I once left my heart in the pocket of a saint
blinded by sunset light, drunk from midnight madness,
and falling into the monotony of broken dandelion stems and lost eyelash wishes-
I didn’t think I would need it much longer
The burden of rebirthing beats continuously
stamping out the keys
Of my empty piano chest –
As I held onto the breaths of broken warriors
Sponging the blood off their slashed

double
layered
skin

And praying
they could keep their fight for just

One
More
night

He never noticed the extra beat
added to the twitches of his time-ticking body
deaf from the ringing calls to heroism
only on the odd hours he didn’t have muffled
by the recipes of the women he’d saved
buying out bravery like it could shield his soft tongued love
leaving nothing but the clothes on his back
woven from stardusted bomb shelters
And
left over hopes
selling the silver lining of every breath he took
just to buy the next broken-bar girl a drink

He was a saint after all --

born from the innocent hopes I wish I still had,
tucked in the corners of sun-freckled smiles
and
Mothering seatbealt arms
and
Careless Carnival Food
the kind I know some of my soldiers withered against
writhing their souls from the bodies they had been straight jacketed too
prisoners of war stuck in the memory
of just how many calories a sugared funnel cake could have
did have
will have
add up to the self worth shot out of their chest
from last nights uncontrolled binge
of two apples and a cheerio promise ring

No,
he had never been in the middle of the war
never known the taste of blood
rusting in the rain of covered up skin
drenched in the salt water stings of failure
peeling away the scabs of
addictive adrenaline disadvantages
and mapping the battle plan of tomorrows attack
against an enemy so close
it was breathing the same air your lungs had not finished purifying

No,
his hands had never held the dyeing breaths of a comrade in arms
as they shook from the fears riding up their spine
praying the poison won’t take
praying the stolen bottles didn’t break
and that violent vomiting viguals
might burn just enough of the alcohol mistake
so their blood won’t have to curdle

No,
he had never heard the desperation
of sobbing secretes suddenly swindled
from between the lips of a girl who never wanted to remember
the night that never happened
one year, five months, fourteen days --
and three hours ago
her father had asked her why she never wore skirts anymore
and why she never brought boys over anymore
and why she never left her room anymore
and why her silent cheekbone cry for help never smiled anymore

No.

A saint is never found on the battlefield
never scared by the everlasting burns
of war paint psychiatric wards
and gun powder therapy sessions
sprinkled with the hope against hope moments that maybe
we’ll have a break through --

Like the ****** morning sun rebirthing the beats
of duck taped dreams
and
medicated eyes
and
catatonic lips --

I left my heart in the pocket of a saint
confessing the sins of the hopeless hospital it fueled
between our silent lipped kisses
squeezing out the stories of unnamed soldiers
between our woven fingers
and betraying my fear
in the tremble of my body against his –
I left my heart with him on the one-night-stand whim
that I would grow deaf to the sound
of TAPS played on my piano rib keys
and
blind to the specks of blown dandelion wishes

But I still hear the echoes of them
rattling against the stitching
of his bomb shelter pockets

and I wonder if he’s still searching for me
between the crumpled recites of midnight mass mixers
and
open cathedral whispers

because I still think of him sometimes
absent mindedly pick pocketing saints for smiles
but I’ve only found lint and regret
tucked in the corners of their heroic attempt
to protect the bruised hearts of the saviors
who haven’t quite yet found salvation

your split-lipped compliments are
boulder-heavy with caramel
undertones,
while i’ve got my basic stardusted
collarbones
and dancing fingertips;
ink stained and lust-conforming.

you’re stitching your ideas
onto my cerebellum,
and as i cry ‘foul!’
you fly away like
you’re free.
spit speckled with blood
and my dna,
you laugh and cry and kiss
like you’re mine.

dreams are growing
like wild flowers, and babe they
make me itch for some sort
of way
to alleviate the pain.
but people claim,
that these moments
we spend are never going
to be more
than little discomfort
and i dare say
that they’re wrong.

my body is not weather proof.
it will wash away
in the rain,
so hold me under your umbrella
and keep me
by your side,
because that way
if all else fails
we’ll wash away
together.

He brushes lips of chapped silver
against her eager waiting ears
words dipped in warm honey gold
weave through the still morning air into
pretty distractions and buttercup dreams

She’s falling falling f a l l i n g
into those alluring violet eyes
they make for the perfect Solemn and
Earnest when he wants them to be
spinning seductive stardusted half-promises

The gossamer sunlight glints off
his aquamarine hair, and it’s like
like winter’s breath crystallized on the ends
of those beautiful blue strands;
they snare her in their breathtaking tangles

She’s almost asking to be bound
so he complies with those
clever ivory fingers on smooth piano keys
as rich chocolate swirls of his music enfold,
intoxicating-saccharine like whisky truffles

As he reaches out to draw her close,
the world soars in a myriad of colours.

words drip
from friend's lips
a memento of coffee cups
and foamed cheeks
lost are the days of feeling alone
an empty cup filled
with warm memories of new days
made bright with new faces
and drinks made in order
to soothe your swollen heart
the evening fades
to a stardusted night
and a comforting solace
grows in our stomachs
a garden replenished
the dark seems less lonely
the stars seem so close by
no longer dead things
floating in
a desolate sky
so close in proximity
they seem almost
like our moonlit
freckles laughing

It is funny;
Funny how one day you can see the universe reflected in your own eyes
And blue-rich galaxies bursting from the hidden darknesses
And the gone-places of your mind.
Your pen is as ceaseless on your paper as your feet are on your bedroom floor.

Other days are like tepid water, or half-sour milk
That is undecided on the matter of its own freshness.
Those dark, gone-places of your mind are not even dimly lit.
And yet you wish for that eye-universe,
And those blue-rich galaxies,
And for your pen to skate across the page
As if possessed by the likes of Ginsberg or Kerouac.

So you wander down to the quiet places;
To the caged city forests where the trees cohabitate with basketball hoops,
And the birds sing their squeezed-in yellow melodies.
To the crumbling, sandy banks,
Where on a good day you can find a smashed white seashell
Or a pocket watch, rusty and decayed with time
And confident in its fragility.

But all you do is stare at the sky.
No miraculous inspiration comes to you;
No stardusted metaphysics,
No juice-rich red and purple existentialism.
No darling lovers dripping with candy-yellow sweetness
As the birds sing like Blake or Wordsworth.

So You return to the loud and cluttered places;
To your places,
To your off-white apartments where the water runs cold
And the refrigerator stinks worse than hell.
To your concrete-welded rivers,
Where the only birds are grey pigeons,
And the most beautiful thing you will find
Is a ***** green bottle
Or a razor blade
With more memories than you.

And you will try tomorrow.
Maybe the ticking of your generic clock
Or the casual griminess of your old green bathtub
Will be enough.
But for now, you will sit,
And you will consider constellations
And contemplate the reason why your lover's eyes
Remind you of the Milky Way.
For now, the eye-universe is still, and the blue-rich galaxies
Are deep in sleep,
Just like you wish you were.

For this is a tepid water day, a half-sour milk day.
And that is not a bad thing, in the end.

At the end of all things, there will always be
You and I, dear – and our little story.

There will still be, at hand,
the time you spun me round to dance
– at the same time
I spun you round to dance –
in a little, stardusted, pocket of memory
in the black coat of the universe.

The curse of remembering, is
Our lovers’ loving curse.

It happened – we can always retrieve
Our little fairy story, the story we craft for the world,
Then leave.

At the end of it all, if we are not here
in our compact, glittering world of Each Other;
Even if my memory is riddled with
the little worms of age,
There will always be a part of my young self
Trapped in that giant’s pocket with your young self.
That spiral-bound Tale of Us
Sitting on my third bookshelf.