Finally, I write.

I’ve been avoiding you

for so long—Afraid

I will let my emotions fall

Like Ash in the wind

White burn with charred hope

Wound so tight, and twisting

In my gut —my pain cries

And I long for you.

My own blood fresh drawn

On paper, and ink

But this is how it ends.

Speechless, and homeless

And who am I but not

A poet—Sad, sad, and

Long gone before —

I took my first breath.

It wasn’t supposed to end like this. Sinking heavy into a mood squatting cross legg-ed next to a giant pink elephant laughing “I told you so” under its breath.

We agreed: no strings. No attachment, no expectation. Just an occasional hiccups in time to  escape the day-to-day. To remind us we are alive. And combatting the loneliness, the misunderstood, the human condition—and  your wife.

Well, you’re not actually married now, are you. Common law, as they say. Is it the same? Can I escape the moral implications on a technicality? This time.

Am I wrecking your home. Am I that cold lonesome steel ball swinging selfish on a pendulum of desire and sin corrupting and inviting you into my very own Hotel California.

I hate that you smoke menthols.  They are aggressive and only half committed. But the nicotine hits, and so it goes —

We are going down in flames. You and me. There is no other way.. The way you grab my neck and curls when you kiss me—

We are destined to burn in the path of a falling star.

Will the memory of us remain?

Our charred flesh is the undergrowth, and it is suffocating under the life of our last embrace. And the way you kissed me.

My heart is crying. And my soul is crushed. The constant pain of this loss wells deep in my eyes and my tears are acid.

I could have loved you forever.

I could have loved you.  Forever.

In all the ways you needed love, I would have given it to you. I could have been your constant provider, and I wanted to give you all of me. And more.

I love you. But this is how it ends.

I can’t breathe. The despair of this heartbreak is killing me. Its knuckle-white grip is wrapped tight around my throat like a noose hung ready to stop the pain, But I can’t let go. So I hang onto the rope of you in limbo, but my hands are getting sweaty and I slip: hope has its back turned to me and it is moving further and further away.

I miss being in bed with you. Wrapped tight limb-to-limb within the core of your being where you kept me. Close . And I was safe.

But this too shall end. It is over.

And so it goes.

We hid under the Mulberry tree that had been scarred by the knives of Southern mischief two summers ago. He was seated across from me on a turquoise antique. The afternoon held its breath for us as he offered me his hand resting palm-up on my knee. And it unfolded slowly. His angled posture was straight, leaning forward to complete the missing half of my triangle. And his eyelids were partly drawn, set meditating on my forthcoming move. When I placed my hand upon his, for a moment, I was a child. I found safety in his comfort, but our love was a wildfire. The shade caressed the mood and from behind its veil of landscape, the sun eavesdropped and he sighed. Sweet molasses lacquered my heart and its beat bellowed baritone. He smiled. Then too abruptly I retrieved my hand from his to salvage a silkworm lost on his shirt. And with that, our moment became a memory  We lost grip of our hope. But removed from the chaos happening everywhere around us, we spent one stolen hiccup in time under a tree with each other. And it was perfect.

I think I am sad.

Sad to fly, to experience, to know

The traveler —

Sad, to be free?

And even sadder

When sitting alongside peace

An unfamiliar calm

Kundera said:

The unbearable lightness of being —

And I understand.

When the weight of the world

The burden, the pain, the obstacles

The bills, the kids, the hustle —

Those heavy crashing waves of darkness

Beat against your chest

One after another —

That man. The many men.

Heartbreak, loss, grief

The unknown, and nothing is promised —

The girth of it. The literal and

Physical and mental heaviness of it

Freedom is fleeting.

The anchor eventually becomes

Your comfort

Your stability.

A weight that keeps you grounded

Despair cries, and so do you

Loud and fierce but beaten

Into submission, you oblige

You conform and crawl beneath

The barrel of joy long hollow

Steel upon sulfur upon pewter dreams

Gone stifled and chorused

In a blue heat of arrest

But then one day —

You are light like dawn

Almost empty, and ascending

And floating above endlessly

The expectation of boundary gone wild

And you gasp

Am I alone?

Can I go here, or there —

Yes.

Nothing and no one is detaining you

The noose of submission has been tethered

And the sadness you feel for

Your captor gone romantic is perverse

But the reality is freedom pounding light

So light that your fist penetrates the wall

Fallen in Berlin style

And nothing is real

Just fabricated borders collapsing

And it is sad.

It is a dichotomy of arriving and —

Am I lost.

Used by the pillars of angst

Who am I now

Free?

Weeping am I behind a pink moon

A sigh so loud that no one looks

I am free.

And perhaps I am afraid of

How far I will fall

With no shackles to stop me.

The way he left bruises on the backside of my arms

The way he rolled a cigarette

That tongue, licking the paper just enough

Looking at me through his lids

Always half-closed

He disappeared for days at a time

Again

Distraught, I nosed through his papers

I was his Saint Bernard

Searching for his scent

In poetry, unspoken

Thoughts shared only to the grave

Woven in leather, and

Ivory tusks rolled smooth and thin

With fibers of reality reminding me

This too shall end.

Oh despair, hung obvious on a can-can girl’s thigh

I loved you too much.

Left behind in the shadow of the moon

With a stray cat and empty wallet

Do you remember me

And the way I made you howl.

The wave of beautiful light danced between the blinds and stood waiting for approval. She moved carefully through it, inhaling the taste of hope strung tangible. Time etched itself carefully in this shadow of day so as to slow the progress of age and grief and love too late beaded together to witness in held form.

And I feel you. All around. But you are gone removed from this conscious cloud of memories and dreams weaved holy in an iridescent dream that I beg to wake from. It is too close. Love. A real love that floats lovely above ground. A fog that soothes and holds comfort against damage. Hidden enough are the flaws of humanity and you and I—no different.

I rest my head upon your shoulder when I sleep and I have amnesia. Do you remember me? Because I remember the time that you looked so deep into me that I died and looked away. Your soul grew too enormous for my capacity and you felt like warm lava all over me like a mummy enveloped by what could be.

And you did. You walked into my life and I forget the rest. Love like ours dies hard just seconds after its first breath. And I’m here for it. Living large within your grasp, I have no regrets.

This elixir runs smooth down flesh and blood. Swollen eyes searching far and beyond for reason unknown. A fingertip sound hell bent against a yellow light sounds heavy and morose. Tiptoed across the indicating and upon lead and coal and upon the tar foot—I can’t shake you. You are. Absorbed beneath my skin, I ingest you. Wholly. Your ghost walks alongside these streets gone vacant and long before sunrise, and I pull sidesaddle a woven clutch full of lost leather. My youth weeps. He told me that nothing was revealed. Words spat upon walls smelt with laquer. But I saw the truth.Ill-repute sitting stoic on good ole Adam’s lap. Time will come around  again and you too will be there: I have no doubt.

Then she cried herself to sleep under satin.

The shadow of time hovered

Behind a solemn moon, blue

Hung heavy and low beneath

God’s loud laugh waking

The belly roll of sablebush

Rolling high above my wake

Just out-of-reach, and calling to

The angel breath fallen stale on

Your warm breath, against

My neck is exposed and open.

He comes to me as a wave

Moved by the moon and by gravity

Pulling close only

To pull away as I lean

For him beneath the depths of time

Captured in slides cascading

Against linen walls lined before

Receding again, the sun rises

And again my love is blind

Under light too bright to look at

My mood is

indescribable.

A downspout of

misguided

rain freezing

overnight.

A complicated

mountain fold,

its peak

sheltered

by sensitivity

and fog.

Its hardened

crust evaporating

into

sadness.

My desolation

comforted

by his imagery

and love.

Pain is

romanticized

inside

my mind.

Literary connections

found

in pulsating

isolation.

Love me

back.

I am

disconnected

from the norm.

Relieving cuts

pour

blood onto

canvas.

Empty.

I offer

definition

unintelligibly through

matte abstraction.

I am

complexly

overwhelmed by

simple movement.

My mascara

smears like—

A whore.

My legs

spread

wide,

knees bent,

my aged hips

crack with

temporary

satiation.

Heavy

sighs are

my aphrodisiac

into

oblivion.

The warmth

of

the sun

on my face

is my

mother.

Nature

hugs me

with

its splintered

bark.

Gasping

with emotion,

the thought

of him

hurts.

Moved

to tears

when

Mozart's plays

tangible.

A grin

too wide and

too toothy

silently churns.

My stomach hurts

to the tone of

laughing

like a clown.

Names

spelled wrong

hang on

the air

make

me dizzy.

Contradicting

comfort found

in

metaphors

and equation

abandon me

ad infinitum.

Abhorrent

shock at

mass blindness

ruminates.

Raw.

Despair drops

into buckets

of mud

in my chest

when

I think

of you.

Despondency

covers

my shoulders,

my grandmother's

shawl,

when

the chill

of

loneliness comes.

Inner epiphanies

debate

over desire

and

reality.

I stand

still and

frozen in

my existential

existence.

I know

my bravery

exists

but I am

fucked

between

folded linen.

Stale.

And

the closet

is closed.

And my

heart

drops.

There is

no point

anymore.

I am sad

and

I am

grieving

indefinitely.

You are gone.

It is dark