Cobwebs Soul & Stars

I am drunken with delirium;
a sentiment brought on by watching you, imagining the way you saw the room tonight. was the shade of flame the same shade that i saw bouncing off your skin?

was the bass as out of tune for you as it was for the woman sitting next to me, foot bouncing feverishly, as though horny and frustrated? did the wine taste as red as it look'd?

i watched you recreate life on a scrap of repurposed oxygen, and what a window! that pianist had twentytwofingers!
but of course he did!
how could i not see that?
What was i wearing?
did i spill any whisky or mouthwash into my beard?

I ran away to the bathroom for a respite of too many thoughts, too many lingerings and i was haunted by all the musicians doing dope and crossword puzzles; lines of coke and playing backgammon, figuring out the imperial evidence necessary to prove that you and i were there for a reason.

Perhaps not.
Perhaps the lavender i saw was a reflection of the wailing sirens i witness'd just as the drummer let one go and bop bam pat pat pat zing,
did you see that?

i know you did.
You told me so when the radio was off
and your voice carried, broke, then continued,
all the while i was wondering: when was the last time you sang for someone? when will you sing for me again?

do you hear this as a song?
shall i keep singing?

Wintertime as Isolation

been spending time throwing parties, punches, throwing away needless memories throwing fits of misanthropic festivities;
somewhere in all of this, i stare out my window seeing only trees.
Leavves falling.
Falling leaves.
Everything (re: everyone) leaves.

The leaves donot fall in a picaresque singularity; instead they fall in clumps, showing me that one needs to be a part of something in order to be remembered.

Through the wall i hear child's laughter. Either the television is on and what i hear is a recording, or the little girl next door is excited for dad to have come home. And all the while i can't stop thinking about the marmalade i never bought at the little shop round the corner from yours.

I am no closer to reliving yesterday than I am to forgetting tomorrow.

In Defense of Antithetical Illusions

Fragmented muses dance in
stolen silence, hindering an inability
to conquer myself's fear.

humbled is too strong a word,
and yet, here i am,
waiting for time to go on -- to continue;
to take me by the hand,
to listen to what i do not say out loud.
as children we cried when appropriate,
now, we tear up in empty theatre halls, film playing steadily, and yet i'm unawares
of anyone anything,

unaware to the couple sitting next to me at the bar, fighting

giving up on each other

too afraid to look into the other's eye,
because they'll see what was once good, and what still might be could be and very well is, and instead look around, at all the "possibilities"

thinking that happiness might exist in another lousy drink, over dimly lit candles, with someone they havenot yet met.
Or, what's worse, they think that their misery is more worthy of a story;

they think fourty years into nothing,
imagining themselves imagining running into someone they once loved, leaving thinking,

"what if"
& "if only"

fuck this and fuck that.

i tremble -- the world is collapsing at its edges and its core,
everyone i love comes to mind;
you, enter stage left,
and i freeze,

please be well.

A Study In What We Cannot Change

You once asked
me

to not make
you

a story; so i made you my future,

then You decided to not
be My future.

All i can do now
is make you a story.

A Study in This Moment

I am not ready for yo
u

To fall
in

Love with
Someone

that is
not
me

Passion.

Tonight

I feel in fine spirits
And for that reason your face comes to mind (clear as day),
as though you were still laying next to me;
i find your scent as though it were the compass pointing me Home,

and yet in the darkness of consciousness you are no closer to me than the end

and i am caught shaking yearning vacant elated tempted and devastatingly holy.

Bring me the water from the well you spit up. I won't drink it, but i'll keep it under my bed, just waiting for my final moment of lucid-ness:

One last drop,
and i'll surrender to the Universe

the way i did when you decided to walk in to my life; i only pray that i am capable of being that awake and that aware again.

The Perplexity Between This and That

I wonder if there's a version of us, somewhere, anywhere, in which we are laying in bed together, instead of me filling the emptiness with words, these words, like a prayer; a version of us where we're still holding hands, instead of me holding my breath, where the wind smells of chamomile and not like the roast beef my downstairs neighbor is cooking for her boyfriend who is celebrating another birthday; an us where you are happy and i am happy and your sister is still Here, and she happens to be staying with us because instead of being gone, she is here, celebrating our love, because she can see just how much i love you and how much you love me.

If that version of us existed, i wouldn't need Immortality. I would want to be mortal. I would love to fear the day i no longer existed just knowing you would miss me. Instead, i know you don't miss me, and pretending to be okay with that is beginning to really take effect on how often i smile in a day. I can count the amount of times i have smiled in the last month. With you, i could keep track of how often i didn't.

In this version of us, i have to waste time wishing you would come back.
In that version of us, i would spend my time making you laugh.

Let's be that version of us; this version is eshausting.

A Study in Distance

once,

we were distanced only
by mere ignorance of
the others
existence;

now,

what is our excuse?

Whispers Apples We

we whisper'd our way through
with our happiness,
always careful not to disturb those, who
for some reason or another
would not understand it, or know how
to empathize with it,
because happiness

is something similar to describ
-ing green to someone who's never seen
anything
other than an orchard,
replete with
rotting apples that
they call chrysanthemums;

who are we to say otherwise

A Study in Bereavement

to say that i still love you
is accurate;

to say that i still know you
is illusory.

Old Friends

In the surreptitious nature of disembowlment, I found that which I believ'd lost: an anecdotal memory,

in which I am not, but there is
& according to professionals, perhaps.

But what is there, behind the frosted, tinted, ambiguous lucidity of a promise,
after all the lights are off, and everyone has gone home,

And I am left waiting for you,
but of course, I am not there
and you are; this is what
good enough is.

somewhere along the road,
I rediscovered disillusion
and it felt like running into an old friend.

A Portrait For A Missed Lady

riddled in ceramic fragrances,
somewhere the light chaces;
and opportunity turned to ashen desperation. stagnant. mesmerized hours

of bastions left dressed
in silken robes,
and yellowed abandon

i want to sing into my own ears,
because I want you to see me smile.
it felt more real.

absence is nothing.

Hope is the last thing to go down with a sinking ship,
because the sun still shines regardless of the shadows cast by sinking ships,
or wounded lovers & those on shore still enjoy a new day.

Infinite & Intimate

A single moment of intimacy,
between held fingers and
intertwined

destinies,

I imagin'd you and then you were.

In a moment, a lifetime.
In a shadow, a future.
In a smile, a promise.
In laughter, infinity.

A lifetime of always returning to you at the end of the day.

A future of endless possibilities, because with you all is possible.

A promise of always loving you more than yesterday, but less than tomorrow.

Infinity, because the only way to live, is knowing that we are forever. 

Self Preservation

Grandiosity exists;
staring back in the mirror

with eyes so piercing
that breath falters
when
they echo back
the fears
& resilience
& lavender
of the one
looking for something

to believe in.

A pool, a cave, a vast
abundance of everything
necessary,
just unblinkingly staring.

When you stare into the abyss,
it stares back,

and smiles.

First Dates

somewhere along the rotting hydrangeas you claim belonged to your mother, you held tight on to a pearl necklace. fidgety. as if the cold of the pearls was too much and you felt like blaming it on me.

a couple of bottles of wine later you were telling me 'bout laughter and how it doesn't "go" with anything you own, and because of that you feel you are owed a new pair of shoes, and for the love of god, can i please shut up?

a couple more bottles of wine: the atmosphere is changing and apparently i have changed too, because now you reproach me in the tone you reproach your father, and the lingering sentiment of thyme and cinnamon is calling me back to the kitchen, where the chef would like to stick the meat cleaver into my back, and i will gladly accept if only to get away from your unreserved and unapologetic interrogation.

more wine. more birds.
less this.

i am currently sitting in the middle of my bed; pillows and condoms and rosarys and blankets thrown about the room. i am redecorating: what do you think?