Desire.

What is this fire?

In Warmth and Hunger

I tuck my legs beneath me, wrap myself in warmth and hunger. I rest my head on the arm of the loveseat; my eyes focus and refocus on your name, your face. Your uncertain smile begins to flicker and finally fade. My hands grow heavy over time. I am used to the bright hiccup of your laugh but now somehow manage to hear the quicksilver slide of one disobedient tear slip and fall into the rough upholstery. The signs are no longer clear, I search for intent. Not long ago you whispered poetry across the ocean until I writhed with longing for your voice. Did I imagine my throat sore from words unsaid? Do you grow tired, dropping your head to a plastic pillow, your monitor glaring blankly down?

I spun silver and green for you, promises whipped into a froth and a skipping giggle. In the rushing blush of want and imagination I found you. I found you. Now let me hear your answer, if it's your nervous call or a dark and hollow no, I can bear it. All but silence, all but this, whatever the price of pleasure, I'll pay and count myself lucky.

"Are you alright? I wish you'd give me a little clue.
Is there something that you want to say? 'Cause you took off without a word.
Are you alright, you flew away like a little bird.
Is there anything I can do? 'Cause I need to hear from you."
- Lucinda Williams

Le Premier Homme

J'attendrai, il me démêlerai me. Les étoiles chuchotent son nom.

I Bear the Hard News

I bear the hard news,
the shaking trees
unfurling darkly across a winter-whitened sky.

I rock back and forth for only a moment,
my eyes turning back, far back
to memories that play like a sick reel-to-reel.

Good thing now, my bones are plated in steel,
my gut, mesh and wire,
my feet are bare and blue.

I bear the hard news,
and I bear it alone
and even the stars whisper your name.

I am frantic, searching,
my hair unwashed and falling,
lank and dark across my shoulder.

I eat stones, I taste iron,
resting my head on concrete
my hands ragged and torn.

I bear the hard news,
and the world begins to buzz
and finally to split.

Sonata Pathétique

I am always a disappointment, I'm afraid. I speak clearly of beautiful people, eyes flashing across dinner tables and concert halls. I am not even the same species, sleeves too short, skin too blemished. Not even my sorrows are original, copied from my betters. There will never be a man who gasps to see me in cobalt silk, skin like cream and bisque. Eyes will always slide over me, judging correctly what I have to offer and oh, it always falls short. How I laugh loudest, never last, cheap pantyhose unraveling beneath stapled hems.

"You are nothing; you have nothing."

You Number the Stars

You number the stars, find secrets in science
and silence.
You turned and climbed,
whispered foreign phrases.

"I outran grief;
I graphed here, the points of loss.
Do you see, now,
how I could not fail?"

You kneel to the ground,
laughing, wanting,
reciting the names of the gods,
translating the geometry of want
and the physics of loss.

Did I wait too late,
your gently burning heart
skipping like a turning record?

Fields Lie Fallow

Fields lie fallow;
birds wheel wildly in a blankly burning sky.
There is a dreadful waiting,
the sigh before the wailing cry.
the silent hiss of an ill-turned radio.
What next? I can only beg.
The crackling bark of lightning,
the terrible will of the fog.

I collapse and fold myself beneath myself,
hands over my head,
as freezing rain counts off:
This is not a drill.
This is not a drill.

The Shivering Moon

Since we've met, it seems the stars have left the sky. I could pull the dense blanket of night around my shoulders and there hardly be a murmur to protest. The moon is as bright as an eye, a shiny dime leaching into silvery white, sneaking past and scattering shards across my bed and my sleeping face.

You laugh upon hearing this, insist there are too many stars to name still whispering brightly toward me. I leave you and stand under a blank, dark sky and wonder if you, too, see the shivering moon turning alone.

The Beacon

For CE

It is the bare, flashing beacon, tremulously alight, whispering white into a meaningless face of a dark sky. Your voice, your nervous laugh, at supersonic speeds shimmies across my ear and smiling face. Across my shaking hands and winds its way in, in towards the white guardians of my slipping lungs. Into a dark miasma of pulsing want, into a heart overburdened by want. I feel your cool fingers grab my arm, pull it towards you. Closer, closer the heaving furnace of your loneliness pulls me. I shiver and burn, slide next to you, as you are broken, aching. My hands find their way. After all, this, at least, is familiar territory. You vomit sand, my searching hands find the sucking jointed thing of metal. It does not come without a fight, but what else do I have energy for? And the beacon winks, blinks out, and does not again burst white.

Find Me

I'm tired, I turn away from a flashing yellow sun, pulling myself down low in a blanket of down. Over my eyes, in a blank cocoon of sleep. My hair has grown long and winds around my neck. I wake again and again. The night and day seem to bleed together, I'm no longer sure when I dream of you and when longing for you seeps from my pores, soaks the bed. My voice has grown rasping and I taste metal. I'm tired. I'm tired. I'm tired. I want only clean linen and silence. Though it hasn't happened yet, I've heard it should start to fade, I should no longer wake in a small salty sea. Last night, or the night before, my heart fluttering like a wild bird, I breathed your name in and out, the shallow shudder tearing away at my throat. I curl down deep, a nautilus without a shell. I'd bury myself here and let dust and sorrow bury me until I could only be unearthed as an archaeological find.

Find me. Find me, please.