The morning melts
like sugar
into first light's
pour.

Your touch
lingers
like
honey,
And your breath
plays me
like your favorite
song.

Behind your eyes
silence,
caught in glass.

No need for words,
no need to see—
just this
slow
breathing
symphony.

i imagine you sprawled across your bed
ankles crossed in the air, hair
falling in strands out of your neon
ponytail, bent over some graphic novel
that looks like it’s seen the bottom
of a backpack far too many times.

i imagine you have one of those smiles,
the kind that blooms soft and slow
across your cheeks like a lily, Louyse.

Lily Louyse, i see you upside-down on the
monkeybars, grinning like it all means nothing,
like the fire is long-gone, no smoke in the
air.
not anymore.

but the fire once was, we both know.

it burned your eyes as you shook
body wracked with a million papercuts
a million scars only you could see.
it licked your palms as you
clawed
at the darkness, wishing for some answer
some semblance-of-self.
i see you curled in a ball on the floor
silently begging the world for—
oh, i don’t know.
all I know is i’ve done, felt, screamed
the same.

but i have this strange feeling that
you peeled yourself up and gathered
each scrap ripped like a banned book
and taped yourself together
with shaking fingers.
and then you floated downstairs and
let the television drown out those
stupid, stupid thoughts and
smiled as kate winslet embraced the
sky—“i’m flying!”—
and i have this strange feeling that you will be
okay.

You gild my haunted mind like Carnegie's ghost
A shining parenthesis for brass-poisoned dreaming.
I wish I could reach my rhizomes through time like you do--
          or space, even!
I want to watch you do anything.
  Fill a Passchendaele shell-hole with
  your triumphant tears; heal it, like it's easy.
I want to watch you do anything
  Stretch your Mud & Slush smile from the Esplanade-Riel
  across Minnesota and then right through me.

Reframe my failings, won't you?
(If that's what you think they are)
Or rewire my frowning night times, at least?
Spread me thin across your time, if you like;
but let me have some.

Find some worth, won't you?, in my fraying wires
  my decaying lines of code,
  my fear of success?

I have only my vagueness, and banks of bad metaphors
to measure against the tradewinds you blow across my minute bow.
You are such victory, such mighty reaching.
     Don't fault me my anxiety.

Sunset burns
in my eyes
like a piece of nostalgia
not yet extinguished
at the border
of steel and soil
shadows stretch long
become a silent giant
bearing the weight of all these years
standing still in the fissure
of time
at the street corner where
town meets countryside
I remember the sparkling beach
waves murmur in foam
lapping the shores of memory
on the other side
it's the roar of bulldozers
the arousal of city’s neon
sinking into a soft sofa
is what many dwellers here call life
two souls twist in the night
loneliness heavier than our skeletons
two unfamiliar thoughts pressed
in a momentarily illusion
breaths synced like a metronome
falling and rising
searching for any place to land
wind tapping the windowpane
bringing the paleness of dawn
behind us
who are numb to the passion
mountains stretch on
silent and strong
lifting a vast sky
beneath it all
is the weave of city and country
the tangle of dreams and reality
and the countless footsteps
of the faceless
setting out again, fading down the hall
in the morning
faint click of a door
sealing off the shape of
a little comfort.

breaking moans
slick as stones
force of my
savage form

dipping my fingers
in a lake of cotton and honey
a marvel, the way the moon
reflects my absolute need

it's funny, how i become
a beast when i cannot choke back
the tension

oh the tension, the retention of all
thoughts from this week
why must my ecstasy be a secret
that i have to keep?

It wasn’t really a night
It was broad daylight,
But something about your gaze
Turned the sun to shade and light to haze.

I wish I could tell you,
How I admire the way your eyes burn through
Every wall I’ve ever built
Soft fire wrapped in lashes, sharp as guilt.

But words can’t hold the truth in me,
Not until you’re right in front of me
Not until silence wraps the air,
And you kneel without fear, without a care.

You won’t understand what poetry means,
Not in verses, nor in written scenes
But in that breathless moment, still and wide,
When hearts no longer need to hide.

a broken plate
with its sharp edges
and dwindling purpose

A child sleeps in neon static
his ribs spell passwords no one reads.
Coins blink on screens, not in palms.
A mother trades her breath for bandwidth.

They stitch worth in barcode veins,
souls archived in debt.

Yet
in the ruin’s hum,
a hand still reaches
not to take,
but to hold.

Shriek

Throw this flesh into wind for to be tattered.

Flense & flay me; sprayed hot onto cold asphalt. Ribbon shred.

This isn't loving Summer, no. Springtime is
planting-
     gestation--
          gasping births---
                violence.
The invasion that is existing.

The Green of April is no gleaming emerald;
It is fury. It is ravenous hunger. It is manic desperation to be
It is the razor's edge of bleeding insistence.

Remove these bones. Festoon your thoughts with the sting and the ache. These verbs are command form. It is Spring.

That ripping. That fibrous, fluid tear. You hear it, yes?

Tilt me over and spill my ******* guts out.
Clouds of grey and bright red rain--squall of ichor. Knife wind.

Let us weep thunderstorms. Chagrin these Gods of Drought.

Howl

Scream for us both. Wail until the throat bleeds. Blood decanter.
Pour us out of you until the sidewalk hides from the cold.

Chilly today! Should've brought an anorak, eh?

Gale force wind. Tear me up. Spare no expense, accept no substitutes.
Leave no intact iota. Return me to my component parts. Atomize me.
Untangle us, we are a tragedy.
...And, after all, this is a slasher, yeah?

I mean. At least distract me. Ya know?

Is it the words that flow and rhyme
And dance in rhythm, keeping time?

Or is it a line
That breaks when it wants to,
Not when it’s told;
A thought
Spilling without apology?

Or 5-7-5
Secrets whispered by the wind
Words, though few, sing true?

Perhaps it is found behind coughed petals,
Fourteen lines aligning to pave a stage
Where lovers for love charge into battle
And hearts are found pierced or tangled in rage

Or ten words, though short, a poem for the world

Or the sun spilling gold across the sky
Painting clouds as the sea drowns its light.

To me, poetry is emotion;
Memory,
Ink spilled where the heart leaked
And it is not meant for everyone