Shadows cast by moonlight don’t quite seem so dark now;
I suppose she too wonders what it is we lost.
Even the scratching branches of dead trees
look alive in the pale light of mourning.
The oxymoron isn’t lost, she keeps looking down, Mona Lisa smile
on the craters that line the rim of her lips.

I wonder if she knows of the holes in our hearts,
the tears in our souls, if her light doesn’t come down in rays
but in stitches, the healing power of a drifting love.
Can she feel the weight of our lives from so far away?
Does she listen to the prayers said in vain?
Dead syllables floating up like feathers,
broken syntax of the voices cut with pain.

Listen to the glisten of the frost in her coldest nights,
sometimes your name comes whispering through the mist,
fearless, furtive, affirmative in scope and in scale.
Yet there is something I have still to do,
as the moon continues her journey through the heart of the dark.
I must let you go.
I must lose you.

After wondering, I’m sure she knows exactly what she lost,
maybe that’s why she smiles, to hide just how much it hurts.
She might have holes in her heart,
she might have had her soul torn apart,
but if she speaks, her words get lost in the distance,
that awful distance that time itself cannot overcome.
Maybe I should be grateful I cannot hear her cry.

She sinks away, and her light is snuffed out by the dark,
without whimper, without fear, a little sparkle in her eye.
She knows and so do we, she will rise again,
but a little part of her will be lost, swallowed by shadow,
but eventually time will repair her and make her whole once more.
I think that’s why she’s there,
why she always smiles.
She shows us we can survive, if we really want to.
Light and dark, it comes and goes, but the dark is necessary
to appreciate the true beauty of the light.

That is why she’s there.
That is her beautiful gift.

these lakes hold nothing more than the emptiness of my own two hands;
      than the silent fall of my breath.
because the birds are awake and the sky is still an empty canvas
              that I didn’t finish, that I chose not to because these fingers would not keep still, because they were too focused on tracing you,
    and trying to twine you back together again,

and the sun does not speak to us, not like we speak to it,
    It does not open its sad, dull mouth to try and herd together our aching, empty words,
It does not speak in tune, it does not speak at all.
and the moon does not look at us, not like we look at it,
It does not try to study the placing of our bones, or our wide open arms and how they got that way,
It does not wonder why we sing to it, why we sing to it with our hoarse throats and heavy eyes.

these lakes write in cursive. These lakes write in ripples
from our lips, whistling over them, delicate, trying not to disturb.
these lakes know us. These lakes do not forget -
can’t forget, because we have fixed our naked backs into their stomachs, floating,
trying to write our way into the sonnet,
trying to be a part of something other than our own selves.

But the birds cry from grief, and all the water tries to do, is drown us.

So we both walk home alone, bare feet parading over torn ground, shoes grasped between our bleeding hands.

It’s better off this way.
It’s always been better of this way.

Cessation of breath
Come to me, death
How I made the world
my own little orb
Dust to dust and
rust to rust to rest
Find my soul flying
as my body dying
with grass at my feet
smile on my face
Gathered my dreams
and far flung hopes
and threw away
Sometimes I thought
that the dark was mine
but I had light
in me all along
Shining on bright
like summer sunbeams
I shared my light
even if that
kept me in darkness
My life is so
fleeting and brief
but I had one
hell of a time
with you all
Goodnight

Entwined together like ivy and a railing,
dreaming of evolution and the subtle art of nailing.
Bedsheets stuck to our backs as they sweat,
our secret seduction, our little tete-a-tete.
Body slides on body, the moaning of encumbrance,
the incorruptible pleasure associated with circumference.
Your tears belie the pleasure flowing from your carnal side,
let go of all your troubles, sweep me out with your tide.

I know it’s watching me from between the dusty pines,
learning my path and mimicking my gait.
Maybe it’s just my shadow and the light is playing tricks,
but I swear it moves for a fraction of a second after I stop.
Maybe it’s the ice in the air that is refracting it all wrong,
maybe there is nothing to fear but the illusion of safety.
Still I stumble on down this narrow, winding path,
branches snagging on my sleeves and slowing down my pace,
and all the while that shadow or whatever it is to be called,
keeps up with me and never lets me out of his hungry gaze.

The trees are never-ending, there is no break that I can see,
no meadow swaying with grass so green in a murmuring breeze,
just the sound of my own heartbeat pulsing in my ears,
drowning out the footsteps my shadow must surely make.
There are other shadows creeping in from the corner of my sight,
the light I’ve come to take for granted fading from my view,
but still I persevere and determined to overcome
whatever may be hunting me, whatever must be there.
But a dream this is, no mortal man should fear what isn’t there,
a mirage of such sublime beauty that no one could ever believe.

And I stop.
Frozen in place.
It is in front of me.
It is I myself.
There I stand.
The dark me.
The me I hide.

It speaks my name.
The language of horror.
Riddles and rhymes.
He comes at me.
I try to fight.
There is no point.

The woods this time of year are a much deeper shade of green,
and the ice hanging in the air shimmers like dead angels.
But the snow around my feet slowly begins to melt
as the darkness and heat come flooding in and take over my being.

There’s a storm coming,
I can feel its teeth in the wind,
biting at my face and fingers.
I can hear it too,
the low growl of a hungry carnivore,
the rumbling of a thunderous gut.

Everyone is oblivious,
there is danger coming
and it is so palpable.
Can you not taste it?
Can you not smell it?
The hot breath of death
vibrating the back of your neck?

Everyone is so busy,
*******, texting, *******, crying.
Death is at your heels
and you do not know.
A thousand crows make landfall
and you think something else has died?

There’s a storm coming.
You can wish it away
but this is no fairytale.
There is no magic to save you,
no antique lamp to rub.
What you think is your skin
is just a body bag.
Your soul just a flirtatious rumour.