ashes

i remember the ashes
as explosions in the street
corrosion in your veins
with your stomach's fall and raise
and i've watched you squeezing filters between your fingernails
digging deep into nicotine haze and whiskey shakes
as you breathe yourself to sleep.

some sort of recovery

it's the way your lips look
as if grasping for a cigarette
it's your crushing eyes
that bury me in symbols
hiding words that won't explain

it's your shedding skin against grey sky
as i watch the light fade
it's your fingertip touch
that rushes me to ruin
fighting back years

each breath pushes cancer into my atmosphere.

Crossword Capillaries

Your eyes burn right into me
Colorless and infinite
behind flickering irises
and crossword capillaries
I just want to feel warmth.

As spark begets flame
I am engulfed in you
Tunneled into, frozen moments
and hours of deafness
I just want to own your words.

Push back the impact
to fragments of sentences
to pinpricks of vessels
and blossoming bruises.

Your breath is scalding
Heavy, blunted
borne from weakening flesh
and pickpocket memories
I just want to taste my compulsion.

strung out recklessness

I forgot the taste of strung out recklessness
It lingers in whiskey fumes and broken bottles
I have fuzzy python visions
and shadows of fingertips
Claiming territory on my lips,
drops of heroin on my tongue.

I forgot the color of impulse exhaustion
Blinding my eyes closed,
inhaling empty bottles and fuzzy lines
To claim as my own

I forgot this curse of restrained silence
like liquid down my throat
I have fuzzy broken visions
of salted streets at night
Stained grey with chalk
while your hand traces veins
I am shaking from your touch.

anticipation

i can never anticipate
the weight of your lips on my shoulder
and i fear another touch
when i hear another breath
bringing oxygen to your blood
and blood to your brain
and your hand to my chest
and your lips to my face
and those words leave your throat
fitting neatly around mine.

Beautiful same

When I feel rain, I think of you, standing cold and shaking under rare mountain grey, and I held you. Jackets and scarves and t-shirts and flesh came between us, but we pushed them aside to make room for those beautifully symmetrical chest cavities like puzzle pieces. Warmth spread and that numb happiness filled my eyes, watering in the wind with pinpricks of falling sky, and I saw you force your chin toward the asphalt, unwilling to make our contact complete with your eyes, frightened of the consequences. I watched rivers form beneath your hair, pooling and rushing toward the edge, daring to peek over the cliff until the inevitable fall carried them screaming with pleasure down the valleys of your face, those lovely lines. I wanted so badly to join them, to navigate your wild skin and match those pores with the soft damnation of touch. Instead, I held you as close as our fibers would allow, imagining an ending that never came, one that will not come, though years have passed and floods have risen. When I see rain, I still think of you.

Resolve and Apathy

Perhaps you could just come back?
Try on regression for size
And see if spite and regret
Haven't nailed holes in your resolve.

Perhaps we could wait in the rain?
Take photos of rainbows
And try to ignore the inconvenience
Of lingering love and apathy.

Perhaps you've changed since then?
Taken steps from my photo finish
And pushed into your own new negative
With unfocused eyes
And blood-blurry tongue
Feeling your way back to replacement.

Cloudless

I watched you drip through the clouds,
Distorted.
Twisting at your descent,
Your turns condensing a futile fight against the invisible pull,
Riotous gravity with no patience for serenity.

I watched your light attack the ground
so long before contact.
And upon collision
I saw your wandering mouth heavy with screams
Gracefully form with the dirty street,
Picking up dust and ashes from cigarettes so long extinguished.

I saw those eyes melt into beautiful blue asphalt,
Wet with disdain and desire
And I saw that skin
Fold and split along birthlines,
Spreading wide and innocent among the rest.

If your fall was one of many,
Your destruction held unique.
As I watched you fall
And break by your own device.

crawlspace

okay, I’ve let myself out

And wait for the door to close

before I turn around

If I try to return

Press my nose to the door crease

My ear to the peephole

My eye to the handle

And hand to the ground.

pray to the porch at night

my plank angels bless me till sleep

and if I wake in the dirt

I’ll remain

If I wake in the dirt

I’ll remain.

Watch for the cracks in the crease

the fissuring concrete

stays solid, asleep

as I dig and subvert and tunnel through dirt

lay my bones below bedframes

and stare into crawlspace.

Looking straight to god

Through springs and floorboards

Staring straight into grace

Under floundered foundations.

A permanent solution.

I'm working through the week
For two days I won't remember
And I'm telling myself
It gets better, it gets better

I'll start a new family tradition
drinking through the pain
I'll introduce my children
a way to numb the day

When you're staring down a question
sure don't give it all
Keep a secret kept behind
Keep yourself a place to hide

the smoke will cover
As you run away
The story will hold
If you hold its gaze

I'm working through the week
For another night I won't remember
And I'm telling myself
We're getting better
Are we getting better?