(untitled)

dangerously visionary,
illimitably winding progression
about your feet.

a mindful of spirit
keeps moving higher.

a jacob's-ladder of
celestially propagated
transcendence.

validation of propelling oneself -
somehow
it falls up.

a stumble
and the soul's flung
deep heavenward.

something lit
flickers between the bars.

the world is caged,
not you.
catch the right box-thinking.



(untitled)

have you ever
loved something so much
you want to break it?

i do and have.

like, waking
baby siblings
to see them cry,
because they're more
alive that way.

squeeze love
just tight enough
that it doesn't
cry yet.

i want to feel it
rendered almost-broken
at my hand,
if only for their understanding.

it's not a real love
if it's not painful -
i like the fire
because of the burning,
not the light.

because at least,
in this moment i see fine -
it's the feeling
that i've missed.


Trees in the Dark

Did you see the branches?
Bare, groping at the night,
the sky.

Did you hear them breathing?
That call to be needed.

The air surrounded,
silhouetted,
caressed them -
and still they shivered,
so dark and incompletely.

The taste of spring
more fickle than spring itself.

Did you see the way
their empty longing,
their overwhelming, crowded lonely
kept them so cold?

I watched them tap me,
beckoning for the ear
that hears their wizened whisperings.

The almost-rain
so much less bearable
than each acrid drought.



paperwings

have you put on
your bright, new paper wings?
got the glue for your head?
the tape for the broken wing?
i don't mind,
as long as i can't fly.

go put on
those bright, new dancing shoes.
here's news for your head -
you need tape for that broken wing.
i don't mind,
as long as i'm with you.

you're long gone,
on bright blue paper wings.
it went to your head,
you never taped the broken wing...
i don't mind,
as long as i die too.



(untitled)

i lost happiness
in your vast, stretching sky.

all those homes are lined up so straight...
but on the inside they're not that way.
they've closed all the windows and locked all the doors.
from sadness to sunshine, i'm yours.

lately i've been feeling
like you'll never know
if you don't mark the way back
the further you go.

i'm the bright star
that fell behind
the mountain of feeling you are.




a dream

there was no long reclining;

an inclination toward shrillness
and repetitive side-cast glances
at the fleshy underbelly
of an obsession i'd labeled invincible.

i dreamt it mingled
at friends, so nonchalantly.
i changed, and they
saw my too-loud hiding.

he was stained and many-fingered.
he wouldn't let me go.
i weaseled some touching,
to revel and detach in all the warmth.

he came too close -
and i withdrew,
drew in.

i couldn't deny this impending
unleash of a hurt i've yet to know.
a sudden pique in curiosity,
a deformed bent
toward self-evaluation of strength,

of tasting the flames
to know how to describe the burning.

i wanted it not for a pleasure,
but as experience that also
had passed through
the mould of my perception.

i had to know it,
so i could set it aside
and cease its relentless eating.

i watched him gnaw my shoelaces
and trembled to hold,
to still - distill - him.
in all his potency,
he was still not strong enough for me.

i bruised him:
hugged his wriggling,
and wound up with
a knuckle in his soft spot.
he moaned,
and played with his shirt.

i had to keep turning,
to hoard my distraction
in a magpie's nest
of feigned ignorance and trivia.

too close - he kept
moving in too close -
and i couldn't de-veil.

i couldn't give him the words
already packed,
tangled on the tip of my tongue.

oh, how
i wanted to.

but the room was full
and he crawled,
already so overwhelmed.

i cried and he was too
busy laughing to see
how i buried it
in inflated transparency...
they were a decoy.

a mask for the blood-price
he exacted so unawares.

my glimmering was shot-crippled,
and fox-eaten too soon.




(untitled)

escaping in music
and sleep.

i drown so carefully
in everything else.

your clutches
sink me more.

each truth,
confession,
another stone
in my pockets.

another struggled blinking
at the harsh white
of shifting watery sunlight.

in this other world,
even death is real.



(untitled)

will you click easily into place?
or is there much forcing,
more edges to be trimmed,
and neither of us happy
with an imperfect fit?



(untitled)

sidled up to a streetlamp,
i watch the nearby meter
run out of time.

maybe there was a time -
some coagulation of moments
we might have built with.

for now, i ponder
with lampshade eyes
the seconds we spent...

contrasting what i
wanted to see,
to feel...
with what was
actually
seen and felt.

you brushed past me
in the rain,
in the dark.

and in that blink,
your warmth was familiar.

it also burned me.



(untitled)

exhumed the ghost,
the slivered dangling
which wrapped my fingertips.

it was treasure,
silk victorian lace,
silver-stranded -
delicately filigreed.

moving to dote on it
the next morning -
in true light,
i cradled cobwebs
with these hands.



(untitled)

burn the midnight,
ache the very bones -
and gut my wrenching.

your chill ran bloody,
i curdled screams
on the floor.

razed hair -
that docile, pretend growing
i sweep callously away.

on moving,
it's the backs i'll look at
to give soul
in all my numbing.

there's that occasional...
life...
better sorry
than safe.

it's not a tame lying.



(untitled)

how do i break
so silently,
so shrugged and apologetic?

it almost fascinates me.

friends with
needled hands
and threaded teeth

eye my laughing
and shake their heads.

i laugh to shrug off,
to veil the tears
that singe my eyes,
my throat -

the careless cremation
of whored hopes.

i will disentangle
these optimisms.

idealism
is for pop stars
and smarmy country songs.

that doesn't mean
i won't call the pieces mine.




flush

a snail discovered
midst repose
in its shell.

truth doesn't let
sad, small things
possess their dreams.

each moment
of soft hopes snatched
by that rush of tide,

and broken:
thrust upon
reality's shoals.

the waves
will never care.

birds peck at, eat
the remains of what
they cannot understand.



(untitled)

as delicately as an eyelid,
my only real belonging
tears along perforated, memorized lines.

blood-stained walls close it
to collect the relics of this cleaving.

every reincarnation
devalues the sanctity of the me,
the life, before.

tiny vessels rearrange
the color of this time.

numb, but not new -
pain sears its tattered edges.

i will spare erubescent sincerity
its new sieve;
pouring it instead

into my pillow,
and complacent distractions.