Sometimes when my pencil does scurry
Inside me stirs a worry
Is this mine or not? It is, surely.
Finished is the flurry.

people write poems comparing
smiles to sunsets and rain
and stars and meteor showers

eclipsing entirely that sunsets give way to the charcoal wraith of night
rain riddles the most novel of metals
supernovas sink entire galaxies
and meteors are just meteorites with less ambition

but what about earthquakes
and black holes
and wildfires

rib rattling
song swallowing
too close for comfort

what once warmed us to our core now leaves us in embers

and still we burn for more

Tell me my wounds are beautiful
And that the pain I feel is justified
Prove the pen is not my only friend
Sew me up and sit a while, be my time
The voice in my head won't fill full
We'll cry until we're numb as iced

Solemn, somber,
do you ever wonder?
What dreams we've lost
what was the cost?
We gave up all we had.
to our hearts we played faithful
to our hearts that were frail.
I'm smiling but I'm sunken
seldom slumber, awakened
these nightmares, we will shake them.

This haunting will fade,
this everlasting, forbade
from the grand sleep
a phantom, a shade
Whispering, a wick
burning slowly in the dark

Minutes mumbled
seconds slurred
time was timid and blurred
furlongs faded
miles masqueraded
and light years - what's the word?

Kind'ling, eternal comfort
eloped to my beat.
In hers I found my rhythm.

Can you capture my pain
with your photographic heart?

Can you whisper my name
through a telegraph or card?

The pictures I cut, I kept.
The pocket I thumb, you left.

Your voice is like a train whistle
Coercing me towards delusive home
A siren by the aisle
Whose lulling call is deafening to my ache.

In dreams I hear nothing
In dreams I hear only your name.

Won't you bide the waves?

Huddled beneath the desk
The files found were less
The script I scribed not
Of false fellowship

Murmured were the verses
Pawing for the curses
My hands I lended
Gave all I could spend

Battling my vices
Tampered herbs and spices
My wrist I twisted
Shy 'way from the shiv

Hands spinning lazily
Tracks run, a maze in me
The map I crumpled
To bridges I shan't pass.