you were my first midnight kiss
drunk and laughing
spilling like bubbly over and over into your arms
your lips a white froth of sweets
this was the fairy tale hour,
so to speak
but i'm no cinderella
running away
with glass in my heart that aches.
no i was done with fragility;
i'm yours, rust and bolts and ticks and all
you were my first midnight kiss,
and although it did not awaken me from a century of slumber
or turn my fins into human legs
i could feel a different magic
tingling upon the cupid's bow of my lips

the night has slipped from the tips of my fingers,
finding solace in bottomless sweaters
sleeves that swallow hands
and mouths that swallow
bourbon brooks
trickling through a loss of consciousness.
i yearn on winter bones for the loss of knowledge;
a slow mind,
and sweaty delirium.
i want to watch my finger nails go purple
from malnutrition, seeping into the cracks of an old house-
to become an eighteenth century ghost
and i'd measure my heart breaks in dust.
when the world falls away;
and it falls away often-
i find solace in thinking that nothing can amount to nothing
and one day you all will be as i am.

a thin willow wisp,
a frayed cardigan
  a story that was once told and lost through years of
the telephone game;
while the rich culture faded with every new tongue

the gardens weep
in the moonlight
because she has gone away.
a pale sliver of a finger
waivers in a pond reflection.
a specter-
  the stars have become
pearl spilled tears
and the roses tremble in dew
because of the absence,
her absence-
felt so wholly.
the world fades quietly
with her white body
under ground
...
although that is where she lay
(she has gone away)

i want to crawl into your bed
while it's still blue outside
and the sun has cold feet
because morning hasn't broken
and your body could curl around mine
like a scarf in the winter

july, she lied to me
because summer in my hair
is ending.
the smell of frost
pours from the iced over window panes

and it's darker
and forests are naked

distraught in their skinny wardrobe
vulnerable and staring.

doe eyes meet me through a snow covered sheet
and summer its okay
that you're gone.

it's sunday
and the dog lies on the rug
the fire spits
and the leather chair
is devoid of human warmth.
the scene is picturesque
a cabin fit for the woods
the books are dusty,
pages worn,
it could have been lived in-
but this place is just a skeleton.

skin stretches into mountain ridges
i am a fetus
wanting to bloom inside of you
to meet your heart
and cup it within my soul
to see your beauty from deep within
and stoke the fire that warms your veins;
with me you'll never
be cold again.