We circle our graves
poorly.
Without purpose or poise.
As the vultures
circle our bodies,
more knowing and keen.
As if the gods
gave them insight
as to when we'll fall
into a heap
of ourselves,
when the spiral tightens.

Like a cat
crouching low;
stalking.
Not because
it's hungry,
but because
it needs to prey.
The tiny movements
drive them mad.

I've never felt more alone
then I do
on those nights
when I lay awake
watching you sleep.
The tiny movements of your chest
as it rises
and lowers again.
The predator inside me
bristles with curiosity.
The same madness
that overcame the cat.
And I distantly think,
I know now what drives them.

I must have startled you
because you awoke
and turned on your side,
cracked eyes searching,
looking concerned
and frightened.

When she asks,
"Is something wrong?"
I think,
"Oh yes, it's more terrible than ever."
but say,
"No, it's nothing."
But it certainly is
something.

She kind of laughs
like we do
when nothing is funny.
Which is fine.

Because it isn't.

I once met a viking girl,
who hailed from Norway.
I usually wouldn't have bothered,
but there was something special about her
I couldn't fully grasp.
It was like some weight had been lifted
to relieve my tired body
of it's former failings.

There was a magic she could wield,
some massive dreadnought of power
she kept sheathed in ornate leather.
Sometimes, when she was nervous,
her fingers would brush it's scabbard,
tracing the embossed symbols,
unaware of what she was doing.
And then this longing would overtake her,
leaving her eyes vacant,
momentarily...
As if her vessel had been abandoned
as she expanded
well beyond it's threshold.

During these brief moments
when she'd slip away,
I saw things I couldn't explain.
A furnace of starlight,
encased deep in the Norwegian ice,
alongside the warships of her ancestors.
Usually well-guarded,
out of habit
or necessity.

Before I was consumed entirely
she returned from her reverie,
tearing me away
from that solace.

I wonder now
if she was aware
of what happened.
Those secret woodlands
will haunt me
long after I've gone.
Long after life has left me,
and into the outstretched arms of eternity
and the worlds that follow.
And like some dream,
it still escapes me..
how so much beauty
can be reserved
and contained.

It sickens me to know
that what I'll remember most
was the physical form she'd taken,
and not the things
that truly mattered.
Not the magic she used
to tear me asunder,
wide open and spilling..
helpless in it's radiance.
Not the gentle breeze
that expanded from her wake
as she passed me.

Because it's easier
to be shallow.
It's easier
to forget.

There is something divine, of light through clouds,
in that cantabile,
the plaintive, golden chords, minor falls,
radiating from the deepest recess of the soul
a tugging lilt of melody.
To think these might be the lowest harmonies of heaven
the simplest of notes in Gabriel's voice
the sweetest, must be so,
It is a wonder
the heart does not break with beauty.

Your outstretched arm
And kind eyes
Draw me in
Not back to a place of love
But instead to your construction of pain
And hurt
And blame
Where it's apparent that the olive branch
Held between your fingertips
Is twined with barb
In my bleeding palm

Is someone retching in the stairway?
Or *******, I can't tell.
It's too early for the drunkards
who stumble in, yelling in whispers.
Fragmented Portuguese drifts in from next door,
too loud, even under the shower head.
They can probably hear my thoughts.

In the beginning we sat on the steps after dates.
Walked down to town
for good street food.
I would be drowning, going,
flying coming back,
as you stopped to kiss me in every bus-stop shelter,
drunk on the night, lateness
lack of sleep, and the act of trying too hard to love.
Was your soul once the colour of mine
Till you painted it over,
god knows how many times?
Or was that you at all?
Did I invent you? Did you invent me?
I close my eyes and world drops dead
I think I made you up inside my head
I'm sorry. It's not fair.
In the end you didn't understand
how free I felt.
I tried to long and too hard, slow fade,
for you, a bomb.
Weight and weightlessness tangled inside,
guilt, freedom. Guilt.
I cut your memory out of my thighs.
I didn't want to remember you between them.
I can't sleep, guilt is crushing.
You hold my sins before me like broken plates,
and when I cried
you said I was playing martyr, burning in lions jaws.
No, dear.
Martyrs are sinless.
I play at nothing.
Forgive me.

Her smile stands like a porcelain lock,
lips closed like the red doors
to the Forbidden city.
Those blood-washed memories
will never dry in closed rooms.
Rust grows under her fingernails
smelling of iron and salt,
destroying the magic.
Her mixed drinks, peroxide and pain killers,
sleeping pills
stand on the nightstand,
after her one night stands,
leave the door standing open.
The cat knocked the glass over,
stained the carpet.
She locks the door again,
blotting the stain with her hair,
she chokes on the dust.
Swallows down the myrrh
to make her breath sweet,
wash the blood from her teeth.
The plastic wrap party dress
clings to the bruises,
and she paints it black with old mascara stains
and phone bills,
taping the pieces of herself together
with promises of old lovers.
The door opens
The lips lock,
porcelain smile.