Like Orpheus, ****** of lyric and word
I pray my song will not meet thy sleeping ears
But pour through orifice meant for only one,
​My veil be lifted!

Sweet and swift, words of thy present god,
Plead mine eyes set forth without jest,
For backward glance should destroy my love
​If only for my spirit,

Eternal in thy presence but still without,
Eternal in flames from whence thine eyes yet slept
But woken now for my loves melody to take,
​Not the hand of Hades!

Bound is my chain of yearning to which only thee holds the reins,
Thy past with dear Aphrodite becomes my right.
To know where thine love lies true, thou shalt not sway from my lead;
​I turn only for my love!

Where doth thine eyes wander, should mine stray not from thee?
Where hath thine eyes gone before thy saving grace?
This lyre charmed the wrath of death for mine prize,
​Thy love and thy word

With thou in step to this ascent toward worldly pleasure,
Thy love only known without falter.
Mine trust of thine Hades falls as feathers from a dove,
​Thy purity is false

And thus, I must turn to know thine ways,
Praying for the lies of Hades, if only for my spirit,
I turn to face thine histories and met with thine ashes
​My trust forsaken!

If I could grow another arm
with hands and fingers
to match the others
I would have trouble deciding
if it would hold you up
or reach for your help

The only reason I don’t seem so desperate
is that I’m limited
to these two arms
to beg for your thought

There are a lot of problems that come from fixing people
hoping it will fix you

The least of which being
that it never does

Build a house with only your hands
and sing in a choir
with the voice of a lawn mower

But pages rarely fill through pride

Just another morning
when twilight reaches my windows.
The days and I darken.

To enjoy the sun with strangers,
we walk in unacknowledged silence.
We have the same warm skin
but to bring it up would be weird.

When we fill the street
is it correlation or causation
that the sun joins us?

They always fade;
I would like to make it to four in the morning
with the warmth remaining.

Strangers pass,
all warm,
if only from our own blood,
but to bring it up would be weird.

You can’t forget;
that there is another way to fight
with an open palm
instead of a closed fist
and with a stubborn refusal
to hurt those who have hurt you

I don't like the way this feels most days.
Can you believe I don't like such complexity?
Why is my affection never simple?
Never just one-sided; instead,
It's a moon with phases, with changes
Too unpredictable to pencil down.
It used to be spring tides or none at all
But I've been getting tamer ones lately.
If it does crash, it does so politely, lightly
Carressing my shore with waves of affection.

Sometimes I forget to worry.
Sometimes I forget how heavy-handed I can be,
How easily I can hurt, despite
The dulling of my edges;
And I do this for some people
My affection wants to keep.
I admit it's not the wisest thing I do.
The shackles hurt a lot more
When you jump too far,
Thinking you can make it.

Still, I wonder if that might be better.
I do not like my anxiety, but
I don't like being absentminded in this either.
I do not like not knowing, not holding
The reins of my affection, my hurricane affliction
I do not like the way this feels most days.
I do not like the thought of hurting you.
I do not like it when this moon is new
but I must say, I do like the way you want this, too.

I was not born of god and muse.
Pictures of virtuosic health  
captured in epic poetry
that I don’t want to write.

The music I make charms my world.
Trees and rocks
obey not the wind and current,
but the meter of my songs.

You too fell for tricks of snake,
though my tune called your name
long before they evaded my coil.

Forgive me, I won’t question your sleep below.
For even the rules of your warden dictate
you can’t look forward
while you’re looking back.

I could be your Orpheus.
Which is to say that even after death
you won’t get rid of me.

I could be your Orpheus,
but with the way his story goes
wouldn’t you say I’m probably
more like his lyre.