I kept the lights off and stood in the shower.
Longer than the usual routine called for.
The remnants of a dinner imbibed
seeping from my pores and running the length of me.
Swirling the drain and racing down the pipes.
I envied them for a moment.
Such an easy escape.
I started counting the…
I had moved you to the archives a while ago.
And then I found out that you were coming to my city.
I dug you out from the bottom of the heaps.
I had packed your box carefully.
Packed it full of the memory, thoughts and secrets I shared with you alone.
And I took it with me one night.
And sat with an old lover.
We remembered a man eater.
The way she picked bits of the men she loved
from her teeth and cast them aside without a moments hesitation.
They were crushed out like the cigarettes she used to smoke.
They were gone and fast when she was done.
Together the old lover and I burned you.
And we laughed with shaking bellies in doing so.
You were never mine to begin with.
I know this and have known this since our first minutes passed.
But this lover and I are still laughing.
We have tossed you to the wind.
Looking out over the waters edge and watching
each little bit of you drown.
When you look at the sparkle my city offers, know this.
The sparkle of those lights are no match for the sparkle
in the smile I could have kept forever dancing across your lips.
And know this as well- You are so undeserving of any such gifts anyhow.
I do not wish you to rest in peace as you float away.
Only to rest and keep floating, ashes.
Float away.
Float away.
Disappear.
I laugh at myself.
For choosing to believe otherwise.
And letting myself still think
that you meant it.
Every word.
Even though fact remains and
begs to differ.
I let you creep into my thoughts
at moments alone.
Moments of weakness.
And at those times, my fingers stray
from tasks assigned and
you are there again
in the quiet surroundings.
And I am left to fight you down.
The only way I know how.
The only way that ever worked.
In my mind, there is a roar of emotions.
Things I never bared to you, thunderous.
You don’t deserve them anyway.
Notions all too sweet for the likes of you.
My Mr. Hyde…
For now, I’ll just keep killing you.
The dance of your resurrection is
something I can never muster the strength
to say no to.
And anyway, these days,
my laugh is the only one
keeping conversation with me.
I have killed every feeling I ever had for you.
Stick them under the ribs with pins and needles.
Each and every last one has been slain
so that I may live through this night without
the weighty memories of you
cementing my feet in place.
You see, I used to ride clouds
before you came along.
I liked it up there in the lonely chill.
The view reflected not a trace of your smile.
The sunset descended the hills, not into your eyes.
There were worlds awaiting my arrival then.
And I had only RSVP’d for one.
So I am glad I killed them all.
But I realized today that I will never forget you.
That you are a scar and permanence.
And I know I will move on and past you but
that I will carry you with me for always.
To stay yourself alive within me
you are ever twisting, constricting and changing.
Keeping your slimy grip as tight as you can.
I am glad I killed them all even though I will miss you.
I have dreams to get to, I’ve been putting them off and
tonight I may sleep soundly.
But maybe you will visit me there.
And I will speak tongues to you
that we don’t understand.
But that won’t matter.
The language of love is universal, after all.
It’s all bare bones now.
It has been bleak for days, weeks.
Everything is nothing and far from me.
I wake and I breathe but
the cavities within me remain empty.
Searching.
But unmoving.
My love has two faces.
My heart is not fleeting.
I paid the cost to learn you.
Placed a wager
with myself as the shark
and I am betting
that I can lie myself
into believing that you were never anything.
And that no forevers were ever promised and
no love was ever confessed.
But years are long and
there are many stretched before me and
there is so much work to do.
So much work to do.
To unravel the constraints you placed.
But darling… I love them so.
Perhaps I will leave them.
A grim reminder of dabbling.
My dreams in delusion.
…the sweetest lullaby was always your voice.
The way in which
my heart dips out the bits of you
buried in the deepest caverns of itself
has become automation as the
days come and go.
The swell and flood.
The roll and crash.
The clear pools wiped clean.
The repetition of this is
catharsis with a lonely rhythm.
Each of my cells have split,
doing double time now in the clean up crew.
One part keeping my smile attached.
One part rushing you out of memorial welcome.
This heart moves, jumps, still beats your name.
The rush of it humming, the lull of that comfort echoing within.
And I am scared of these days ahead again.
Without you.
The length and
the emptiness and
the deafening silence they contain.
But I will weather this storm alone.
I created this storm, after all.
And this story I will write on my insides.
The story of us.
It will drain me dry.
I will lose my voice in it.
I have lost you there on purpose.
To live among the thorn and dandelion pasts.
And like all things, sweetheart,
this too will heal with time.
Save my mind.
That it can’t take away.
For you, I may have been once
just a thought between many.
But the knowledge that proof exists
will keep me warm.
I wish I could say
you are nothing to me.
That I never thought about
your lip, fat and caught
between my teeth.
Or that I never spent a single minute
thinking of your seawater pores.
The taste and smell on my skin
after a long night afloat in your wake.
Or that I haven’t once dared to imagine your fingers laced through my hair and pressed against the back of my neck or the quick draw of breath as you pressed me closer to you.
I follow fires in search of you.
So you can extinguish the one that rages against my insides.
You are the only suppressant, lover.
This being made clear during late night conversations and whispers of things forbidden.
I came for you again.
I always come for you.
But your shadow is always one step ahead.
And I like the chase.
I don’t feel the same as I did once.
Not about you or the said or done.
I have realized that the darkness is a part of us all.
But there is still a sun.
For me, you are that.
The distance is great, my dearest.
But for you, I’d go all night.
I spun in the quiet moments of today.
The silken threads, webbing out
and around the mundane mixture
of my everyday.
I was unable to reach out again.
I am a creature of habit.
But since you came along,
the only habit I’ve stuck to
is you.
Call me a flight risk.
Because nothing else matters anymore.
And the worst part of it all is
you’re the most virulent.
And I know you would agree with me.
After all, you shot the bullet that killed me.
And I wonder, sweetness.
When will your trigger finger stir again
with that too familiar twitch?
The need to go a-hunting for the
affections of another will take you over.
I know you.
I know your habits as well, dear one.
Because we all have shelf lives with you.
How much longer is mine?
Life seems to move slower
when vision is clear.
The scratches you cut across
my corneas have been wiped clean
and now
I can see where my next step will fall, love.
I am permanent.
And you are tangled in the clutches
of my heartstrings forever.
But you’ve squandered.
You pushed and poked and
those long bone fingers of yours
just can’t live against my ribs any longer.
I could scream from the highest points
that I will love you for always, in all ways,
and your back would stay prone.
And your face would press the soil.
Like you were dead already.
But that’s something you don’t fear anyhow.
And something I can’t hold fear for either.
At least, not anymore.
You see, in death, there is chance for new life.
And these eyes will remain unwavering.
I’ve stopped thinking of you for now. Though, I know my hand moving against these stiff fibers says otherwise. No. Whats been on my mind this morning consists of silver. Sparkling and endless and at home to the left. And how much the vision of this, the knowledge of their power means. And what I’ve done against morality. I have betrayed him and myself to those truths. I’ve been thinking of him. I have known and loved and committed for years and yet, we remain strangers. Yes, I know the scent of his breath and body. Yes, I know the rough of his fingers as they explore me. Yes, I know the taste of his seed. What I lack, however, is the knowledge of his maze. The one that works its way into the depths of his gray matter. You’d think after all this time spent in unity, I’d have at least seen its entrance. I have also noticed that the nimble limbs of subconsciousness have quietly been unraveling my ties to him. I am finding, under each once glistening thread pulled away, links of dull iron rest, withered and disintegrating. One hand forms claws and tears swiftly and with fury. Desperate to loose the binds against each weakened joint. The other hand grows needles and begins to gently sew back together the damages done. Working in silence to cover and solidify. I am not alone but I am lonely. With him by my side, the confinement is solitary. And I breathe only his name now. Though I can’t put much force behind it. The tune of it rings out so foreign. You see I’ve given him blood and tears and time enough. My voice forgets how to make a sound as they fall on deaf ears anyhow. And now, only my eyes can speak. They say all the things my mouth can’t find the courage to muster. I could ask him to swim there in those eyes. To dive deep into the muddy darkness and swim. Swim for hours. Days if he must. To circle their diameter and tell me what he’s discovered. If there’s a soul, could he feel it’s radiation? I can feel it. But he would find this heart is burning for you.
Here we are again, Lover.
I thought, in one moment of clarity,
that I was in motion.
On, forward, away.
And then you reappeared and
that familiar tug came about.
That hook you cast out?
I swallowed it.
Down into my guts and
nested each barb against my heart.
And I am stuck on you.
The fight I had left in me
grows weaker as each pull draws me
nearer to you.
I have burned every digit.
Down past the flesh and tendons
and melted the bones to your heat.
I should know better by now and
that’s for damn sure.
But I just can’t resist the beauty of your flame.
I knew this heart would bruise but beat on.
But everything is circles now.
There are a million things I could say to you.
A thousand I want to.
And none of the words.
Peat and Repeat were on a boat.
Peat fell off.
Who was left?
The sky was living this night.
There was an electricity to it, the cobalt illuminated.
And I can see the stars awakening.
Each one winking in and out and alive.
Watching, as Lady Sunset retires to her bed chamber
and takes her persimmon bustle with her.
My skin quivers, trying to chase away the chill.
I have also taken cover now, my mind brewing.
And again, in this dark, I am rolling around the thought of you.
Maybe it’s because days have passed
since the symphony of your voice
flowed into my dreams.
Maybe because this bed stands frozen.
Maybe because it is so damn big
without your shoulders spanning the width.
I envision the form of a candle,
perched cliff-side.
It’s light extends, spinning slow circles.
My navigator to you.
And I followed it as much as allowed.
Almost close enough to be locked
into your forevers.
But you sailed away too soon, my dear.
In a glance passing,
I saw at some distant point,
a true life in your eyes.
But today, I run from the north star.
There was a death of sorts, last night.
And I don’t love you anymore.
I can’t.
I wish without that you would suffocate.
I’m sitting in the cold.
Surrounded in darkness
and faces blurred.
It is solace while my mind rolls
the final credits of
the what could have been’s of
you, me, us, we…
There are oceans in your eyes, sweetheart.
The depths of which I would have braved
again and again and again
if it meant that I would be granted
access to your innermost.
And I could have stayed there, loving you.
For as long as you’d have had me.
But today, I don’t ache for that.
Or for the honey of your perfect mouth.
Of for the way you breathed my name
all those nights when I could steal
the hands of time.
You keep seeking out the moments, love.
The ones that crack your jaw.
The ones that drag the air from your lungs.
The ones that stick to memory, forcing movement.
I will deliver you that, my dearest.
And I will laugh the loudest then.