I take and I take and I take and I take and still I search for more to fill this gaping hole inside me. I don’t even know what it’s from or why it’s there or how to fill it. It seems to be nothing more than a black hole that sucks in everything around it and leads to nowhere.

You’re so kind and so nice and you might be exactly what I’ve been yearning for for as long as I can remember. But still a little worm in the back of my mind is burrowing, itching, nagging.

What if something better comes along.

Honestly, how can you promise yourself to someone if you believe there’s something else out there? If you loved me, but there was someone else out there exactly like me but more attractive, surely you would pick them? Or at least privately want them more than me.

That’s what I’m getting at- sure, I have my personality, or so I think. Maybe I’m not as unique as I think I am. Maybe you’re not as unique as I think you are. How can I ever truly be happy if this is all I think about?

I always feel like there’s something more no matter how much I have. I will always be a puzzle one piece away from being completed. You deserve better. I think I deserve better. But I can’t just change who I am. I can’t just change what I think. It doesn’t work that way, but I wish it did. Life could be so much easier.

And that’s another thing wrong with me: I put too much emphasis on attractiveness.

Of course, I would never treat someone worse for me not finding them physically attractive. Their bodies are not for me to gawk at or for me to derive pleasure from. That is not their purpose.

But still I dream of a beautiful man that loves me too. But how can I ever expect that when I’m not particularly godly looking? I can’t be upset about that because that’s exactly how I feel towards others. And then I’m sucked into my black hole again: I’m not attractive enough. I’m not good enough.

Not yet.

I need more. Just a little more, it’ll fix it.

Or so I tell myself.

she moves in like the tides,

as though the ocean copies

her little breaths as she sleeps,

snaking soft against me,

washing away my broken bits

like sand into the deep,

and I’ll build my world

upon

the fault line

of shore and sea,

where we first met,

along the line that curves

like her body,

where she washes me into her,

where I float without fear

of drowning.

because all my hope

ends in a dream

that blurs the lines between us,

and I wake,

to the sound of her sleeping lungs,

as one waking up to paradise,

one the ocean itself has copied.

and i think,

maybe waves can see the future.

and the high tides

are pretending to leave her lips,

and I hope to fuck

that I get lost at sea.

I know you call her home, but tell me, is she where your hands live or your heart?

Do the constellations littering your irises mirror hers or is it your mouth mirroring the freckles of her skin?

Is it her words that make your skin crawl towards hers or her fingers that raise the feathery down from the back of your neck?

Is she the oxygen that your lungs pull to feed your heart or the adrenaline that pushes it to work in overdrive?

Is she the breath or what makes your breath catch?

Is she the pen on the paper or the words that begged to be released?

Is she the cathedral or the prayer?

The incantation or the spell the words cast?

Is she the sky that holds the light or the stars themselves, always there even when they can’t be seen?

The match that kickstarts the destruction or the already blazing fire?

Is she the caress or the feeling that lingers after it’s over?

The skin or the mind?

The magnetic pull or the place where you stand?

The speed or the lull?

Or is it both?

Is there really any difference to you?

And one last question.

Is it me or am I her?

I need a lot of gold paint

to fill in all the cracks

in this beaten up vase,

so the water doesn’t spill

and the flowers inside of me

can once again grow,

I need to form the mold

that makes me

into one piece,

I need to make myself

whole

because I’m sick

of the wind blowing

in all of the empty spaces

that cover my body

my bare feet

my lungs,

I’m tired of the sadness

and silence

that fills me up,

of the always present

nothingness

that consumes me,

until I'm no longer here

any sounds or words

the meaning of it all

lost on me

I need more gold paint

to fill the cracks

...

I was in a grove of hardy trees, climbing a natural earth crossing over a river in an arid grassland. There was water falling nearby, which I supposed was the river descending from the distant mountains.

As I explored the landscape, I spotted a lion in the distance, bounding between the boulders. It was an awesome, terrible sight.

I attempted to hide myself behind a twisted old cedar, but the lion was fast approaching, and it appeared to have caught my scent. I peered fearfully out. The look on the lion’s face indicated that it was ready to fight and feed.

On it came, approaching quickly, and I attempted to flee, though we both knew I was entirely helpless.

However, as the lion prepared to pounce, at that critical moment, an enormous spider dropped in front of the violent creature from somewhere out of sight. It reared onto its back legs and hissed, its fangs dripping. The sound of it sent shivers throughout my body.

The lion roared its response, and prowled about the spider with its head down, seeking out a gap in its defenses. It lunged, and the spider slammed down its legs, sending the lion shrinking back again.

The spider stood its ground as the lion repeatedly attempted to attack. It appeared they were evenly matched. With the spider between my predator and I, I seized the opportunity to find more appropriate shelter. The sound of their battle filled my ears as I ran- the roar of the lion, the hiss of the spider, and the booming sound as the arachnid slammed its forelegs onto the ground.

Once I was out of immediate danger, I reflected. I had conflicted emotions about leaving- I felt grateful to the spider for defending me, since it had done so of its own accord. I was not aware it existed at all. Yet, I also felt guilty for abandoning him to the lion.

Of course, I knew there was nothing I could have done. I was so small beneath the two of them, so weak, so fragile. Their shadows swallowed me whole.

A wetted wood & moonclouds

tutor the sky pearlish. The footling

churned up day, a settled exhaust

affixes my body to the chair. Evening,

a visit from the Mixture Ghost.

The Mixture Ghost, he prefers

ginger peach tea, shakes off his cloak

of haunts at the sliding door as he

poorly describes a sad song he cannot

seem to shake out of his ear.

I feel for the old boy. True, even

the most affecting melodies, repeat

them many times over, they shake

out brackish as long island teas

reciting unedited poetry. Heya

Mix, how long are you staying?

Drink up: I got a poem to finish,

you are tracking earworms into

the house & I barely have the

extroversion for this last quintain.

Roll the dough

of twenty eighteen

fold it in half

have a good laugh

and gather within

the places you’ve been

the things you’ve seen

that buff your sheen

fold in half once more

be sure to store

the thoughts you’ve had

the happy and sad

fold dough anew

leave a corner or two

to tuck friends in

the joys and the sin

and when you’re through

leave a clue or two

crumple old year away

and start a new day

Twenty-nineteen is clean slate

don’t tarry or wait

open heart to fresh start

HAVE A HAPPY NEW YEAR!

I gave Joe my recipe

for celery salad.

He folded it into an

airplane & flew it

into the side of my

favorite hat.

It landed awkward

as a gin-soaked pilot.

I might should

have worn something

more subdued

when wheeling & dealing

in celery salad.

The lights sped by, and though I had the heat on high, I cracked the window because I knew the memories would come flooding. And it was in this moment that I realized that after months of apologizing to everyone for everything you had made me into, I had forgotten to thank you. Because with the heat pouring in simultaneously with the night flurries I remembered that though I never said that I loved you, that one night you kissed my forehead and told me you had a heart full of me. And as the winter night and the hot air pumping from the vents hit me all at once I thought what it must have been like for you to swear that that was all a lie. And in this moment I realized that you hadn’t made me into something. You had broken me so that when my wings healed they would beat harder. And in this moment I realized that I might always be healing and broken, but at least now I was free.

It was a strange day.

I had woken late in the afternoon, with a most peculiar lightness of being. My mind and heart were not weighed upon with the usual baggages of daily life. I felt free, and in my freedom I felt a powerful urge to wander.

My house had been built only a few years before, in a newly-zoned estate far from the city. It was quite a long way from the local village, which itself was a long way still from the city centre, but there was a sense of peace and tranquil solitude afforded by the location, which was what attracted me to it.

That was clearly going to change, however, as with the more time that passed, the more the developments took hold and changed the appearance and character of the surrounding areas.

What once was a beautiful dry bushland was now a series of rolling, naked hills adorned here and there with piles of landfill, and construction materials, and vehicles, and heavy machinery.

It was here that my wandering took me, on that strange day.

I was exploring the large area of cleared forest. Some wooden frames of houses stood here and there, on their concrete foundations, but the rest of the expanse of land was empty.

I approached a hill, and, passing some excavators and piles of timber, looked over the crest into the dip below.

I was amazed to see a huge sandy desert spread out before me in the late afternoon sun. There had never been a desert here before. I looked behind, and there were the skeletal houses, the clearings. I ran eagerly down the hill to investigate.

I wandered in this desert, and before I was aware of it, all familiarity had vanished from the land. I could no longer see the estates.

However, what I could see looming before me was a colossal stone complex, casting a deep shadow over the sands, as the sun prepared to set.

There were three buildings, arranged symmetrically, in an arc.

The building in the middle was by far the largest. Between its immense pillars was a large statue depicting what I supposed must be the temple’s patron god. It was a likeness of a tall, muscular man, with a beak, and an eagle’s talons for feet, and two great pairs of wings. In one hand he carried a flail, and in the other, a crook.

I entered between the pillars. I seemed to be the only one here. I was accompanied only by the hollow voice of the wind whipping between the buildings.

Inside, the temple was a long, open hall with a soaring, gilded ceiling.

Uncounted rows of pillars held the ceiling aloft, and atop each pillar was a large crystal sphere. Each sphere contained in itself an entire world.

The galleries between the pillars were filled with sands blowing in from the desert, and the dunes shifted through the hall endlessly.

My final memory of this place was of crossing the dunes between the pillars, gazing in awe at the magnificent hall of worlds, knowing that I was in the presence of great power, and great wisdom.