Morph
Morph into anything
Into a nightmare
Into a pleasant dream
A morning bird
Or a moonlit bedroom
Fear of handcuffs
Or whisper's trust
Into an old man
Or newborn flower
Stain of coffee
Or withering grass

Whatever
You'll morph into
In my dream

I'll still love you

rather than check
the forecast
for some reason
i think it enough
to merely
look to the sky
for a cursory
ten or so seconds
to observe the drifting
of weighty clouds
the overwhelming of
any strokes of blue
that might remain
being diminished
by the shifting greys
of approaching rain
before surmising
whether or not
a coat or umbrella
might be needed
at some point
in the coming hours

I was never good at avoiding pain
It is what comes from placing faith
And why I do something so vain
When I can't know that there is ground beneath
I can't tell you, but I can recount
How my days are nothing until
I hear from you, and then I count
Another age until you will
Show me something I think is love.
I don't know what makes me depend
On knowing this; perhaps I could dream of
Stopping and do it, too, but rend
My heart in three rather than that I
Should let your claim upon me die.

i hate being uncertain about certain things
especially so when it's 'em hurtin things
but as a writing frenchman once penned

"Of course I'll hurt you
Of course you'll hurt me
Of course we will hurt each other
But this is the very condition of existence
To become spring means accepting the risk of winter..."

and with all winters
warm rosy summers lie ahead.

a dusky walk
through the middle
of the park
clear of
the shadows
of branch
and leaf
at its edges
the only light
stretched out
but struggling
from distant
lamp posts
or the
yet more distant
halo of moon
breaching cloud
it is enough
to plot
a route by
but not
with confidence

a leather flapping
overhead
tells tale
of bats
in their erratic
yet assured flight
abhorred
by many
perhaps for
that very reason;
unpredictable
unflinching
not flying
the expected path

Are you unhappy with how we hold hands?
When every finger fits?
Does my beard tickle or prickle?
Or does it turn you on?
A silly, little, fickle thing,
To cast my doubts upon
Does my voice scratch or scrape?
Does it surprise and delight?
Or does it swallow you
In the endless ocean of night?
Can I make you happy?
And have enough to spare?
Or am I driving on empty?
Too gone to care

I
He has hands and feet now.
And eyes that can close off the world to such a limited view.
  Look at the sun and it is bright,
  Even when the sky shifts to his other sight,
  That warps the fabric of space into view.
  Gravity bends around and around the star burning above,
  Trapping his gaze under its twisting fire.
He forces the vision away, blinking
Once and then twice, then thrice while it lingers.

He breathes in and out
Tucks back a strand of hair glowing red even if there wasn’t light.
Humans see the brightness,
The nameless shade slipping through their thoughts
Slithering down their necks, causing the hair to rise.
When it catches his eye,
When he lets it catch his eye
The dying red star, the one he wasn’t finished slurping down,
Glimmers in those strands of hair.

II
Once, a very long time ago yet so recently in his memory,
There was a hole, gaping and black
Not quite as empty as humans like to pretend that they are.
Stars and planets, bits of rock with life clinging to the surface
Sliding down, down, down what was once a mouth.
That’s all, everything he was, only a mouth to devour.
Until—

His hands clench.
His hands, his feet, his eyes
The mouth closed so very tight
Even if past the lips only round little teeth reside and not
A bottomless abyss.
He might be wrong about that, though
Never could quite build the courage to face a mirror and open wide,
To see if that echoless emptiness still waits inside this carbon-construction of a body.  

He breathes in and out, feels the air slip into lungs
And out again unlike those stars and planets from so long ago.
How was it? How did he become like this?
During that time when his appetite was vast,
Yet he couldn’t have been larger than a drop of ink on a page.
How did he grow, yet become so contained
That the light can strike off this form and not fall into him forever like it did then.

III
There once was an item of science and a priest of old—
The light, the light that doesn’t fall in like the other rays slips its fingers
Into the maw, pulling its jaw open to the point that it
Cracks and realizes that
Its eating, that’s what it—he is doing
That’s all he’s doing, and he wants more
Not more to eat, but more to existing.
And the light pulls out the half-eaten star,
Weaving the red and the orange and the yellow
Into strands that settle past shaking shoulders.

The memory of what he once was presses down upon him as
He wraps his arms around
Those shoulders that only shiver now
Under the weight of boundaries
That keeps the people walking by from falling into him.
He looks back up
Searching for the light that molded him into this shape.
The sun is too dim though, the rays brushing too weakly against his face
To be whatever god forced him into human limbs.