How could you affect me still?
Even these pages cannot forget
Outlines of shadows staining their surface
Soaking up your soft, fading scents of cemeteries and midnight walks
Haunting my dreams, driving me mad
With wanting the unattainable
I lick parched lips from a desert mouth
Tasting salt and sand
Unable to erradicate the memory of your teeth
Penetrating. Every. Thought.
Lush and violent retaliation lashes through me
How could I abstain?
To heady of a high to not fully submerge myself
In the black ,depthless veil just before dawn
Pulling me under, deep, just like you
Alone.
Just like you

Festival days all a twitter
Mud caked boots alongside fairy wings
Stick haphazardly every which way
From my jeep wrangler
She needs a bath but glitter is just something else
When you leave a trail in travel
This is what I live for
Tangled in tulle, hemp and wire for months
Until the weather breaks
Breath held. Exhaaaaaaale.
Naked coffee early morning possibilities
Fire poi, wicks and hoops go next
Papadosio Magreenery proton love song
Pulsing right through the visceral point
Of each cell
Saturating my senses. Over load.
Bright, gemstone radiant color melts
Gliding across my vision as the heat
The heat takes hold
Packing in itself is a journey
The trip...

                  *and I'm not even there yet.

The day it is a waning
Long streams of soft blue, deep violet
Ozone veins carrying the wakeful into sleep
I peak now
Eyes bright with moonlight
Stars dancing brilliantly against ink black anti-matter pools
I would go out drifting tenderly amongst those memories
Even if their edges tear apart from gravity
The knowing would suffice
Come dream with me 3am wanderers
Let the cushion of the unseen comfort
Sore spots that we no longer urge to heal

I am not see thru
Smoke clinging softly to my fingers
Translucent at best

Soft air drifted in hushed whispers over my still form
A dormant heart, cold as concrete in mid-winter snowfall
Stutters awake to sudden life
Deep inhalation, ******* in the sunlight
Until it melts the numb core within
Wake up sweet thing, the day greats you
Eye lids flutter like tiny May Fly wings
Unsure and brand new

"Stay?"
A pleaded entreaty with tears
Soaking the edges of it's echo
Carries from your mouth to my ears
My mind races with leg entwined visions
The sloppy wet heat of our tongues
Swirling
Whispered apologies for years of neglect and bad choices
All could be mine
Yet...
That may be all *this is
Chemical desire in a centrifuge
Until well blended with come **** me
DNA strands
You say you'll be there
Then when most needed
"Where's Waldo?", on the search
You know, even without disease
Our telomeres will eventually decide
When we are finished
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Your fingerprints are all over my heart
Love, it's my mind
You've been reaching for all of this time
To only brush it with your fingertips

Always standing on ceremony. Reach out and touch that which is forbidden.
Fruit hangs heavy and full of juice from my trees.
Shadows from a thousand nights shroud a garden veined in blood with heavy secrets.
whisper your name along my walls.
Seek entrance.
But know you will find no rest here.
Only the sands of time running, sifting through root and bone.
Searching tirelessly for the end.
Close your eyes. Breathe deep. Know what it is to fade.
Away.

I am thirsty
Calm waters, bubbles galore
Swallow fast
Sip it slow
Picking raspberries in late June
Warm juices running along ****** fingertips
On the cusp of homemade wine season
I cannot get enough
Stained mouth hungry for more
Along my lip's edges I can taste your smile
Sunshine light with a hint of bright
I want to drink with you
Share with you
Get loose and fuzzy
Ready to fill your cup with more
Swinging away in breezy hammocks
Drunk on each other
Drunk on summer

Don't send me home crying
Tears in my eyes, wet face
Feeling lost on the long drive back
I would rather leave angry
With half moons dug into my palms
A plan forms to pull it all back together
I can handle rage

I would like to say that our parting was just sweet
No sorrow
I must admit differently against the secret dark hours
Whispers holding the shape of your hallowed name take form
Merely caressing our true connection
Distance. Time. Neither hinder
This intense passion that still lingers in every beat of my aching heart
Ravenously reading your every slipped word
I wonder if even between lines one or two are just for me
A gypsy heart longs to wander
Roam each peak and fjord in search of feeling
Even Skathi's January chill cannot bank this fire inside of me
Burning ever brighter for you
Lay me down gentle but pull me hard, unyielding
Your Nordic blessed eyes speak volumes  
Devouring.
Warrior curved mouth against soft, blushing skin
I want to know what it feels like to be loved by you
Giggles, childhood memories, deep sighs into the wee hours
*What I would not give

Poison infiltrates my stalwart veins
Unable to process with the soiled remains of a battered
Tattered heart
Still on the wintery edge of wishing
I was made of stone
Eyes wide shut, looking up through dark waters
I can still taste you on my lips
Feel you on my fingertips
Ice crystallizes where magma used to flow
Larva to razer sharp butterfly
Silver moonshine quick
Wishing I was made of stone
With absent minded memories

Got this ache
Ooh sweet fire, burning me down
Wrapping hot silky wet around all of my sharp edges
You make me feel like a hot house orchid
Ice eater
Anything to temper the flame
Liiiick
Straight up center stage
Curtains parted
Gasp and low moaned surprise
Fingers dancing, soprano orchestra sings
Yeeeeees
Opera house style
Standing ovation
Bow taken
...we should make a season out if this

There is no ancient living here
No holy
Just the only
Sparking flies of fire twinkling against twilight
I breathe in the exhaled breath of late spring
Feeling full but light all in the same motion
New moon cast no shadow here but I can still see her's
Outlined by star shine the gravitational pull of the divine
That lies within us all
The rains keep falling so that the air is tangible
A dancing partner when I thought I was alone
Feet fall in squishy patterns against grass that should still be forest
I hear their call, the wildlings
Wolf howl. Dove Coo. The slithery slither of night time creatures.
Spinning in circles through the darkness
Wishing I could but take their form for a moment and run free
Break apart from the day to day pressure
Of what is expected of me
Focus on the fire fly dance
Just keep spinning

He had been working for days
A simple man
With rough hands
An eye for beauty that rivaled
Botticelli's
Dukes and Duchesses had paid well
For flattering statuary that would
Live on in granite repose
Chisel and hammer tapped away
Sweat poring his brow
He worked in silence
Though the square below him
Played the symphony of daily life
It was his hands that listened for him
He may have been born deaf but cherished he was
Treasured
By a woman who could have no more
God's gift she had prayed for
Then thanked for every day after
He knew the story
Lived her gratitude
As he finished the final curve
Placing tools on the side table
He stood back to survey his work
Realizing it was his greatest piece yet
For it was the brightest memory
Of his mother
In her face he saw God's grace

Eyelids slowly part to soft sunlight
Glowing off of the red highlights
In your beard
Good morning
Mmm...it's always good with you here
Your hardness a welcome bedmate
Birds singing through the window
India Temple incense smoke
Hazing the shadows
Circling the heat between our frames

I have been given such little time here
Seems to me that in that space a hand of sorrow dealt
Widowed at twenty seven
A once purring friend who was nineteen years mine
Now ashes next to those of Jeremiah
Tears fall down swollen cheeks weary of the weeping
More reasons for choosing not to propagate compile
Old newspapers with new headlines I cannot help but read
My bed is less now, my pillow too big
I am still asking questions about the why and how
Where this leaves me- partly in the past and the hollow now
Two urns I carry with me while I wander through the crowd
Two urns I carry with me unto my final hour

I wake up with your smell braided through my hair
                            Saturating my senses from the night before

Starlight and moonshine lit rings of soft fire in our eyes

                            Falling asleep in your arms
                            World stops, fog settles in
                            No one here but our body heat
                            Syncopation at it's most natural speed
                            Cold fibers seek solace in lip kissed goose bumps

You push me deeper than ever before

                            Our hands parting but pried apart
                            Occupying the spaces between hello and goodbye
                            It is never that easy though, is it?

Straight lines curve when wrapped around your tongue

                           Making the most out of deep sighs and slow, easy smiles  
                           The subtle shifts in your geography have my mouth watering
                           Causing a wild flutter to awaken the dead ache
                           In flesh once thought to be silent

It beats only for you

                           Ink and I have been forged since birth
                           Soul seared and thirsty for it's satiny black quench
                           With it I paint you immortal
                           Dancing through veins and sacred neuron firing
                           you are held
                           Where I can always keep you safe
                           Where in memory you are eternal

I dance the twisted grind of twilight
As tambourine and sitar play
Heavy shadows of fog roll down off of mountain top
Firelight casting me fifteen feet high
Serpent goddess born of ash
My phoenix heart in tune with Saint Helen's expanding lungs
Primal
Crowd swells and ebbs around my writhing form
Each entranced by hip and shoulder roll
Amber eyes reflect pools of liquid gold
Sinking into the waiting palm of divinity
The scent of my arousal permeates  
I am  woman
I am  power
I am  *life

Sleep remains just out
Of my fingertip's reach so
I conjure haikus

I could tell you that I miss you
Guitar string twang heart throb
I would be singing truths
These mountain tops, their inhales never stop
Pulling in what I give then blowing out through spiral spun honey hair and budding trees
Early spring has me humming little bees lapping up your nectar
Hot coffee in the morning reminds me of steamy midnight windows
Curled up next to your memory mid-winter
Keeping the wolves at bay
Now the bogs are calling to bright sunny days
And the only thing I'm guilty of is asking you to stay

Muscles once taunt now lie lax
A smile graces clear skin
Seeing through bright eyes once again
I've missed the feel of smoothness your memory evokes
Reigned in for longer than I would have preferred
Restricted with tear's choke
Clouds crowding me
My feet are beneath me
Soft pads pounding hot pavement
In midsummer celebration
Hearing your song from oceans away  
Eases the hold of emotional strangulation
I miss you.
Deep aches that know not the pressure of your touch
Even so they call for you
Missing you without measuring how much

In crisp, golden veined perfection
We accept your semi-sharp edge
You are not a harbinger of cold
But more a cauterizing cure for summer wounds
Without your tough love we would be blind sided
January would cut deep and quick
Pulling what breath remained into ice
Lungs frozen in mid-sentence
No, dear autumn, you are a rotten balm
Blanketing tender roots with the dead
No wonder we don masks in your beginning
Mourning the loss of those near and dear the day that follows
Morning walks become more brisk
A sweated brow welcomed with relief
From rosy cheeked breezes
A sun that no longer warms
Merely giving light for the coming darkness

Dust has finally settled where only cobwebs once roamed
The inevitable step into vintage decay
With warm greetings the late afternoon sun sends shadows
Scurrying across cracked vinyl floors, smudged windows and warped doors
Silence reigns here.
Echoes of fallen drywall interrupt the stagnant patterns of neglect
Still and perfect I lay in wait beneath cold glass
My state and sleep are unforgiving
Time stretches on as the house wonders if it's sleeping beauty
will ever be found
Whispers of lost cities, buried treasure and prince charmings come and go
Still I lie in limbo, a true love's kiss to break my bonds
Twilight ascends softly
Closing off another day left to a curses desire

My sleeping mind cannot contain
All that my waking mind soaks up
Dreams turning into lucid experience
All colors, sensations too intense to categorize
Wind down inside of me
Concentrated awareness of my subconscious obliviousness
I wish that I could weave them all together
Like tall grasses woven into baskets
Strong, unbreakable, able to withstand the heavy weight
Of my spirit
Instead I leak through the seams, tear through edges
Five a.m. cannot keep me
My thoughts scatter
Drifting in and out

Petal soft lips
A taste, a kiss
Exhaling all of your love
Into me

Don't ever tell a woman to calm down.

You make every nook and cranny
Each thirsty, soft curve
Lean towards the rough edges of your touch
With the exquisite ease of a man that knows
Exactly
What
He
Wants...





Me.






*Wet.

I wash my hair
The dirt is stripped away

Wet.

Rinsed down the drain into the sewer
Stinking sludge water waste
A homeless man leans down
Filling up his intellectual cup
Gutter filth rot glory
No wonder bums are crazy
Talking to mattresses, having imaginary riches
Someday

Makes me wonder what it's like deep inside
I could be imaginary
More than just one
Do I get the crazy out on paper?
Or down the drain when I wash my hair?

Goodbye hung on my lips like frost
Bitten and heavy with numb intent
I've never felt such affection towards the disease of sadness

But it must be done

We have drifted, unable to moor ourselves once more
Wishing it could have been different
Is like having bees with no flowers
Useless
I know I come off cold
My eyes flat and devoid of emotion
This is the way it must be
Your tears flooded my better judgement
A lone sparkle sneaking beneath my eyelids to slide down my tired cheek
This is about as clean as I could make it
You may not know how vulnerable I feel
Raw. Rebirthed.
As I turned to walk away I realized
You must not have seen the stitches on my chest
That are holding together the lonely cavity that once held
My **heart

Life can be a tango, a rumba, a waltz
Meticulously choreographed to display all of our faults
Also too, our perfect lines do shine
Straight through the cosmos, into the divine
Steps sweep lightly, ethereal and grand
A new beat, branched path,where sure feet land
I've heard many a rhythm, carried many a tune
Yet none so melodic as the one played by you
Our moves are cohesive, playful and smooth
Dipping down into love, feeling this groove
You taught and I learned,many new things
The simplest has no clue of the comfort it brings
We are not the steps that we take
We are the music we make
We are not the fabric between seams
**We are bolts upon bolts, skeins upon skeins

There is breath here
Still
Full of silent
Mornings silent nights
Looking
Glass half-full half-empty
Handed
A Love beyond wild edges
Made
Too sharp to catch my fall

Yet I stand these tests of strength
Weathered the devastation
Share stories of our struggle
Never really losing the acidic taste of failure
The burn of letting go
How do I not feel guilty?
Even knowing I gave my all
It wasn't enough
Played out in such a way that nothing could have been

*I still had more to give

There was always much more
I should have, could have
Held against you
Weekends left watching cartoons
When sitting on your lap
Was all I needed
Hours of listening to shot gun conversations
Mostly trash about my mom
You know she struggled 26 hours to push me out
Without a **** I was useless to you
"You don't need flowers do you?"
A statement, no question
As you walked out of the delivery room
I have no pictures of you holding me
Many scars for the times you did
We talk every few years
They pass by like blinking
Sleeping
I hear your methadone laced voice
Far off echo's of bedtime stories
Summer afternoon's next to the river
Your laughter bouncing off fish scales
I miss you.
This bridge between may be burned
Your body sick with disease
Tired with age
Lucky for us I excel at the breast stroke
I don't want to wake with nothing but
Your memory floating
On the surface of my childhood

I stood silent, still
City lights and sounds rained down
Forming musical puddles all around
Eyes dart everywhere to pull it all in
Lungs working to pump it all out
Filth in the gutters
Trash in the streets
Everyone moving quickly
Business at their feet
Neon signs did buckle
Under the weight of picturesque pomp
I had no idea what I was getting into
Watching the curved lines of this city's model stomp
My colors don't belong here
Foreign, sore thumb seed
Everyone comments on bringing spring in
For earth is what they truly need
How could anyone be happy in a place
Where everyone is wearing black
I left with thoughts of open fields
Oceans against my toes
I say to myself I'll never go back
...but who knows?

After everything I still believe in true love
I may be damaged but I remain strong, unbroken
Tepid winds have blown change into my life
Resurrected a winter heart, blossoming into spring
I miss the autumn though, the in between
When I was focusing so closely on the veins of leaves
Pieces of myself came into view that before were blurry
I know now that was being truly awake, alive, feeling it
Summer was but a dream then
Even further now due to my own coping choices
Drowning my sorrows was useless
Getting so high I could touch clouds did no good
I must feel it to heal it
Now I hurt, let it wash over and suffocate these little lungs
That used to hold the North Wind
Years later, the aftermath of near annihilation
I am sore, bruised, ravaged
Seams have changed
No longer just ragged edges
Somewhere between giving up and giving in
Hopeful (please)
Each morning I pull myself from the safety of sleep
Knowing that even there I am not completely out of reach
Nightmares bring you to me angry, lost or in pain
Bless me from time to time with smiles and warmth
Back from the dead or having never left
I wake up wet with tears of longing
Why did this all happen?
Could never be answered with a sentence or a word
It is what it is
This is what I live with
I have to feel it
To heal it

I've been wandering
My mind following the static pull of fingertip
Along sharp frames that no longer focus clearly
Gentle shakes do little to dislodge the fog
It surrounds
Suffocates
Comforts
I lie naked amongst the ruin of four years ago
An ache that just won't ease
Please don't presume to know the taste of this poison
Apathy to you, maybe
Yet this dredge and I are very old friends
Unburdened with the need of your half-formed opinion

There’s celebrating and then there is full immersion
On this almost crazed day of my qued arrival
I rub feet together as though crickets could sing
A glass raised in cheers to however many years
You won’t get me to confess a single thing
Blowing candles, spread confetti across the 16th of January like a ballroom in spring
You can catch me dancing along witching hours edges
Waiting with sly eyes for glittering presents I know you will bring
Wreathed in smiles echoing thank yous and laughter
Only one year older if these wishes were wings

First, what I thought was the only
Young. Eager. Stars in my eyes that shown just for you
Planets aligned along with bittersweet poetry
Bringing our moist, teenage palms together
Late in March of our senior year
Back seats of both cars steamed up
Pleasured cries that thought then "this is it"
Our laughter on late nights still stands out in stark relief against our subpar coupling
Although you had it in you
It was me that needed it in me

I'm wearing armor
These wounds still bleed
I painted on my "Don't ask" face
Just so you wouldn't see
The pain that lies beneath
My emotions are my dedication
I take your's into consideration
Not expecting reciprocation
Rarely surprised but if you do
Try to see it from my view
I do not take sympathy with comfortable ease
I ask you kindly, pretty please
Know that I'm grateful if my words fall short
I may do a little talking but I'm more the writing sort

Dirt and rubble clog the passages of my heart.
A wasteland cursed with empty skies.
Bleak, oppressive.
Yet we wonder ever forward searching for the calm night.
Embrace the darkness.
I can smell it clinging to you.
Around your hipbones stars circle.
Constellations foretelling supernovas spiderweb my palms.
Stay awhile.
Play awhile.
Digging through only for you.
Calling me. Falling free.
We are the byproduct of concrete love letters
Vicious and exposing, hands always empty but outstretched
Hollow
We become see-through pale once more

I remember the sound
                        of your September sorrow
Letters roaming the distance that stretched between us
Your words a constant companion to the coming cold
My lips wished every day to greet yours come morning
The scent of lavender and mint drifting through our room
Sunlight pouring gently over your distinct features
A heart full of love shining softly in your eyes
As you wake up to my warmth next to you
Some day your scrolled worship reads
I will be closer
                                            No more wishing
Folding your letters again and again as I pull them out to revisit
The gentle longing I can still feel in their varied stains of ink
            Give me a reason and I won't break down
Is the last line of the first one you sent
Still haunting and hopeful
          We have so much more to give
So much more in store 
*Some day soon

The best of intentions
Often lead to broken hearts
Hope graveyards
The memory of warmth
Ghost arms to hold us