Assigned by angels to be the vessel
of your opal eyes

I don't mind

These days all I want to see
is the radiance you bring forth
a tranquil break in the folds
streaming through me

As I stand in regard
with the threads of yours wrapped around mine
a spatial interlude
long glimpses at your blueprints
in my sights
the daybreak of my existence
the gleaming brilliance of yellow
the daring cosmos of nights’ sky
Those night skies

its expanse I clear with no expense
I only hope for you
for you to notice
the bones of mine that bloom after you
a synthesis so sweet
as I see you
glance back to me as we dance across this field
as I tread light
a nimbus and a kite

the vessel of your opal eyes
a contract laced with gold
dusted with your breath.

AN INTRODUCTION TO THE STUDY
OF HISTORY IN VERSE : PART ONE
              BY RAJ NANDY
              INTRODUCTION
The very mention of History brings to mind
many civilizations, its wars, with endless
succession of ruling dynasties and kings;
Its many dates and events, which appear to be
rather dull and boring!
“If history were taught in the form of stories, it
would never be forgotten”, said Rudyard Kipling!
So if a good teacher of History narrates those
events like a story within a broad chronological
frame work,
While skillfully linking the present in light of the
past;
Mentioning both important and lesser known
interesting facts to arouse the interest of his
class; -
History would be better appreciated by us!
Perhaps in its narrowest sense, History may be
viewed only as a chronological succession of
dates and past events!
But let me assure you that History is a dynamic
linear progression, adapting and evolving with
changing times,
As present recedes into the past all the while!
These changes could be environmental, socio-
economic, or political changes faced by mankind.
But we remain as a living part of History all the
while!
Yet while we live through History, we fail to realize
the impact we make upon history and time;
And this is perhaps the very magic and enigma of
History,
Which occasionally lends it a touch of mystery!
Our family album is a record of our history we
create and leave behind at the micro level;
Just as past civilizations have left behind their imprints
in their architecture, statues, literature, and works
of art at the macro level !
History breathes and speaks to us from the distant
past,
If only we could pause to hear its unspoken words,
As the Romantic poet John Keats had once heard!
Keats’  “Ode on a Grecian Urn” composed during
early 19th century, -
Harks back to the Classical Age of Greek History!
Keats waxes eloquent in his description of pastoral
scenes painted on the urn which lies frozen in time;
While Keats leaves behind his exalted and eternal
aesthetic message - ‘Beauty is Truth and Truth
Beauty’, - which shall outlive our mortal time!
So it is with History, like the Grecian urn the past  
remains eternalized in time with its lessons and
stories;
While it beckons us to unravel her mysteries!
For the historian, the architect, the geologist,
the anthropologist, scholars and the artist,
‘’History is a continuous dialogue between
the present and the past’’;
As observed by the English historian and
diplomat EW Carr.
Even though we cannot change the past, we can
surely absorb the lessons it has left behind for us!
The Spanish born American philosopher George
Santayana had said; -
“Those who cannot remember the past are
condemned to repeat it!”
The Dutch philosopher Soren Kierkegaard had
once remarked; -
“Life must be lived forward, but it can only be
understood backward.”
So let us learn from past History to create a
better future for humanity.
For the past gives us a sense of belonging
and an identity;
Since our very roots lie enshrined in History!
By the time you complete reading my entire
composition,
I hope to convert you into a Lover of History
by broadening your perception!

HISTORICAL BACKGROUND OF HISTORY!
Ancient Greece, the cradle of Western Civilization
during the 6th century BC, -
Saw the birth of Philosophy!
Thales of Miletus, Anaximenes, and Anaximander,
from the Greek colony of Ionia on the west coast
of Asia Minor,  (now Turkey)
Broke the previous shackles of all mythical and
superstitious explanations.
With their questioning mind and rational thinking
they sought,  -
To seek the real behind the apparent, and substance
behind the shadow;
By seeking natural and logical reasons for explaining
natural phenomena, -
Free from all previous religious and mythical
interpretations!
Thus, these Milesian School of thinkers in their quest
for truth with their intellectual lust, -
Gave rise to ‘philosophia’, Greek word for ‘love
of truth’, an early birth!
Subsequently, this newly born Greek Philosophy with
its progressive thoughts inspired scientific methods
of inquiry;
Along with Logic, trial by Jury, and the very concept
of Democracy!
The Greeks also inspired Literature, History, Tragedy,
Comedy, the Olympic Games, Astronomy, and Geometry!
Around 500 BC the Greek written script had stabilized,
going from left to right;
And the first addition of vowel letters by the Greeks
to the adopted Phoenician consonants, can never
be denied!
The first two Greek letters ‘alpha’ and ‘beta’ which
gave the name to our Alphabets forms a part of
early History.
Now Herodotus, during the 5th century BC, had
inherited this intellectual Greek Legacy!

HERODOTUS – ‘THE FATHER OF HISTORY’
Herodotus is said to have been born in the ancient
Dorian Greek city of Halicarnassus in south-west
Asia Minor, which is now Turkey;
During the latter half of 5th century BC!
During his days, the city was under the rule of Persia;
Since the Persians had captured the Greek colonies
in Asia Minor!
Frequent revolts by these colonies against the
Persians with help from Athens,
Made the Persian King Darius, and later his son
Xerxes, - decide to invade Athens!
The Persians also wanted to extend their Empire
into Europe across the Bosporus Strait, -
Which divided Asia from Europe in those days!

In 490 BC, when the massive Persian army of King
Darius landed at Marathon as assured victors;
The Athenian running courier Pheidippides ran
150 miles in two days, to seek help from Sparta!
Again later, he ran 25 miles from the battlefield
near Marathon to Athens, to announce that the
Greeks became the final victors!
This historic run by Pheidippides gave rise to the
discipline of Marathon, in our Olympic Games
later on!
Such Marathon runs are now held in many cities
of the world annually,
Thus we remain connected with our past as you
can clearly see!
Years later in 425 BC, Herodotus narrated these
invasions in his famous narrative ‘Histories’.
Cicero the Roman scholar, philosopher and orator,
Had called Herodotus the ‘Father of History’ many
centuries later!
Very little is known about Herodotus’ early life,
But from historical evidence which survive,
We learn about his stay in Athens, and his many
wanderings;
Visiting Egypt, Libya, Syria, Babylon, Susa in Elam,
Lydia, and Phrygia;
Collecting information which he called ‘autopsies’
or ‘personal inquiries’, and hearing many stories;
Prior to composing his famous ‘Histories’!

“THE HISTORIES”: HERODOTUS (430-425BC)
This was written in prose in the Iconic dialect of
Classical Greek,
Covers the background, causes, and events of the
Greco-Persian Wars between 490 and 479 BC.  
Scholars divided the entire work into 9 Books, with
each dedicated to a Greek Muse, - those goddesses
of art and knowledge,
Thereby the Homeric tradition they did acknowledge!
For example, Book-I was dedicated to Calliope, the
Muse of Epic Poetry, and Book-II to Clio, the Muse
of History.
Herodotus begins his narration with these following
words;-
“Here is the account of the inquiry of Herodotus of
Halicarnassus in order that the deeds of men not be
erased by time, and that the great and miraculous
works – both of the Greeks and the barbarians not
go unrecorded.”
Now Herodotus with his lucid narrative style, had
pioneered the writing of History with a specific
framework of space and time!
His style got emulated by later writers of History,
Who improved their narration with better authentic
source and methodology;
Thereby giving birth to the subject of ‘Historiography’.
(Historiography = critical examination of source & selection
of authentic material, synthesis of particulars into a narrative
whole, which shall stand the test of critical methods.)

HERODOTUS’ ‘INQUIRY’ GAVE BIRTH TO ‘HISTORY’!
The ancient Greek word “historia” meant ‘knowledge
acquired by investigation or inquiry’’, and the Greek
‘histore’ meant ‘inquiry’.  
It was in this sense Aristotle later used it in his ‘’Inquires
on Animals’’- during the 4th Century BC;
And this mode of ‘inquiry’ later became ‘History’!
The term ‘History’ entered English language in 1390
as a “record of past incidents and story”.
However, the restriction to the meaning “record of
past events” only, came during the 15th century.
But the German word ‘Geschichte’ even to this day,
Means both history and story, without making
distinction in any way!
Since the story element remains inbuilt in all historical
narrations,
And also remains as a tribute to its author’s creation!
CONCLUDING PORTION WILL BE POSTED LATER AS
PART-TWO. Thanks, - RAJ NANDY.
**ALL COPY RIGHTS WITH THE AUTHOR RAJ NANDY,
OF NEW DELHI

Burlesque fatuous is the implication of your emotional daily pretentiousness. I am seldom, otherwise a psychopath, able
to own fraternity which I can't
discernment or jester because there is an art to love and ******
And it's a conventional edit to your own dullness. I am vivid,
Debris to impersonation.
I am absent but identical
to thin air. I am a Prometheus
Arabian night in Lysistrata premise.
My words may remind you of the day I held your eyes in infinite cluster. Perhaps my love isn't enough for you to understand. For example, the glassed vain is paralysis iridium illicitness which is svelte to inadmissible synthesis. The cloud let are torsion, assail with cypress and impossible solariums; and the propane was a sensation of disjointed loveliness.
Every time I go for a walk, mosquitoes understand my lonely talks because they sip my blood at a quarter past ten but these glazed roads scrutinized my wrist, escorted vernal preposterous blue/purple relentless ghostly cheekbones.
Thought I could festive the blaze among the cedar bridge road
but take a pause and look at my skin and thighbones,
Preterists to flowered unless I smile and tell you
"This is heartbreak"*

*Unable to keep up with your facetiousness, personality failed me temporarily. Mind melting in a moment of dissonance,
This cognitive refrain refracts the 'I' that oscillates accordingly.
One's morphology, tuned to its own metric of change.
Hypnos whispers and sleep beckons, taunting insomnia (which makes a mockery of all humans) but Morpheus has no time for anything less than grandiose archetypes.
Last night I may have dreamt or drunk some foolish things, told people the truth untruthfully, let slip more than I should have.
What a pity, secrecy. They say
information wants to be free.
Who lingers in the details?
Past memories are liberated only by the present. I stand here in the downpour, soaking it all in.
Compassion, god is in the rain.
My fulgurite heart resting on the palm of a deity, at a tilt, slowly it's sliding off; when it fell I gasped.
The reflection of wide eyes in each of its atria, emotion flowing through these venae cavae, those
dilated eyes shimmered before it shattered, gleaming with passion. Us, in the blink of an I.

Motet: an unaccompanied choral composition with sacred lyrics; originated in the 13th century.  Suggestion: look up on YouTube, the Hilliard Ensemble.*  Jewish tradition says that there are 36 righteous souls on Earth, whom for their sake, God preserves the planet and its inhabitants.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Motet II

August 2013

Last night,
I lay with God,
Again.

We made love inimitable,
As if it were the first time.
The music of purity, voices ensemble,
The only commonality.

Afterwards, heaving, sweaty, in bed,
He reminded me that I had already
Written of the motet, long ago,
But permission granted to
Love it, write of it, once more,
As I He, and He, me...

Because after-all, the motet prayers belong to Him.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Motet

Nov. 2010

Ce soir, I am prepared, My Love,
hopeful of being worthy,
diminished before all,
rendered and prepared,
transported and train-spotted,
prostrate and yet risen.

The motek-sweet motet wings me
heavenward to more than relief.
Grace, grace, I am both,
becoming and becalmed,
drowned and delighted,
entwined and unwound,
compost but composed,
invaded and imbued.

These voices doth
wrack my fibers,
seethe and contract,
my internal power plant
implodes, heart attack.

Glorious generations of singers,
O woven voices that harmonize,
your motet is
umbilical to my lyrical,  
calming chemical reaction,
I am servant and
you are my server,
uplift, calm and provoke me.

Sing out loud God's
ephemeral, unpronounceable name,
cover me with the fame
of His naturity,
love me with divine kisses,
release unto and within me
the essential oils,
oils by which we breathe,
ancestorally transfused,
oils once called the
blood of the soul.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
In my past harmonies of poesy,
you shared, lost or just deleted,
tribute unto tribulations human:

I recorded, ven diagrammed,
sorrowed tales of souls waylaid,
debts foreclosed, dues unpaid,
tales of non-fictional agonistes,
suffering a tutti frutti of sarcastic
Earthly  Delights.

Wrote writs re some poor souls,
Prado preserved,
by threading and dying,
on a cloistered tapestry
woven by Adonai worshipers.

With those selfsame oils,
they painted anticipated memories of
Heaven and Hell,
the ones of which I write,
far too oft.

But this night,
In my customary hour
when inspiration is my only tongue,
in the lean hours after midnight,
afore dawn's orangerie of
morning skyed break fast,
I am risen, nourished and
uplifted by the motet's synthesis,
by what I hope to see,
by what I wish to hear.

For I watch,
porched and perched on rooftop,
in the company of
urban spelunkers and debunkers,
all of us desperados,
differing reasons for despair,
yet together,
a human minion-minyan of ten,
we search Jerusalem,
from the Battery to the Cloisters
for glimpses, hints of human angels,
the thirty six^
ministering to the
homeless and dreamless,
to us all.*

Ce soir, I am prepared,
hopeful of being worthy,
diminished before all,
rendered and prepared,
transported and train-spotted,
prostrate and yet risen,
the motek-sweet motet wings me
heavenward to more than relief.

Grace, grace, I am both,
becoming and becalmed,
drowned and delighted,
entwined and unwound,
compost but composed,
invaded and imbued.

Reveal, reveal to me the identity
of your ministering angels!

As the thirty six preserve me,
motet me on eagle's wings, and
return us to you Lord,
that we may be returned.

Renew our days,
as they were before,
when the motet
was bright, organic,
in each of us.






----------------------------------------
^www.neveh.org­/winston/wonder36/36-08.html

this is how a
part of my
new self
starts:

she
and i
hook up at
a party, in
November, a bit after Halloween
my costume is stars on black, hers sharp teeth
and sharper lines

she sinks them

into
me

and
I am
so much more
lost than I’d thought
I could be, not with her, not her, not her
not her, but there we were, stealing kisses
burning bruises
onto her
exposed
throat

and
I liked
it enough
to keep going
and i had another her, and a him, as well
i knew things i hadn’t before, somehow
knew what a gasp
did to skin,
to a
heart

and
i was
just worthless
lost in my lust
and in spirals, finally confirming  
what i thought i’d known, experimental
results for my
eyes, ears and
starving
mind

what
affects
the levels
of arousal
in a man, in a woman; i learned
how a moan can amplify and set sparks
running down your
back, through your
spine and
on

i
stumbled
took her hand
again, slammed
us into the doorway and hid the light
from her, closed the distance and stole something
she couldn’t take
back from me,
not just
yet

then
i placed
my hands on
her thighs, drew from
her conclusions enough for a lifetime
skin convulsed under mine; i was in control
could play her like
sin plays man
this, I
knew

and
know, i
know it still
it isn’t gone
my fingers sing, sometimes; that’s reverie

When you ask the right question and get the answer you hoped wouldn't come
When you find the truth and it's what you wished you'd never see
You can feel it in the back of your mind
The tension
That feeling in your head that things aren't what you thought and they probably never were
It's something you gotta sweat out before it clogs up your brain and your heart
All learning is alleviation of tension
All decisions too
You can't run from it and you shouldn't want to
In dialectics you have thesis, antithesis, and synthesis
What is, why it shouldn't, and what must come next

I promise that I'll never come to a final conclusion about what Anarchism really means
Because anarchy means standing up for your neighbors
Anarchy means letting the people you care about have the choice to not have you in their life
Anarchy means embracing what you love even when it kills you
And maybe it's up to me to make each day worth living
To get out of bed and have a good reason for doing so
Because some of us have to carry the baggage of being awake each day
And some of us live their days painfully sober carrying the pain of emotions unhindered
But the pain I feel now is as meaningless as the imaginary lines that separate countries or the flags that fly over them
My pain is meaningless compared to the knowledge I stepped back so that you could live life according to what you want
Because being an anarchist means living life in accordance to what you think
And that's always been hard for me
For once I knew exactly what I wanted
But I also knew deep down you weren't ever as sure as I was
And here we return to the tension
The tension that has kept me up a few nights and forced be to go on long walks until my feet hurt instead of my heart
The tension that left me feeling like nothing, but not in the way Max Stirner intended it
So instead of hiding this tension or letting it eat away at me like so many times before
I have to live according to what I think
So we have the thesis: looking for stars through a wall of clouds and the hope I had in my heart
The antithesis: uncertainty and a sentimental past two steps ahead of me
The synthesis: Realizing that I need to let you go

The lotus calls another time;
right now, just bring your lips to mine—
a congress of the simplest kind,
yet steeped in fever, still divine,
this tangled frame of skin and breath 
urged onward to its little death
on rolling seas of hands and hips;
the synthesis of fingertips—
my shaking legs, a testament
to a winter's afternoon well spent.

Isn't that what it's all about,
the synthesis of
discontent and momentum?

Abandonment
defies the unity
of perception,
while time knits
atomic moments into
molecules that thread
perception's needle

The fabric of reality
should be so fortunate
to tear
that it might be patched
with a square of
Pandora's consequence

The chaotic repair
initiating
the synthesis of
inertia and bliss

.                                        Wherever (Synthesis)
                                                  t­wo years later...

"Don’t urge me to leave you.              "If I could, then I would
To turn back from you.                          I'll go wherever you will go
Wherever you go,                                   Way up high or down low
I will go,                                                   I'll go wherever you will go
And where you stay,                              Run away with my heart
I will stay.                                                 Run away with my hope
Your people will be                                Run away with my love
My people                                                I know now, just quite how
And your God                                         My life and love
my God.                                                   Might still go on
Where you die, I will die,                      In your heart, in your mind
There I will be buried."                          I'll stay with you for all of time"

(Book of Ruth 1:16)                                  (Charlene Soria Lyrics)


                                      Let it be writ,
                                      Let it be sung,
                                     All should know,
                                     This I swear,
                                     Where you are,
                                     So, I shall be too.
                                     Your hope, my hope.
                                     Your heart, my heart.
                                     Life and love,
                                     But one.

                                     Where you run,
                                     I shall follow.
                                     Now, today,
                                     Forever,
                                     If our bodies apart,
                                     If our hands cannot
                                    Grasp each other,
                                    Yet, still,
                                    In your heart,
                                    In your soul,
                                    I will be,
                                    I cannot leave.

                                   Where you are,
                                   So, I shall be too.

~~~~

Thank you all for loving this poem so much.  I have long thought of the symmetry between Ruth and the lyrics to the song "Wherever You Go,"
when ever I hear them on Pandora....last nite around Two Am, I decided to set them up side, by side and then to see what happened...and the merger, the synthesis was the obvious and only solution.

a toast to the gods of self preservation
twenty one with plenty coming
allowing to pound sounds within
the crown aroused voided a founders of it’s bruises
spells hold the fold, I’m coasting with the best
resting in the east so I sleep with blinds low
the comfort zone is far from solitude
my molecules have aptitude to channel Jupiter
seatbelts are useless wastes of matter, excuse me
just a minute so you can miss me with that individuality
your calloused grip on reality impairs the singularity
old school, gold noose, silver lined diamonds
Jesus pieces reaped the seeds that teach your blind lids
came back with scabbed knuckled and heart scars
hustled the portal of pretension ever so ethereally
inner synthesis purged the day the plague hit
on the courts or the graves, you name the slaves
the game slayed the day the chains changed hands

[sweet pungent synthesis]
always with dank hysterical women demonstrating the distilled liquid elixir of their many years in isolation.
they are the nitrogen-rich followers of an ultraviolet shrine, such is
a photosynthetic life-form, reacting/enacting/enhancing.
they reach for holes in the moon &
on four-legged fumes carbonize seeds into sons and daughters. birth/
life.
all flowers ache forth to display color and/or
their varietals of hairy oil content.
to dip psychotropics, thus the worship of brain frequency and light.
fresh progress,
the sugar crystal compounds impacting, intact, and swollen.
trichomes, like huddled little masses of grandbabies bowed upon the ridge.
she drips
in dance and derives her form from properties plucked by time,
by moms, and pops.
to discover is to find purity in a moment.
pure travel/ pure
death.
this growing force,
this apparition of sound within me. organics.
organisms bound by great beauty and failure.
sense not the vivid panic, or the shock of last black, but hold true
to an inner joyous/outer motionous, tessellation that is, this
fluttering of us.
us suit of hearts.
suit of leaves.
the fusion of two bodies far beyond substantial pressure.

when everything everywhere
whispered in irresistible languages

hey you there
stop resisting

i began to surrender
was flowing free

stretching
wings flapping

toward the unknowable
inside

experimented with ditching
body as identification
name as identification
personal history as identification

faded off
mad word searching
explaining  justifying
reiterating too much information

i loosened my squeeze grip
on intellectualism
tell-me-how-to-be spiritual books
whatever the famous someone
said once then got bronzed over

i surrendered to universal unity
where i lavishly decorated
my living changing dream
with my own snap choices

i was flowing with fresh
synergetic synthesis

returned outside to pedestrian streets
where angelics mixed in
wore transparent disguises

i began to flow
forgiveness out and in

skipped a light fandango
splashing puddles was
answer to inclement weather

i set wooden faces
to smiling after
i switched my own

i rolled on through
perceived stop signs
of the everlasting no

incinerated all my karma with
nownownow
wonwonwon

made myself
stock still

experienced
yes yes

relaxed awareness

breathed
emptiness

opened all my hands

We stared at the ceiling, blackened
from the absence of light,
air chilling with every breath from the A.C.,
moving closer and closer
because we thought it was what we were supposed to do, but
our electrons were sending spark signals
before our bodies even thought about touching.

Like iron and sulfur, we synthesized
moving into each other's lives,
leaving our pieces behind,
swapping stories and secrets
in the cover of nightfall,
with roaring laughter,
our heads making permanent impressions
on their downy and memory foam petals
in the garden of wishes
we created.

And I followed you to your room,
and back again,
through the drug cartels of Mexico,
to the blizzards that lie beyond The Wall.
You, my greatest adventure
showed me what lay beyond the door
I was always too frightened to open.

You earned a doctorate in my mannerisms,
becoming an expert on each temper tantrum, each shining grin
that you always brought about
on the gloomiest of Wednesdays
when I ran out of milk for my cereal
and overcooked your mac and cheese.

You embraced every flaw I had,
came to love every scar I accumulated,
thirty-eight in total,
from the others,
almost too numerous to count on ten fingers,
that left me with a sewing needle,
and a bottle of Elmer's glue
each time.

And I thought I loved you then, but
not like I love you now, because
now I wake up next to you,
I make both of us coffee, and
push open the curtains
to let in sunlight. And I wake up next to you,
I don't hate Mondays as much anymore,
Because through the valleys of your sleeping lungs
I found where I belong.

Make my eyes shed again,
so that I can write.

To be taken silently with violence
Not to utter a salutation
Just the cracking of a door hinge
And a look that indicates that stopping your desires would be laughable
An absurdity
not to be pondered!

The jolting sound of head cracking against metal
And wrist yearning to be ground to the bone
After hours of  furtive clutching
The kind on nail bending fervor that just takes the taste right from bread

Grabbed into a cranium synthesis
Im am forever enslaved in the darkest corridor of your existence
I doubt I will ever be able to leave this lighting wasteland
The eagerness pounding through the point were skin meets weapon

I am infiltrated like a shanty filled village
A real slum filled valley
Hopeless against tracking systems and torture methods
You plunder my underdeveloped hospitality
Like Jesus to a farm boy

As I scream ******* Mongoloid
I am gasping into your filth
A sacrificial lamb
Bliss by the slaughter wells

Mouthfuls of disgust
As your knees jab deep into skid row
Grinding the forgotten and the deserted
Until they are flattened corpses

****** dry of the water holding them together
You are pleased
The phantom has been fed and to ask for seconds would only tease the lamb
As I lay gushing organs with a smirk

Broken bent and emaciated  
I feel alive and it is wondrous.

I've never felt
But I'll tell you how it feels
Her hips will sway, his eyes will undress
He will sip his drink, she will ******
Muster up the courage to ask for a dance
**** eyes
She will touch, but he will touch more
Moving with the beat, hands will roam
He went too far, she redirected
Not now she says; the night is too young
Love and passion will grow, if only for one night
It will feel real, their eyes will question
And they will lean in closer
Lips will collide, heat and *** will ensue
It will end in the dark of night
With naked bodies in synthesis
Two lovers, entangled in the sheets

i. the 1st week is the rapid hemostasis. the fabric of your body clutching itself together, rushing to staunch the bleeding. you breathe and oxygen settles in your chest like needles. you are so tired. you, in your continent of pain, will never be enough of anything for anyone. you burn softly as your cells scuttle to repair the damage. you burn in silence.

ii. the 2nd week is the inflammation. the itching and swelling of flesh. the fingers you move over your own body, holding your hips quiet. your **** is no longer a ****, but a rumpled and puffy city, a strange piece of art, a crime scene after the police have left where everyone is sweeping up shattered glass. someone’s murmuring a poem of soul and death over the radio. it might be you. everyone is shouting and the radio is getting louder and the crime scene is turning into an emergency room and the doctors are flying around in their yellow haste and there is no oasis, no peace, no open window, until the automatic hospital doors part with a groan and she is there, and you realize you are about to be saved.

iii. the 3rd week is the proliferation and migration. she tells you to remove the gravel from your body before you grow a new skin. so you do, you pull it out with black tweezers and it makes you scream until you are raw and humble. you watch as you mend yourself, sped up, like a tiger lily caught on long-form camera, bursting to life. someone says the words love and breaking and heal. someone says i will take you and i will carry you. is it you or her? does it matter? your skin is rearranging itself. you are pangea, splitting and reattaching to new places. it should be violent, but it isn’t. she’s calling you in from the cold and you go to her, scabbed up and scabbed over, unable to close your eyes. she takes up your whole field of vision. her lips, her nose. her irises, where you find god and every angel. the only sin here is the distance between the two of you. which you are closing. by the minute. by the second. by the breath.

iv. the 4th week is the angiogenesis. the development of new veins and ligaments. the deeply complicated process of creating new paths for blood to flow. the beating of your heart when she rests her hand on your knee and leaves it there. your tectonic feelings. the way you look for her in a crowd. the sudden daylight.

v. the 5th week is the  reepithelialization. a big, funny word that sends heat all through you. it asks questions. like: when you broke, did you know you would stop bleeding? when you lay prone in a pool of your own carnage, did you know that Good And Beautiful still belonged to you? that even in that crushing agony, she would come to you, and, with her seamstress hands and surgeon heart, put you back together? did you know that the light was never out of reach? that the walls around you were cardboard, not cement? that she would destroy them gently, then draw you from the wreckage? and still see you whole, even with all your throbbing fissures, the parts of you that just can’t add up? did you?

vi. the 6th week is the synthesis. your wound has gone. it’s a tuesday and you are watching her walk to class. it’s dizzying, the way she moves, the way she walks. she doesn’t know you’re there and you would like to keep it that way, because you are a naturalist observing something rare and exquisite, and you do not want to scare her away. she’s the white-hot sphere of the sun in the sky, and with your woundless self, you take her in. you can feel it, when you look at her—the spin of the earth / clouds sliding into other hemispheres / the swarm of your blood cells and pathogens / the aging of trees / airplane turbulence / earthquakes in places you will never see / lava cooling in the ocean / the rings we grow on our hearts—you can feel all of it. she’s turning the corner now, hair ignited. you are in love with her and you don’t want her to be late. she is so beautiful, even though you can’t see her anymore. she’s the last of her kind.

There are two voices
Behind my shoulders
Giving conflicting advice.
One says, Reach;
The other, Draw back.
It's a crisis of decision
For the left or right.
These voices meet
Between my ears,
For a synthesis.
So I listen to the third I hear,
One that avers,
*Live life right.

Traffic lights spread across the Opal sky
He held my face
His gentle, warm palms, magnetic on my skin
Fervorous glow embraced my chest
Beat to beat, my heart bled into the fog.

Leaning his forehead against mine,
I felt my thoughts blending with his skin.
A synthesis of feelings, an ocean of colours.
his lips find mine and heat ripples across my face
Cloudy breaths caressed my skin
This time, the sky didn't blend with tears.
This night, the lights were dry.