What business you do in the shadows
All your engagements under moonlight
They are none of my concern
Your little secrets, they are yours
I was just wondering how you were

You should be happy now perhaps
Can't think why else would you stop writing
Wasn't it misery that crossed our paths
Wasn't it sadness that made you visit

Now I'm not certain to find comfort
That you found home in someone else's
Sometimes I miss being your go-to
But mistake that not as being jealous
I was just wondering how you do

Do you still bring your red umbrella on days you're certain the clouds won't fall?
Do you still love moons, and local tunes from bands that you and I adore?
Do you still walk slower a bit among roses, admiring all those with longer thorns?
Do you still paint the pictures in your head, even on days you don't have time for?
I was just wondering how you are, but you won't tell me anymore.


Do you still love crying over tragedies?



Do you still love crying?


Do you still love?

Do you?
Do.

and then I asked you,
"What's your biggest fear?"

you gave me a quivering sigh,
looked at me straight in the eyes
and said,

"It's that eventually, you will see me
the way I see myself."

Your absence
laps
at my shore
like a
f o r g e t f u l tide;
some days
it stays
                                   out,
letting me
breathe,
letting me
be-
other days,
it makes up for this,
swamping me
in a
tsunami,
and all I
can do
is
keep my
eyes
trained on land.

You are the moon.
Please return soon.

i want my poems to have teeth.  
i want my words to cut,
to maim, to bleed.
with verses, i will raze
empires. with stanzas,
i will turn thrones to dust.
with nothing but a bit
of silver on my tongue,
i will take the life of god.

i’ll ply that same *****
like honey, taste the sweet
nothings dripping
between knocking knees.
quake and quiver for me,
let me slip, furtive
as nightshade
to sate your curiosity.

feel the weight of veracity
in these fingers patiently
transcribing forgotten melodies,
compressing ivory keys
to sing of all that was lost
and what was gained
from the process.

pressed flowers are still dead flowers,
like dressing up a corpse.
a naive form of taxidermy;
creating beauty from dead things.

daily, i spend several hours
cowering over mortality,
wondering if i, too, will be
stuffed, positioned in motion,
my presence interwoven
in stories and broken words,
scattered like ashes in the ocean.

or, perhaps, i'll only be
a narrative forever at rest,
pressed
between pages of poetry.