cracked ice

WHY SO MUCH FEAR

It’s not my place, not my sin

Why let in the starving-men

I DON’T BELONG TO THIS WORLD AGAIN

Again again again again

Drown me, bleed me, let me—

LET ME STOP WAVERING, PAPER-THIN

DON’T MAKE ME SAY GOODBYE THIS WAY

Fog in the sun

Carbon dioxide in your lungs;

To be expelled, to be destroyed;

Spun sugar in the waves.

help

Twelve years twelve years twelve years twelve

Years old; you will be twenty-four so soon

Please make it

Please stop this before it’s too late

And I have another grave

To grieve

I could ruminate on past mistakes

On when the train derailed; and when I should have

Looked to the sun

Instead of the skies’ endless gaol;

But future me will be posturing with fits of righteous rage

“Look there! She hit the speed bump

And slowed down only enough to keep chase.”

Simple

You are, and I am,

But we are not.

receive

Ignore the lilting words

Hold to the chaos-blood churning within;

Feel only the storm-stomach burdening your skin —

Taste yesterday and tomorrow in the same breath,

understand where you’ve been.

Ignore the lilting words in your mind.

The feelings will simply fade in time

re signed,designed

Disruption past, years in the black

I taste old acid fresh as rain.

It cuts up my blood and disturbs who I’ve become

So I vomit up the indecision, starve off the bleeding incisions, saving

Face – ahead one more time

And let the air dance me to bravery.

Please God

Take this from me —

I thought about you again

As I will over and over;

I swore never to forget

And I am willing to suffer if yet

Every memory, every photo of your tired eyes

Full of joy and love and not enough time —

Could somehow return you to me.

Beside your small visits in my dreams.

You went to sleep in my arms only yesterday

Or that is how raw

Is the grief.

Thank you for loving me all your life. I wish now to honor you with mine.

Avoided

Stirring shivers burden me, coverlets

Suffocating;

I sink my teeth in foolish threads, in

Ropes that hold all dying men;

Certain to loathe the choices now,

Overwhelmed by regrets I have not yet brought about;

But I feel them coming and nod them by,

I give them permission to disrupt my life;

What kind of repetition would this be?

If I let the same circumstances take hold of me?

I’m sorry, I’m sorry, such a ‘love’ would be disease