"Can I have this dance?"
I take your hand and follow you to the dance floor.
We begin. Moving gracefully at first,
Every twist and turn comes with ease.
A turn and suddenly, a misstep.
I turn back to you, confused.
We're on the same dance floor, only now I can't hear the music.
But you can.
I try to lock eyes with you, attempting to feel your next moves.
But you aren't looking at me, and your hands feel like air in mine.
I am completely at your mercy.
I plead with my eyes to make you understand that I'm lost.
I ask for clarity, but the words get lost between my lips.
You push and pull me from side to side,
No warning, no clue as to where I'll go next.
In between dips and turns, we go back to a simple pattern.
Flawless, fluid, in sync.
Then the music changes and you adjust
I stumble and feel your arms steady me, then spin me around.
My head pounds from the whiplash.
Now we're clumsy, awkward, disjunct.
I look up to see an empty dance floor.
With you still leading me through a blind dance.
I go along with the back and forth, the fluid and clumsy.
Because what can I do on an endless floor with no music and no direction.

The bedsheets roll over,
as you pause to hover
over miles and miles of my skin,
that tangle with yours akin.

You spill the pearls of desire,
as I intently glow, like fire
that burns the dark meadows
into the forgotten shadows.

Our breaths stay still,
as the night slowly fill
the silences that once stayed.
Then stars burst all at once, a grenade.

The wind roams flirtatiously,
as we grow voraciously
high in the night, to drown
in the drunk sheets, before dawn.

Some days blend well
with smiles and songs
and the passion of love
leaving swishing whirlpools inside

Some days settle down
as dregs in a teacup
the bitter dross
sticking to the froth around the edge
and the residue coming to the surface
as if constantly stirred

Some days, the mind’s slits open
and fancies sluice down
like a dam with shutters removed
or like birds fleeing away from a cage

then hands quiver and ink spills

Some days, I feel so alone
stretching me on the rack of pain
then I shut myself from the outside world
like a periwinkle withdrawn to its shell
hoping nothing,
sinking under dead weight
unable to feel if dead or alive!

The evening
Gently wrapped up all the light
Off the aurulent sky
Unfolding charcoal hues
The stars glimmer dimly
Somewhere a rainbow arcs

Why must sleep evade me?
A thing of rest, arrest the soul.
Restless beauty, cold, untold.
A lie, shapeless mass meanders by
and as I sleep, the truth unfolds:
when I sleep the colors leak,
the colors slip and fade.
They break and play around my bed.
The shadows on my walls
are not angry, they are tame.
The shadows laugh, they play a game.
They reach and rake their playful claws
against my skin.
They take my mind.
Faking lines to keep me tired but always lying
to keep my flying thoughts from breaking free.
I am not free.
The walls, they trap me in dumb slumber,
passing seconds beyond number
while I scream and shake and rake
my fingernails across the door inside my mind.
My mind, mindlessly reeling.
Blindly feeling for some peeling hole,
a hole out of the wholly unrelenting crevice,
wherein a menace waiting for a certain slip,
sliding into sickness, into sleep.
The moments before sleep are bleak.
Monsters on the floorboards creep and creak.
No way to bolt the door, still unsure,
where sleep takes me and what for?
I am restless, my mind creeps.
It knows, I know, I must soon fall to sleep.

It’s a sunny day.
Clouds squat over the horizon,
But under their hazy scowl
The sunshine burns all the brighter.
I am not lifted, I am comforted.
Still broken, but mending.
Golden warmth wraps around me;
Nervous breeze touches my face,
Fingertips caressing my skin.
The smell of rain reminds me
My path is hidden in fog.
But for now, I close my eyes.
I enjoy the warmth
Of a sunny day.