Ensnarement

You won't look me in the eyes,
hold my hands, kiss my lips,
whisper tender, loving words
while I fall asleep next to you
in a heavenly feather bed,
stroke my hair, or pat my head

(anymore). 

You will look at me seductively,
lick your lips, speak your mind
about what you want to (fucking) do,
and I said stop-no-really-stop
stopstopstopSTOP!

You can't hear me.
You don't listen.

(I tried to tell you no.)

You ensnare me in your eyes.
Your false pretenses and broken promises
provide a comfort. 
They are always there.

(Just as I am always trapped here.)

Precarious Balances

Precarious balances between steady and unstable
are obvious, when the rope we walk rocks back and forth.

There is a rope that we tip-toe,
as humans emerged
in humanity and evil.

It is constantly fluid.
It moves with us and against us.
We never know which direction
it is planning until it is too late.
We have either crossed it,
or we have fallen below.

Falling below the line hurts
more than a broken bone at an odd angle;
it hits right in the home of things.
We find that we can not breathe,
thinking we can't possibly go any further down,
and then this rope drops us down two hundred more stories
that we did not think we could go,
that we will not survive.

We bruise and break our hearts this way;
do not talk, do not scream, just whisper apologies
that no one will hear, because our voices are just too far gone.

There's nothing here for us;
it is an empty carcass.

Listening closely, though, we hear others dropping
one by one - like flies - as they say goodbyes
that are not due to death, but to unfinished cries.

Precarious balances between steady and unstable
are obvious, when the rope we walk rocks back and forth.

Perspectives

This empty ghost town
is full of dusty memories.
Particles of them float in the air,
and she and he and you and I
will catch them on bittersweet tongues
and in our runaway hearts.

There's a building half-torn down;
a construction project forsaken
in the hopes of better times,
of better lives.

This empty ghost town
has a white wall painted
with dreams by way of graffiti.
There's no way to miss it;
that one there, he wanted to be a doctor,
and she wanted to be a teacher,
and they wanted to be the first pair of twins
to fly to the moon and back.

There's a building half-built;
a construction project that's the beginning
to a different world,
to a different view.

This empty ghost town
may not be so empty after all.
There's hopes, and dreams, and aspirations
settled in the bones of the city,
and it shakes, because it feels
it may one day breathe again.

There's a building half-there;
a construction project where there's no one
to tell it what it sees or what to do,
where there's no one and everyone
all at once. 

June 28th, 2012

In This Old Cabin

In this old cabin where neither person speaks
one word to the other, there is no intention
of sparking conversation. There is no sincere
invitation to tell the other about a key-and-lock love.

Her eyes are dull and lifeless. Her words are as repetitive 
as the back-and-forth sound of her rocking chair,
as the motions her hands make while she cross-stitches
her life into pictures no one else will understand but him.

His eyes are empty. His words provide no gentleness,
no tender love, nothing to spark her back to life.
His rough hands rub together, but he has forgotten 
how to take hold of her hand, how to make her happy.

In this old cabin where neither person lives,
where the key and the lock no longer work together,
where words are said but have no feeling,
there is little left to say but goodbyes.


June 25th, 2012

Matchmaker

When the time comes,
fingers will scrape the palms
of another's hand.

When the time comes,
arms will stretch into the galaxy
to find another's embrace.

When the time comes,
eyes will find their match
by the way the other pair shimmers.

When the time comes, 
two bodies will seem like one,
like they're closer than the stars.



June 22, 2012

The Citadel

She shows only a fraction
of who she is; she picks and chooses
the parts she wants to show,
hides the rest underneath
her carefully ironed designer outfit.

Her thick walls are solid:
she will not let the cold, cruel world
invade her violent internal war.

There is not even a scratch on her surface;
she purposely keeps it smooth, even, unworthy of notice.
She will not let the dirty fingertips and corrupted minds of this world
touch her own; not because she's better,
but because she is worse.

Her thick walls are stone:
there is no way out, all exits are blocked,
and she will resign to playing games of "What if?" and solitaire.



June 16th, 2012.

Exposed

Tick, tick tock. Tock, tick. Tick, tock.
Red second-hand bloody with murder.
It kills every minute in slow torture.
It spends in a circle - it never stops -
one always hears the tick, tick tock.

Shushed

I'm sorry to tell you that I cannot hold
this secret between my lips, cannot show
you what I am, cannot tell you I will not live,
because I will not see that look in your eyes.

There is little left to say, my dear,
and all the world is shushed.

It will not pass by, there will be marks etched in the sand, 
things to be remembered by a treasured, forgotten photograph.
There will be life in the pink sea shells on the marble bathroom counter,
the ones I used to put by your ear.

There is little left to say, my dear,
and all my world is shushed.

The fact that I surrendered to the waves
shall mean nothing to you, I will make sure your tears
are never leaked from the facet; you will hate me,
but it is so indefinitely better.

There is little left to say, my dear,
and all our world is shushed.

Swallow

You hold me dear,
caress with the softest of hands.
A comforting gesture
that inspires fear.

I'll take you on,
head to head
face to face
but I know,
you know,
you'll always win.

It's an imprint within my genes.
With air thicker than my blood,
you'll swallow the whole of me.

Numbered Scales

She steps to the dark,
the one thing she knows.
She's just skin and bones,
and lies fill where she's hallow.

The words are her substance,
what allows her to grow
into someone smaller,
someone crumbling at every edge.

The nights are long,
her body pushes much too hard.
Her eyes lack light,
she's lost herself.

-----------------------

He grasps her arm,
feeds her with words of hope.
He holds her body,
easing the pain with love.

There is nothing he can do
to help her in her world.
She's lost to the sunlight,
her soul is trapped in sunsets.

He whispers in her ear,
but she cannot listen.
She is so far gone,
he doesn't think she's coming home.

-----------------------

Naked before each other,
there is nothing left to say.
The tears she cries are like frozen glass,
hard and cold and cracked and broken.

Nothing has to be said,
they both know that in the morning,
he'll be gone.
There's nothing left for them.

She is not beyond repair,
just stumbling to the side of the trail,
but she's contained in a winter nightmare,
made of flattened dreams and numbered scales.








Inspired by
Kent - We Need To Eat

Intentions

Shadowed intentions drown,
the bright sunlight allowing
misery to be overcome with love,
but there is always a twist, a catch
that will wrench the heart and draw
tears from the spirit.

Monsters hide underneath beds,
never to show their faces,
but always to make us aware
of their presence, pressing
against our livelihood with claws
made of stolen lies.

They hide our secrets, our darkest desires
our deepest hopes, and our longing fires.
They overtake the love that overcame-
and we don't come away the same.

Replaced

With labored breathing of dirty air,
stinging eyes look into the fog, the mirror
of the town that has no voice, no soul, no life.

Ticking footsteps make hearts stop and heads spin,
taking away what is needed to live,
and giving back soil instead.

A time-bomb is waiting within this ghost city,

and I cannot breath while you watch me,
eyes so cold and clear and hard.

Flip-Flop [dark humor]

Her legs are balanced on the wire,
graceful in her skill, like a swan in water.
One leg moves past the other in a tight motion
and then-


flip

She lands delicately, with arms stretched
and toes pointed; it's as if she never moved.
The wire starts to shake, unexpected,
and even the most experienced can fail.

flop


januaryeighthtwothousandtwelve

Panic

Heart is racing, pounding at the cage,
trying to escape its captivity behind solid bones.
Breath comes quick, sharply, unnatural, forced,
but there is no air, no relief, in my lungs.

Body shakes, mind quakes, trying to think
though the fog that encompasses my being.
Trapped behind closed doors, frightened terror
beseeches to be held down, to be controlled.

Can't make a sound, lost to the world,
reason failing, mindless flailing,
tears shred my face like ice, numbing
my soul to the pain--

but it is there, so very real.
The silent agony of the screams are lost
on the conscious mind, but present,
always there, always lusting for release.

My hands grip hold reality, all that's left,
weak as they are, as I try to command them.
Darkness threatens to overrule my sense,
and, merciless, it takes its dominion.

januarythirdtwothousandtwelve

Darkness

heart won't stop beating,
tears won't stop falling,
I can't stop breathing.

Agony, agony.
Anger, anguish.

Chest heaves in terrified forced sobs;
it is raked by soulless black fingers,
violating my every fiber.

Coarse words won't leave my lips,
and I am only thankful
as darkness takes my mind.

januaryonetwothousandtwelve

to their knees

strewn words of kindness
but for conjecture,
because conviction needs no guidance
when hatred consumes the heart.

icy finger-tips burn, bite, sting, leave
traces of the inky blackness 
on the soul, deprived of mercy
from oneself.

cowering in a crowded room,
empty but for deprecating thoughts,
the noble cry, brought to nothing 
and their knees.


decemberthirtiethwothousandtwelve