Arsenic Snacks

My best friend eats
apple cores
and drinks coconut water.

She says it is
economical
and healthy.

I say she is
dreaming
of foreign lands,
long trips on clipper ships.

Nested in Myrrh

I have long listened at doors in empty hallways, with only the faraway sound of clattering metal and the gold-whispering dust turning in the light. It is beyond all sense now, to dissemble, too late I have warned you of scars in bone and sinew, but I tell you now; if hope is a thing with feathers, its carcass is on my doorstep. Wild, unnameable things have torn at it, now it is a ghost of gut and wing.

I kneel, hope it has nested in myrrh.

I have never had a listener, a reader. Especially not one who waits for each word, wants in silence until I speak.

If You Follow

If there are words, they are as yet unknown to me. I have spent hours spinning spells, invoking ghosts long since settled, but those fruits have left my mouth sour, my eyes shining and wild.

Against good sense and sound advice I find a narrow path; I seek a darkened sun. I bear my burdens alone, often in a world with too few dimensions to support life.

I have not known kindness, and I do not speak to trust, not here. Those are words spoken low and whispered in foreign tongues.

It was easier, I moved from consequence, I drew demons in sand and sky and moved on again. If you follow, if all my stories are told; where, then, will I go?

It's Not About Robots

I hope time and isolation have not done damage beyond repair. I hope your heart has not grown silent, but instead was waiting, in stasis, or that you were finding your way out of a labyrinth of your own making.

You are careful, and those words are so new, and still strange in your mouth. I wonder how you could know that I smile as you struggle to find your way into conversation.

I would unwind you from those many long nights alone, if you would find me beneath so many layers of ice and wind.

I am tired and worn ragged on the rocks, having missed the lighthouse by some miles. I would undo whatever brought me here, but if not for that, then I would not have your name or your secrets. I hope you are patient, even if my language is dense and foreign. I hope you have a way with broken things, with nervous and unsure things.

The Likelihood of Happiness, Heartache

For RJH

I work out facts and figures, the likelihood of happiness, heartache, each on an actuarial table with signs and symbols previously unknown to me.

I invent formulae of such complexity the variables become unmanageable, publish them in obscure journals in languages I do not speak.

I have no reason for hope, but it burns bright out of cracks and fissures from a poorly repaired heart.

It is the first time I wake to think of you, the first time I think of you and laugh, and wonder if you would laugh to know.

It is not good

It has recently become clear that it is not good for me to miss my exit while driving alone. I pull over and turn the radio on. For no reason at all, just the sound of a voice not my own makes me think of you and I stop, rest my head on the steering wheel and sob until my throat is raw.

It is also not good to believe any promises given, especially that I'll be glad after it's over. What a fool to nod and say yes, yes, yes that I know one day I'll never again speak your name, that I'll crawl into a dark bed alone and smile to remember you. I'll never tell you that to keep from thinking of you I imagine a world, any world other than this. I sometimes forget, lose the reigns of fantasy and you, no, not even you, the idea of you comes back to me. And you wind your fingers in my hair and spark in the dark like electricity.

La lumière

I'd have bargained, begged. For fuck's sake, I'd have wept tears of blood, torn my hair, thrown myself to the ground.

Instead, I unknowingly sought a more subtle poison, your half-stunned joy. It was a gorgeous thing to share and I crept towards it, flinching wildly with every silence, every misspoken word.

How do you bear it? What reason can you give, now, for that useless hope?

What terrible grief did I uncover there, in that long-deserted wreckage?

It was you, after all, reaching out an empty hand. With the wisdom of long years and many failed expeditions, I observed silently your wounded smile, your careful laugh. I found you beneath an avalanche of folly and plans long ago gone awry and forgotten.

I glimpsed then, your true self, unmirrored and sure. How quickly you unfolded for me stories of midnight suns and crinolines ripped in a darkened cloakroom, your lips smeared dark.

You insisted I had found you, had rediscovered you, the cascade of bright longing and secret lusts springing forth from a heart stoppered for all the world like a champagne bottle.

I braved the tundra, the rocks and ice. I felt for the path beneath the terrible will of the fog, then grew parched beneath a venomous sun. I waited for morning, licking dew from a few ragged leaves, and by nightfall was lost beneath a terrible seething jungle.

Now I only curse the path, look for signs and symbols in the sun and the burning green grass.

Without destination, I turn inward like a broken compass, wait in a willful silence for the phone to ring, for your voice, your key in the door.

Bits and bobs from yesteryear

there is a sickness in you
and it grows
you bear it,
a gentle gun
against splitting skin
even as it breaks bones
you pull it closer, caressing

as you shake and spit
your careful claws
snake across my heaving heart

you curl and cry
to nurse your dissatisfaction
I am, as ever, your willing victim
and even as you crave comfort,
my soft white arms around you
you lift your head
to the soft shell of my ear
to loose a terrible poison there

which works in silence
until nothing is left of me
but a thick dark pool

****

You were a coward, you say
an unbearable booming silence tears across the line
jumps satellite to satellite
until it finds my quiet apartment
my bare white room
my mouth opens to speak
I shiver and shake
tucked in the dark bed, a pillow empty beside me
I imagine your slender hands
a hank of black hair, nearly blue, caught in a ripping wind
under a white winter sun
we huddled in the car, it's throaty rumble
bringing soon the miracle of rushing warmth

I would kill you if I could
despite your goodness
and explosive smile

A Forgotten Letter

The heart is dessicated, pressed flat between the pages of a textbook. It's the memory of a heart, preserved for posterity at the height of its vibrant colors. I felt the color begin to fade, the stems began to droop and for the sake of who'll come next I plucked it carefully and folded it between those blind pages.

Months pass in careful silence; I return to the heart, finger it's whisper thinness. Occasionally, I bring it to my mouth, warm it with blushing breath. It is a letter, folded and forgotten from last year's lover.