Blind

I stare at every car that passes
I wait for what I do not want to see
I sweat blood mixed with sin
And the sidewalk bucks and spins

I watch each spinning wheel
From behind drunken slurs
My throat is full of smoke
And shards of deceitful mirrors

I thank the sky above that I am blind
Without these mirror pieces pressed against my eyes
I pray to no one and nothing
But I am bound by the same fate
Rejected years ago

I hate the state you tainted
I hate the words we spoke

Remember ruin

I made a promise I couldn't keep
As my blood ran grey
As I clung to the valley
And it burned with the dawn

I promised both worlds,
Their best and worst
To keep the flames
Behind tattooed lines

I promised a sunrise,
Harmless at most
To flood the sky,
And blind our ghosts

When the last strips of dawn
Shattered the ridge
The flames and ghosts ignited
No promise kept, or choice maintained
My blood burned out and faded away.

Dammit

I want to be that damn grey fabric
Directly on your skin
I want to scratch till you are raw
And the red rushes to your edge

I am surprised at how you make my fists clench
Fingernail depressions in my palm
Leave tracks behind

They have split you in two
You are across a chasm from yourself
The echoes of your voice won't reach yourself
Won't reach yourself

I am the casualty
I am the ruin.

cartwheels

This place feels like a conversation

Of words we have never spoken

I hear your breath tumbling past your teeth,

Cartwheels of sweet air

And I want to capture every piece

For the days in between,

The moments in between,

The eternity inside my head

Release a fragment of you into my nostrils

And taste your life on my tongue

The end result of a journey through your bloodstream

I am jealous of your breath

I wish to be that sacred air

which maps your veins

And follows the miles laced through your flesh.

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.