Over sticks, and stones...
no broken bones ...
only thick bands ringing
neck, and throat.

I floated onward, anyway:
my fainted,
fading body, splayed;
swathed, and rolled,
in a jacket shroud,

as gently, as...a paper wave.
Yet, onward, pulled,
on grasses, loud,

As softly, as
...a blackened cloud.

There's something...
infinitely beautiful,
dancing, delicately,
on pulled threads,
across nimble fingers:

the cat's cradle,
between emotional agony,
and mental silence.  

When every tear, is at last, exhausted...
when your lungs, wheeze, fluidly,
from helpless overexertion,
and, gasping for breath,
you turn your cheek, for air,
your pillow:
now, a man-made lake...

the numbness... suffuses,
your entire being.

Loud suffering, falls silent.
Red-rimmed eyes,
become too swollen,
to examine their own pain.

The nothingness blankets you,
in its warmest embrace.
You become swaddled; baby-soft, again,
yet plated, in auric detachment.

...Nothing, can touch me,
nothing,
can inform, my placid heart,
to beat.

in this moment,
I am free, of its emotional trappings.
its threads, can't pin me;
its pull, can't drag me down.

My lips,
shape a smile,
but it only serves, to show...
that it no longer hurts,
to stretch a wooden bridge,
across the gaping void.

...but even so... it's just a band-aid.

It won't fix, what's broken,
and the blood,
will seep through,
the gauze, again.
The pain, will return;
it'll grow knuckles,
that form fists,
which wield knives.

But, for now...
I lay myself, to rest...
blunted, mummified,
in a buzzing swathe,
of pristine, white.........





silence

I feel myself

atrophy
Thoughts, splayed
like beautiful, oiled legs
in a ******* centerfold...
Thoughts, disarrayed
in a state of feeble decay
I'm taken apart,
deconstructed
What's a brain, with a broken vessel,
what's a spine,
when the medulla oblongata,
falls,
to a gelatinous mush?

put me away, piece by piece
in boxes
that open, to reveal,
smaller boxes, and smaller boxes still
I become...miniscule... miniature
inconsequential,
in the great nature of things

a little wooden matryoshka doll, being peeled from its shell
layer by layer...
but what if the innermost chamber
is hidden, under lock and key

and what if you crack it open, to find
your fingers are smeared,
in the pungency, of my blood?

It matters not...
I drift skyward...no tether,
to pull me down, to earth again
and there's not enough oxygen,
to breathe,
as I drift through space...
but if I return to Earth...

the sudden resurgence of gravity
will bring me crashing,
to the ground.

...And it all...Goes...Black.

Thoughts twist me, into acrostic knots.
The knots, that nimbly choke...the clots, that simply grow.
I can't escape the thoughts,
like they were wadded ropes.
I flail, the plated locks...
and fumble, bladed keys.
But I can't break the seams;
that go on, breaking me...
I can't evade, the dreams...
with nothing next, to me.
So, even strengthless peace...
becomes the enemy.  
And though I feign, release...
and fake, control of these...
These ******* painful things...

they take ahold, of me.

Resin glazes
soft, buzzy lips,
like oozing droplets,
of fine, dark sap.
A flash, of dancing tangerine,
tangoes, absently,
before bleary,
red-rimmed eyes,
as I light up
and burn down,
the entire rainforest...
just a few little leaves, at a time.

Those who know me least,
but see me, daily...
idling, in dark waters,
might describe me as quiet,
distant, and remote.
An island, unto myself
which waves its palms, prettily,
to strangers,
and sprouts tender blossoms,
under the intemperate eye
of its own, jealous sun.

Its shifting swell,
of hourglass sands
only seem, to glow,
and its obscenely blue waters,
only appear, to shimmer,
the further you draw,
from it.

...Am I naught, but a mirage,
which thirsty tourists,
may deign to sail to,
and from,
in discontented droves?

I keep the secrets, of the land,
harnessed,
under tribal hands.

I offer them nothing,
whatsoever,
and yet, they are voracious
for more, of the same.

They smile, and gasp,
awed, by my hibiscus fields,
and my tropical skies.

But do my fire pits,
not strip the flesh,
from roasted pigs,
turned whole, and lifeless
upon its busy spits?

And does the roaring maw,
of my active volcanoes
not devour its transgressors
beyond ash, and bone?