic in its impact
and blasphemous in
every context of the word
Love.

I don't think
getting caught in the rain
has ever hurt quite this much.

Yet,
I surrender to this hurt
the way the sea surrenders
to the Almighty Poseidon;
the way my feet surrender
to the rocks
tied round my ankles;
the way my soul surrenders
to its contusions
(so is a casualty
of a broken heart).

Still,
I imagine what it would be
like to kiss him
when I wake up in
the middle of the night,
lucid dreaming and
shivering against the bed sheets
(must be hypothermia,
I think;
the coldness of his
absence settling among the
loneliest parts of me).

I try to remind myself
that he was never
any happy ending of mine--
just an ending.
And something tells me
kissing him would feel
a little less
like thimbles
and a little more
like sewing needles.

After all,
he always did have
a way of silencing me,
my lips stitched together
into the most morbid
of embroideries.

Because god forbid
you dare question
a tempest--
even when he has
left you
to stew in your
own ruin--
for fear of provoking
his stormy wrath.

Part of me has
always been
afraid of him,
you know.  
Looking back now,
that should have been
my first indication
that I had been entertaining
an abusive relationship.

No,
he never laid a hand
on me.

But
I was terrified that
there would come a day
when he would eventually snap.

I can envision it--
ribs crack like lightning;
bruises congealing beneath
my eyes like grape jelly;
fingerprints seared
across my cheek;
my head held underwater
until I've stopped
breathing altogether.

Of course, there exists
more than one way
to destroy a person,
though he will claim
that he has done nothing
to wrong me.

Surely,
he would tell me that
I am just reading
too much into things.

S'pose it's your turn then,
darling.

Trace the brailed veins
of my shattered heart,
and feel all the ways
you have broken me so.

Let your eyes flit
across the expanse
of these water-logged stanzas--
and tell me,
does the poetry not speak
for itself?

Or does my drowning not suffice?