The water was quieter than expected
     Though fast in its flowing
There is a silent beauty in death
     Not knowing where she is going
Have you swam in dark water before
     How foolish of me to ask
Holding your breath before barking dogs
     This was never meant to last
I did not expect to hear your laugh
     The sound less permeable
Than your ghosting form
     Are we already irreparable
The boat draws near
     Bone like fingers on oars
Denari clink in your shallow pockets
     Like skulls knocking on doors

I am ready

I did not know
You would haunt me still
Beyond that
I did not know
I would expect it
Eyes, always perceived to be watching
Steps, not truly fading away
We were not what God intended
Not good or righteous or pure
We were worse
Two terrible ends of a spectrum
Colliding in the off center
If I asked you
Would you leave me
You would make me beg
So I seal my sinners lips together
Dark blood dripping
Out the corners of my mouth
Silence better than rejection
Shadows better than permanence

If you cannot love me in this lifetime
I will ask you in the next
Chasing your gentle soul
Across time’s expanding galaxies
My atoms will search for you

If you cannot bear to love me then
Wait, until I am reborn
Until I am reincarnated as water
Until you drink me from the river
Through cupped hands

For 3 eternities I held my breath
Baited this moment on your lips
Waiting to be devoured
Purge yourself of me while I am pure
Let me fill you, satiate your thirst

This is not my first life
Only my first time living
Consume me, gentle spirit
I am yours
I am alive

Your name sits
In the back of my throat
Like a pill I cannot swallow
I kissed you
Like I hated the taste of my own mouth
I need you like water
Pure and flowing
I feel vulnerable
Eve in the garden
Naked and sinful
And you
Forbidden fruit
Within reach
I pluck and pluck again
But you will never satisfy
You are not here to listen
When I call on the divine
Not one for keeping promises
Not one for telling lies
Simply rotting
Bitter and sour
I cannot wash you off my tongue

We tarnish for ourselves
Whatever we think we are not worthy of
If my love is too big for you
We will cut it down to size
Take something sharp to my fraying edges
So there is no chance of making you bleed
I bared my fragile heart
Showed you unconditional love
For you to name me liar
Staying was selfish
Leaving is too
But whatever you need
Whatever is best for you

When you ask for space
Know I will stand
Arms open wide
In the gap between
Tell me of your fears
And demons
Of how the darkness crawls towards you
In broad daylight
Tell me of how you faced it
It does not matter
If you were scared or brave
You are human
Bearing the burden
The great weight presses on your chest
Its face turns to yours
Whispers in your ear
It will never be light
This is not our first avalanche
Not our first burden
For you
I would hold up the sky
For you I would press my palms
Into the clouds
Feel the rain run down my arms
Like blood
And when I look the rain is red
It is no matter

Not everything is life or death
I hear it, but I don’t believe it
For me, it has been
Not living, surviving, scraping by
By my paper thin finger nails
I dug into you
It seems now
I dig my grave
To burry my grieving body
Of every sin she ever possessed
The smoke burns white
I am no saint
I fixed my eyes before me
The Isaiah crucifix ahead
I am not the first to burn
Pray I will be the last
Pray I am enough
Of an offering

When I split from this
I imagine being torn in half

Find me again
In the next lifetime

When I am pure
And we can keep our promises

I will love you then
As I adore you now

Like sweet dew
On morning grass

I am as I am
No greater no lesser
Part ghost
A one day angel
As the line before me thins
Into a gray and gold horizon
I am more gentle
I remember being weak
Hearing your voice call to me
When I was in the dark place
I climbed halfway up to heaven 
Only to turn around 
I was terrified 
Of the storms
More so 
Of the calm that would come after 
Are our souls so different now
Passing between worlds 
Or are we chasing stranger ghosts
Than the ones we name on earth

Tell me you can see it in my eyes
I cannot bare to ask for help
Yet I beg, big blue saucers to your moon
We will never say goodbye
It doesn’t make us any less separate

I am an old an ancient galaxy
Traverse me at the speed of light
Still you will only see me as I was
Never as I am
Who’s time is it now in the dark

God knew we would be sinners
He saw us turn our backs
Like it was our last day in the garden
Now we rage against him
It will not be our final war

You pour your anger out
Liquid fire spilling across your lips
Not what I imagined
When I asked for passion
When I prayed for peace

You must go
We are no good for each other
It isn’t safe here
We aren’t human anymore
We never were

I have lived things in my life
That are torture
For body, mind, and soul

I am off center today
Drifting from the middle
I wonder
What is wrong

Perhaps, more adequately
What was wrong
Is taking space in today

I am not a gentle healer
I am rage
I am anger against this fragile body
I am impatient
Against all the time it has taken
I have cursed my tongue
With my own words
For every time she was silent
Broken my skin against my bones
For when she was not strong enough

I am god-awful ugly
In-between all my attractions
That is the part I see
Seeping in-between the cracks

It is no matter
I am just matter
Does anything matter
Or is simply that thought taboo

I asked you
If you thought
You were capable of hurting me
You said you weighed 115lb
But a sliver of glass
Cannot weigh more than a few grams
Look what that can do
You are a shattered pane
That is all I feel
Your little slivers under my skin
You are not my mother
But I hear her in your voice
You have a mother's touch
It stings all to familiar
You broke the skin on my face
Open like a ripe peach
I suppose we are all capable of terrible things
But you burdened yours as love
Pressed it into my skin
And let me rot in silence

Eye contact with you
Is like a tractor beam
You keep pulling me in

I still can't say it

Have you heard the sound
The mouth makes
When the heart breaks
So loud it looks like screaming
But it couldn't be more silent

If, the daughters of our past selves
Could see us now
They would be in awe
Of our beauty
They know the battle is before them
They know they can win it

The smoke has cleared
From your magic show
I can hear the music
It sounds like peace
Don't let it play so quiet

I am sure by now
Heaven finds my voice all too familiar

some, older than you
prophesied, I would never be cold
all my duties
are to avoid burning
I told you of my temples
you come empty-handed
asking for frankincense, myrh
I knew of this ghost once
a thousand years ago
some, say he will return
humans are so god-awful impatient
some, waiting in white
will never see him
others, shackled at the ankle
say he is still here
I am not one for answers
I pour my questions out
into the street
as if it was a river
more often than not
is it a graveyard
if I do die
bury me shallow
why should I be silent
even the stones would cry out

You are an open flower
I cannot help but wonder
Is this pure consciousness
Have you closed your soul
So soon
Unburden yourself of the past
She is not today's weight

I knew nothing about this would be easy

I placed you like a star in my soul-sky,
            and yet when you are of the earth,
                  you hold no place in my heavens

I knew you would come for me
I turn my back against the wall
Trying to estimate your angle is exhausting
Anticipating your timing aggravating
God I just loved minding my own business
Nothing of this taste is bittersweet
I find no eloquence in this
I am not fine
Incapable of being refined
Raw and hurting
Stand my ground
My lip quivers
I thought you had pulled
Every last tear I would ever cry
From the corner of my eyes
I questioned once if anything was real
Now I wonder if I am healed
Is this a test of the universe
To see what I have learned
Or are you out for blood
It would not be the first time
You spilled mine

When it is hard
Then I know
I have chosen the right path
The universe does not
Need to teach me this lesson again
I learned
I am listening still
To jagged words
My eyes do not betray me
Ghosts of a past life
Permiating
I am a gentle sinner
Do not bring violence among us
Leave space between us
I am not bitter or angry or burdened
Do not threaten my peace
I fear the screams in the night
Will one day be shuttled
From my own throat
Worse beyond that
I fear they will be silenced
I loved the quiet once
She is tension now
Tension between now and tomorrow

I can taste your bitterness
You never did cherish me
I was solid in your presence
Now you name me ghost
Hate and regret
Are cold hands to hold
I will warm my skin
With purer fire
Take a step back
Burning out, desire
I am a giver, a doer
Deep waters
Your shallows still and stagnant
With empty promises
I will harbor nothing against you
I am already in the water
I am beyond this

You are a soulless cage
Candles burning out
Timber fingers grasping
At a bleak unforgiving sky
You wander to the dark place
Unable to illuminate
There were angels here once
"Fear not" "Do not be afraid"
Carved into the bark
Does anxiety always come before truth
Existential agony before God's bidding
If so, I am ripe, I am waiting
Prune my tree of life branches back
If I am not wick then I am wicked
I am shame bathed in myrrh
Did not former trunks
Hold the great burden of salvation
Is the cross before or behind
My lingering grave
Beckons for me
I do not fear the earth
Only where the mind goes
When the body cannot follow
What armies could kindness muster
To war against the unknown
Crucify yourself against me
The nails in my hands
Filter the light in
I am fighting a losing cause
A thousand fall to my side
Ten thousand at my right hand
Who will bury the dead
I thought only the roots of trees belonged buried
Yet coffins slip into soil
Sins under a night sky

You taste like forgiveness
If you know my name
Then you know my fears
We need not speak of such things

I went to the edge
My spirit falling back into my own body
I know nothing of this host
Burdened with consciousness
Do you too weary of your frame
What would you name your mortal coil
What tethers you
Love
  Flesh
     Mind
What is one without the other
Symbiotic in nature
They war
Preach peace
Labor your gentle touch against me
Unburdening my humanity
Of its languishing hold
You will fall one day too
One day soon
Know me now
Until the cliffs teach you of gravity
And bear your rebirth

I knew I felt something
When you could raise anger in me
But I could not hold it against you

I'm watching you measure
Distance between us
It sounds like it should be painful
When we are this way
I have already lived my penance
Yours will come
Welcome it when it is here
I cannot speak for another journey
My feet belong to my path
Your heart to another
We are not strangers
Strands between us a delicate web
You could have loved me once
Could have passed closer to the sun
Yet your dark side turns
We eclipse
When the heavens allow
There is nothing more for me here
I have light for the whole solar system
Do not diminish
What you will not place
At the center of your orbit

Do you remember when we were in the desert
Sand absorbing all the heat of the sun
Pressing it into our bodies
As though we need to be forged anew
You and I are no strangers to burning
Not above being molded to another will
Hammered over and over, iron against iron
We were sharp in the beginning
We have grown dull in the last days
Humility did not follow
We hold the pride of our youth
As a double hilted sword
Warring against what time would make of us
Soft and ancient
I did not know we would always be changing
We are young, then less so, then we sleep
As we have been tired this whole life
Not tired, just dreaming, and aching, and human

Open air hangs between us
A bitter cloud
Your hands could slice through
Fingers, freshly sharpened blades
Your words cut
As they are spoken
I cried once
You said you had never seen
Eyes so blue with ice
So bright with fire
So void of hope
I tell you I am drained
I pour my waters
Over the cliffs of time
Into your cupped hands
Are you waiting for me
Or waiting for me to leave
I prayed to my old gods
For you before
I fear they did not give me
Wisdom or strength
Shutting my third eye
To the appearance of truth
The glass of transparency
Is not a mirror
The shadow that is your name
Written in the sky
Casting it's hollows down
These are not stratocumulus
Not nimbus
Not shapes we know
Not the silver lining
We prayed for you
I went to the well to draw water
Why do I still know thirst

I allow nothing in my life to be shallow
I cannot help but wonder
If you are honest with yourself
Are we not aligned
We eclipse, spin into orbit
Ships in the night
Are you in the deep now
Is it too much for you
I will tread with you
I am the current
I am not the shore
I am the mover, the taker, the unfathomable
You are there when I draw near
Though it seems there are places in you
I will never reach, untouchable
Hold your kingdoms as what they are
People and places
Nothing more
I drew in to you
My streams among your surfaces
Nothing more
You have turned me back to the shores
We are nothing more

Heaven will break today
Who can fault it
Cornerstones have crumbled
Are we passengers
Or participants of our own lives
I am painfully sober
When I think of you
The veil is torn
Shroud me with it
In the twelfth hour
Will you bury my body
While it's still warm
I will long for you
As a flower does the sun
When I too am deep in soil
Pray over me like I am living
Do you believe it
Are you loving
Does God know of your humility
As intricately as your sins
Shall I tell him for you
When I am before him
I have no stamina for grudges
What would I hold against you
That I have not unburned myself of

I know you did horrible things to my body
Before you killed me
Why do you ask my ghost to comfort you
Have you not burdened my soul enough
We are all afraid of being understood
Being known
Then we are powerless
We cannot play these games
If you **** the other players
Who is the winner
You would break me
Take my beautiful pieces
To complete yourself
They will rot in your body
With the stench of guilt
Odor of revenge
I do not exist
In relation to your hunger
I have shut you away
Before you would dare to consume me
I will not satiate
Will not sedate
Not stumble over my words
Unless mine is the last voice you hear

I don't want to make things
If they're just going to fall apart
I don't want to love things
If they're just going to break my heart
Is this how God saw the world
At the beginning of created time
Making moving plates in the earth
Just so we would cross the line

I can breathe
I can breathe
The air that's pushing out from my diaphragm
Is humid and labored
I can breathe
The blood circulating to my hands
Stops at the leather around my wrist
Animal skin is not the only contact on mine

I can breathe
I used to tie cherry stems with my tongue
Now I bite it as ropes tighten
A second ribcage around my chest
A necklace around my throat
The carcass kiss of summer dripping
Warm wax on my thighs

I can breathe
Breathe into me
Your love, devotion, possession
Fill my senses
Tighter

I can breathe

Am I truly this gentle
To let all things pass
I will not lean my will against yours
Will not turn my face from your sun
Yet the shadows pass across my skin
Perhaps I should have remained silent
Inquisition my great folly
Will this change us like seasons
Again and again I have returned
There is no change in the weather
No straight and narrow to wander
Philosophies spew from my finger tips
I touched you once
I fear it will not be the same
Have we changed so quickly
Here in this moment
Not yet bereft of the last
Lingering like your touch on my skin
I am not held to this
Not truly released
Not halfway vacant
Not completely full
Time will quench me
As we once did thirst together
In the dessert
Must 40 years pass
Before you dare lick milk and honey
From my fingers
Let the taste settle in the corners of your mouth
On the back of your tongue
I told you I was human
I told you I was a liar
But not a fool
All is well
There is no anger here
No pain
No paper fingers withdrawing into their sheaths
I will face you still
There is no shame here
Unless you bring it
Were you always this quiet
Bait my breathe
I will swallow your words hook, line, sinker
It is food for my soul
Draw me to you
I am the soft lines on black paper
Nothing but shadows
Am I tangible to you
Or do we pass through each others ghosts
What was
Is no more
We are slipping
Traction is temporary
We were falling
Nothing is certain
Only the end

You have no power here
I thought we were too gentle for anger
Too old for foolishness
Too tender to spear our words against each other
Who has been guarding you
For all this time
What did you fear would come for you
When you said you were waiting for me
Let the little things go
Let the sun go down
Be it on your anger
Be it coming through the windows
Gentle on the skin of love in the shadows
We are hollow bodies
Pouring out small victories
Waging small wars
There are no gates here
Blank paper skin
Traced with graphite fingertips
God told me you were human
I believed him
What does that make me
Are we not beyond this
The moment it is lived
Are we not so small in this world
Smaller to the expanse of the universe
Tiny in his hands as a grain of sand
Will you wash with me
Saltwater will unburden us
Currents will take us further
Pulling our love thin as a spiders web
We hung once
Participles in the air
Thick and humid and heavy
I will remember us as such
I will remember

The weakness is spreading
Like water from the Nile in spring
The soil is dark like bark under moss covered trees
Are you lost here
Releasing your strength into the atmosphere
Fixate on me
The tension between us taught
Suspension of the earth in its own gravity
We are moving in our own orbit
Everything beyond us mythology
Everything behind us history
This moment piercing, rushing
It feels like salvation
Have you felt this way before
The fluid energy of humanity
Ripe fruit in the garden
Would not draw me in like you
Would not fortify
My chest rises, stamina falls
Hyperventilate
Yet, I am calm
If I stayed in this moment
Separate it from my other thoughts
Bitter vinegar taste pickling my tongue
Consumed
Will you wonder with me
As the world ages
We sit here young and younger
Heat stamps on the hill in the dark

I know you are not doing well.

I can feel it.

My heart swelling even over this distance.

Even after all this time.

I am not in a position for asking.

But, please, tell of the spring when it comes like you promised.

You need not remember me, if it brings you pain please scour it from your thoughts.

Allow me to keep you, as you were, the words of a bubbling brook and the eyes of a summer sky.

Your name has changed and mine has too.

Is the world kinder to you yet?

Beyond the capacity I held for it.

I remember before we were strangers but never before we were friends.

I have not lost love for you.

Though I am much further now.

God be with you, bless you, keep you, in the ways I could not.

I can be honest
About everything
Except my feelings towards you
I could spin you
Word woven tapestries
About the way
The moon stirs my heart
But may God lean against
What stirs for you in me
This gentle hunger
The weak spot in my throat
Time moves sideways
Breathe baits
Catching on the last lingering hope
That you would burn for me

Feeling out my way through this world
Not much better than blindness
How will I know
When you're bluffing
Still, I fold
Into the night

You, who I once found comforting
Now curate such opposite energy
What are you holding
Not in your empty hands
But inside
Where my stomach would be churning
If I spoke the way you spoke

I do not know
If the waves love or hate the shore
I can only perceive
Have you dived
Into your own depths
What did you find
In the murky waters
Or did you back away
From the shadows
Of your own darkness
To look inward
Is to have open eyes

I want to know you
I learned your middle name yesterday
I want to hear about your day but get distracted because I am lost in the sound of your voice
I want to see myself through your eyes because they are kinder, gentler, more patient
I want to feel my skin under your hands because it is softer, smoother, more tangible
I cannot bear to show you my tears because God forbid you would look on me with kindness and I would know it for the first time
I am afraid as you listen when I talk you will only hear my words and not the heart I hold for you beneath
I want to press my body into yours until the tiny pores of your skin open up and let me in
I want to trace my nails along the contours of your spine and feel your long breath go out with the stress of the day
You have a scar above your eyebrow, I know how it got there
I want to watch the lines on your face as you ripen into old age
I want to know what quickens your heart
What slows your breath
What fills your thoughts
What empties your eyes of their joy
My ears hear no other voice as gently as they do yours
So whisper to me in the dark
That I can stay with you
Until the light returns

When we are done here
I will save the parts of us
That make beautiful fiction
I do not always want to acknowledge
The unhealed parts of my self
That seep into my clear waters
I do not expect you
To kneel at my muddy banks
And drink
Know that I would see you quenched
Not thirst
How long will the threshing floor turn
While I wait hungry
For the grain to separate
From my sins

I know sadness doesn't make you feel full
But it's one hell of a completeness

is anyone more predictable than a poet

The light bends a little
When we come to this place in the middle
Your safe place is a little to the left
I run to you just a little bit West
I seek you out in the in between
Breathing in sweet and musky, ethene
My soft hands against yours
Water splashing against iron rod
While I wait for my sins
To climb their way up to God