Remember

 We were birds with cigarettes

all feathered up, winging it

never lower than the clouds we looked up at

laughing at the children as if we were not.

We were foxes folded on the floor

training for additional tails and softer fur

eating the best we could find

dreaming of kind dogs we could play with.

We were stoats test driving houses

you were the wiser weasel between we

i could not understand suitcases thus

my place in the packing was vice presidential.

We were lions recalling herbivorous former lives

certain we have never met in our days ahoofed

We were dragons in a too small room

promising to play again tomorrow.

Mostly pink, at times blue.

This is how i remember and

this is how i remember you.

Oil Slick

 you're the toxic from an oil spill,

and i was just a fish in the sea.

You made me believe

that what was was all there would ever be.

Get used to knowing i was always second rate

never ever enough.

black water and poison,

the death of all life,

the darkness that drowned

every bit of my light.

That Look

 From those who

understand true intimacy

i have learned there is

as much to be said

in silence -

in the sensual lock of eyes

from across the room.

as there is to be said

in words

Nuovo

 it's ok

to cut me nuovo.

At least the scars

you leave

will remind me

i was someone

worth hurting. 

You were not the first,

i would bet you will not be the last

Blind

 it's not that i was blind,

but i had made a routine

out of the routine and

could no longer see.

i know that now.

i saw you and it was like

the world found color.

The wind found music and

for the first time in a long time,

i dared to believe in something with

no evidence.

Only a feeling. 

And then you took that away.

Fall

i am a child

of autumn;

at home and only at home

amongst things

that know only

of falling.

Only of dying.

A Different Type Of Graveyard

 Rusty gates of Memory gaped open;

hinges creaked,

me, intruded as trespasser into

my own cerebral.

Trailed to the desolated

Graveyard of Memories.

Found an erected tombstone

engraved as "Past"

Picked a spade and unearthed 

the hideous carcasses of that

ugly creature, Memory.

And blazed it into nihility 

with my callous hands.

Stench of ignorance and fumes

of rues liberated, which salvaged my soul from

decomposition, to render its

salvation and liberated my

imprisoned soul from 

Disdain.

What A Look

 two things that i will never ever

forget:

the way you looked at me

for the first time,

and the way you looked at me

for the last

Such Lovely Dreams

 Because i can bear no further mourning at this juncture,

let me tell you instead of the iris aurora daydream

where i hide when death creeps too close:

you and i stand where the water meets the world.

The intricately woven unity of our heartbeats

calls the sun to rise, 

and, "i love you," bursts from night's stars

in a sanctifying rain.

No other soul dares exist,

just us in the blushing dawn. 

Your hand in my hair,

your face on my chest,

our oneness pulls the tides

On A Jet Plane?

You have always 

been a sunset.

Enough 

to make me stop

and admire

your beauty, 

but leaving

from the very moment

you arrived

You were always going to leave. i was too poor, too peaceful and loved you too much. i didn't use you which is what you like. You were always going to leave, and you did

What You Left Behind

 somewhere back at the scene of the

crime

are bloodstains on the concrete,

and dead matter that rhymes;

the remains of a murdered love

that continues to 

testify

in lies, in undeserved glory and ease,

and between the lines of sad poetry.

The jury drinks whiskey

and devours the story.

Laden By The Divine

 i am not Atlas

and i do not want to hold up your world anymore.

For a long while i didn't realize i was carrying it,

but then the weight began to crumble me

as you heaped heavy on top of heavy

like it was no matter,

and you stole the things i wanted to carry

to make room for your festering hoard on my shoulders.

All these years collecting your latent madness,

only to find the measure with which i measured

would not be measured out to me.

And you will feel the teeth of my unburdening. 

Copy And Paste

 i have been pasting photographs over the holes in my heart,

what remains of it,

bug, smiley snapshots and selfies with perfect hair,

wearing a mask of myself over my swollen, infected and hollowed out chest.

Close-up you can smell the death on me,

covered in all these forged portraits of a man who knows he's loved.

But each morning i wake with my festering sadness,

and i lean against the shower wall and howl,

i lean right into that loneliness and pain 

like the moons of Jupiter, 

and submit to excavation of another hole,

the gory dug-out flesh discarded on the tile.

No cameras there.

Echoes Of The Dead

There are ghosts here.

Which means i miss you,

and all these stars 

are dead...

 i can still hear it,

in the quiet moments.

i can still hear you say

that you can't

go on loving me.

If you ever did.

that there are

too many pieces to carry

and the edges

are too sharp to hold. 

But what chance did i have?

You were the ocean

and i had driftwood bones

What i've Lost

i read somewhere

that three hundred

million cells

die in our bodies

every minute.

So now

i measure time

by the parts of me

i've lost.

i am no longer

the soft thing

i was for you.

i am more bone

than embrace,

more riverbed

than the water.

i am

more habit

than flesh;

more ritual

than anything else.

Hangwoman

 You had asked me to slide all my joints into the noose of your strings

and, for the most part i had complied-

eyes facing forward,

bend at the knee here

hand outstretched here

don't speak.

But the only way to string up my heart was to run me through, 

clean through.

So you had to ask yourself

whether a dead puppet was the price of your happiness.

Apparently the answer was no.

i had hoped you would have asked whether i 

should rightly be expected to pay that price,

but by that point i had no value to you. Even

less than before which is hard to believe.

So i was and remain a dead thing 

made by a dead power

in the shape of the dead. 

i do not belong here,

this is a place of life.

Maybe that's why you moved far away

because you do not belong here either.

Have a Spine

 i have a backbone like a mountain

an adamant thing it is

it will not bend

not even curl

to anyone else's will

it will never break

you will never hear it splinter

nor crack

no matter the weight

no disc will ever shift out of place

i have a backbone like the sea

a stubborn thing it is

it endures the ships of burden

each time, with grace

only to the winds of my desires

will it obey

Vivid

 and the truth is

i miss you. 

Always have.

i miss you and the

things that never 

happened, but are

so vivid in my 

mind as if they

did.

What Remains

 when holding on became more painful

than letting go,

i accepted the 

darkness between the stars

as an emblem of what remains of us

Show Me The Goods

my lips have tasted misery

of many tongues before

but i've never choked on it

because i knew 

there had to be more 

so i buried my knuckles

in the promised happy endings

knowing i had to punch harder

for mine to ever happen

it might've

left me scratched up

and alittle damaged

but i fought my way

out of there

before these goods

would be returned to sender 

Thoughts Of The End

 If i had to choose a way to die

it would be this;

i always thought i wanted to be martyred, 

but no,

clutching my heart as it wrenches in on itself,

suffocating under the weight of so many dreams of you

stacked atop my brain.

Gasping for the breath to pray

dying for this makes us both immortal

because you are tattooed in heavy lines

across every dimension of my soul.

And if i had known this would be the death of me,

i would've still run through thistle choked meadows

shrieking "Banzia!"

Let me die in the space where our eyes meet,

drowning and burning and resurrecting 

let me die for love

Worst Case Scenario

 If i cannot love you,

i fear i will never love anything again.

Neither woman, nor life, nor the gods.

You will seep out of my heart

to the edges of my existence

until all that remains is void.

My empty hands will pant and scream,

pale white sickness,

weak with loss,

solace rippling into the thick heat like a mirage.

And fate mocking me,

watching me bleed you from every pore

and die with the echo of your breath ricocheting through my veins.

Finally Alittle Push-back

 i have long know that lunar madness steeped beneath my skin,

that rage, once awakened,

could turn my adventures into war.

i knew there were things for which i would bleed

and that defiance knit my bones one to the other

But i never knew i was a wolf

until you tried to cage my heart and soul.

Now i am all murderous eyes and howling.

Painter

i will always have

love for you

and your

gutlessness; these

quilt-laden brushstrokes

though

painted across the

canvas of my heart

were painted over

too many moons ago

Those Kind Of Days

There are days that the words

flow like honey, sticky and sweet and wonderful

and

there are days that the words

flow like sadness or joy, healing and soft

but

this is not one of those kind of days;

today the words

flow like blood, hot and bitter from wounds that refuse to heal