The rain falls
Unapologetically onto the city streets.
The girl is walking.
Her black eyeliner
Runs in melancholy streaks
Down her worn expression–
She is numbed by pain
And empty inside, now.
They’ve both left her
And now she is truly alone. Continue reading A Certain Street Corner →

So maybe i feel
             cleaner
Today
As i walk again down this carpeted hallway,
(This building used to be a hotel,
      And perhaps for me, it has remained as such.)
Fishing the keys out of my pocket another time,
i think of this as a vacation,
A pleasant diversion i’ve lived
For a little bit of year.
“It’s stifling in here,”
      i tell him–
Maybe it’s just the heat,
Maybe it’s just me. Continue reading Moving Day →

A cool, moist wind
Is blowing under a stifling grey sky.
Every day the heat seems
Greater, more oppressive.
It puts me in mind of another day:
Friday the thirteenth.
He entered the building
(and lodged in my memory)
On that night–
Black hair leapt in bold spike from his brow
Dappling to salt and pepper
On his chin. Continue reading Gallery Behind My Eyes →

Midsummer:
The true July heat
Has not yet found its way
To the cracked city sidewalks.
The sweats I remember
From this time last year
May as well be imagined;
Or perhaps I have grown
Used to the exposure.
(The heaviest sheen of perspiration
Now comes from dancefloors,
Bedrooms, the exertion you know;
Do I fuck as well as I dance?
Find out, if you’re feeling lucky.) Continue reading The Longest Day →

I have been the candle’s flame
Burning on for endless nights
Many moths have been drawn close
And I have watched them fall, consumed.
A passion that has burned so brightly,
Its paraffin has been my heart,
Slowly melting away.
Some I have spared from the terrible heat;
My fingers trace their images trapped under cellophane–
I have kept them safe-distanced
Through a camera’s lens and a few dance steps. Continue reading Terminus →

A substitute for you
In the scent of somebody else
Which haunts my day-old clothes

A longing ache
In the bed of another
Which leaves me blissfully unsatisfied

A desire so painful
In the depth of my heart
Which makes me long to taste your lips

These gifts I give to you, my love,
So deeply have you cut me.

In this moment, you are all that ever mattered to me.
Dark on light of flesh through tear-filtered eyes,
My hand covering yours as the words escaped;
My heart flew like a monarch from my chest.
The fear had left me; of words, of illness, of emotions
             and consequences and futures and pasts
             all sluiced from me like so much skin shed. Continue reading Love →

“It’s raining. Again,”
He mutters to himself as he steps out onto the porch,
Withdrawing from his pocket the half-smoked clove cigarette
Which he had abandoned before Ritual.
(Better just to take a puff or two,
Enjoy the buzz, but butt it out
Before the high gets too serious.)
Lighting the stub from a burning candle,
He sucks a thick, airy cloud into his lungs–
Fiberglass shards cutting into the soft pink of the lungs,
Tar (perhaps) smoothing over the bleeding.
He licks his lips and all he tastes is cinnamon. Continue reading Full Moon →

Out in the woods
of Brindlee Mountain
Three childlike souls are
Rediscovering old wonder,
Relearning their trust of
Something larger
(an Oak, a God, an Ending),
Retreading the familiar ground
of Innocence.
Dirty, scraped, smiling
The troubadours return to
Their waking world,
Each carrying a reminder
within themselves: Continue reading Wild Daisies In December →

what is it about me
that scares so many of my peers
is it really my appearance
or something deeper
is a richer age
reflected in my eyes
or can’t they see
past the five rings of metal
     in my ears or
the patches of color
     on my fingertips Continue reading Love Underground →