Trembling. Soft hits as you play with the tension
Open door surrender, I quiver
Question. Are you there?
Lost in forever, unsaid answer

Last supper hued in memory, synecdoche of candles
Hand in hand to fall asleep
Fallback guarantees I called denial
My bed so perfectly arranged

“Hey, it’s kinda cold in here” susceptible flesh, distant bone. Red strings, pink cloth, the stoic blackness all round. All-you-can-eat-buffets won’t give you peace but something to ***** is better than nothing. Ideal collisions, my straight lines and low pressures – Passion ruins all my plans. I throw your cliches out in a bouquet and keep them as a razor. Sentimental. Waiting for something to happen. Smooth flick speechless. Indefinite time and the chores undone. But it’s all so simple?! Walking in circles around the word, I-you relation, relatively. Little by little I believe ourselves in the face of what? ‘Nothing’ is stopping us. So I drop my act, you touch my skin, I call you to sea, you dance in my living water. Evanescence in pearly bloom.
And then – then the meow of a startled cat, mice scurrying to the gutters, all at once the little ants bury themselves alive, life repels life.

I love you to pieces and can’t put them together

ropes & threads
nooses & lines
08/09/2023 & elation in a small courtyard

skin & bone
scent & exhale
your touch & maybe love, hesitant imprint

joy & passion
silence & silence
the waves & the wind, remains of my ardor

i'll cut them all to stay in control

if the words were real
and leapt off the line?

because you're skilled, or
because you have nothing else?

if they only lied to save your feelings?

if all it took were imagination?

if light weighed more than a thousand bricks?

             Upon the pier, the wind and absence
             gazing out, darkening all into an empty
             canvas or pond, canvas or chasm, why not
             both or nothing but it's too cold to stand
    
             Even stars bend from pressing distance
             but eyes can capture what hands only touch

if he truly believed,
the waves would hunger yet

a little touch, melting
as all good things, remembered  
only as sensation:  
the walls and the floor stir on and on  

to dissolve without melting, a small (aq) at the side  
but to release? too much and too little held  
too little to hold, a useless spoon
it drips into a stillborn flow

I serve my everything on a table:
gateaux and layers, any more than bread  
you have to take something, there’s no nothing to refuse
you can’t be refusal, even that is served
you can’t be full, you need to be hungry

you can’t be nothing,  
please don’t be nothing

I lie when I say I want you free,
In a cage, maybe,
dissolute in my precious vial  

no, melting is different  
I want solid things! I only complain about my state because I’m secure in it!  
and there’s no significance to early Thursday breakfasts which I didn’t fold in myself
I miss the sugar you gave to my batter;
it’s cloying when I do it,  

I missed Thursday and now it’s Friday  
but I still want Thursday till Friday curdles  
lined in rows of half-empty cups
the unrisen mix of every lost morning:

flour & water, basic lifeblood,  
glutinous river molding  
the great mound of delicacy:  
things burn left in the oven too long, even sugar
especially sugar

how much is too moved?
more than a light year
and less than an inch
you can't grasp it either way

but isn't it easy
to imagine?

how much is not enough?
i guess as much as i don't have
which is enough to hold on to
easier said
than done

how much is lost forever?
i don't want to say
i just want you to hold me
and comfort me
like another stone in my pocket

(it looks better outside when it's raining)

and as the day pours down
i ache for all that we have lost

silent night, holy night
free me from your brutal grip,
truthful grip, oh how I am falling
falling  
 falling
  falling
   falling
    falling
      to the wake of reality

time is a wave
pillow is depravity undeserved:
my head should rest in dreams alone
for races condemned to three hundred minutes of solitude do not have a second opportunity in past days

I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I      the stars are few tonight        I   Q. window window on the wall I       I        less for want of light              I    who's the weakest of them all?  I
I          than for having fled            I   A.  see for yourself                        I
I  the burden of being witnessed  I  Q. why can't you show me what I I              i too would dim               I   want to see?                                   I   I             if it meant no one              I  A.  0                                                 I  I         could name my sorrow        I   Q.Q.Q.Q.Q.Q.Q.Q.Q.Q.Q.Q.Q.  I
I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I

it shrouds me
this pale view of distances                     un-X-X-bridge-X-X-able
this nocturnal solo elegy                            ave falsus corpum
it brings me ever closer to death                                                    
my gentle repose

but do not pity me
even the darkening star burns
and the softest tremor in the chest
means i'm still reaching for something > 0
even if i call it sleep

so let me rest,
unmourned, remembered
for that dismal resilience;
bleak survival
through the depths of night
for one stanza longer