metaphor, and then some

You linger on long past your welcome, holding on for dearest life. The long hallway grows dark and narrow, crowded only with pain and ghosts. The heart swells, the heart sinks. You flip the switch, though you know there is no light.

Waiting by your bedroom window, waiting like letters on the line. The words you say, the words you send. The way you hold your breath and watch the light bend, broken by the surface. The stars just ripple in the wind, the heat  clinging to the walls and your flesh. You are broken and it's getting worse. You are broken and the end won't come.

Every breath is tears and gashes. Every breath is swarms and swelter. Sweat glistens upon the frayed and weary flesh, constellations of salt and glimmer settling like fever on your brow. The words don't work, the sounds don't matter. Wings suddenly take to the sky. Your heart  is wild, something startled in the long reeds. Your heart is wild, a caged bird throttling the bars. You know this is bound to happen. You know the metaphor only eases the strain upon the bones, it does nothing to stabilize the structure.

incur

You are at once the severity of the wound and the precision of the stitches, your love the only thing preserving this vapid flesh, the crawl of even the worn and wingless towards that perfect light. This steady drift of intermittence, the flicker of the one light that seems real. I gaze and gaze, craving something other than feeling. The kiss as a connection to this scant permanence. The kiss that lingers with-in our trembling limbs.

You reenforce all my restless habits, linger where there would be touch. You sparkle when the light can find you,  you glow in the darkest moments as if lit from with-in. The red ribbons that tour and tangle through your limbs,  the breath and clasp of your blood reaching for me. You are the eyes that fix, the hands that wander. You are the antidote to the desolation of waking, you are the fecund sustenance of my every dream.

You are the bloom in each flower, the ardor that seethes in every love letter's ink. The promise of a rich harvest in any season, the fields tamed while the woods grow wild. The pleasures of the table, the appetites of the bed. The flesh blessed with a sheen of sweat, glistening tiny diamonds as you flex and reach. I feel the breeze drift across my ashes, cooling my brow, clearing my eyes. Three thousand miles away, you are still skin and bone and flavor. The impression left casts its spell over the senses, you linger on my tongue and lips. I kiss each comfort, I kiss each craving. Your absence just the penalty that being bathed in your blessing incurs.

when I come

You will know me by the caress of my shadow, you will find me stitching up your tattered dreams.It helps that it is always love. It helps that it hurts your heart this way. All your devils worked into dreams with a kiss and a clasp. Your fingers entangle the cause of your hopes and so the dance is at last a-whirl upon the floor. You will know me when the wind reminds you of my whispers and my wants.

I hold onto the light of the candle left burning, the flicker and the drip of wax. The cat stretches along the ley lines, the stilted dance of wind and flame. The breath amid the uncoiled essence. The warmth of so much waiting flesh. The window turns its back to the open night.

There is a clarity in this dense tension. There is a blooming in every cell and vein. The hush of skin so close against yours. The story of my touch told in the strain of breathless flesh. You gasp my breath and speak my name. Your room so tight and telling, my kiss so near and real. You will know me by the press of all these weathered constellations. You will know me when I come.

sea legs

Before the first gray words begin to gather we know we're out to sea. Before our gait began to rollick atop the bucking deck we knew the oceans closing in. At once awake from that dream of your arms, the glow of morning gleaming in your gaze. Now the world without you, the shifted wind blowing straight through. Now the day dragged like that slain albatross, the old forms always bewilderingly near once the words give way.

It is that gasp of blue, the brittle reach of green dazzling the sun into rolling sparks and shimmering fire. It is the tangle of the tall weeds below the rancor of the sky. The wind splits into swift infinites, tailing and toiling without end. Here there be dragon, here there be grammar, beyond the limits of this poor defense. Still amid all this tide and light, the count and the converse, the starlight and the stride.

The day is still, though the tall grasses bend and sway.  Always your name there near my lips, always each breath bent on saying. This press of familiar kisses, this rush  of ebullience and froth, the words each now found as they unfold. This spell so sudden upon your tongue, every line your favor. Such a dull pronunciation, this reel my stale report.

chimes

The afternoon spills down wild from the sky, scattering dust and petals. The season pitches and unfurls, caught in e snap and drag of this unruly wind. The rings cast by refraction, the ripples shuttering the water's skin. I cough and sputter, my lungs caught in the persuasive draft. I shrug beneath the green horizon, the mantle of shadows settling slow as the sky just grays and grieves.

Every word's a runaway, every breath an extinguished star. The fertile dust of dreaming scattered in spittle and salt, prayers turned fetid lashed to these masts of flesh. Forget that I know not the days or the reasons for my dreams. Forget that I am only dust and teeth in need of filing. The story arrives from somewhere dressed like someone else. The story is stripped and fitting with our bones and breath and blood. What of names, what of riddles? Today is only always here. You are the only I you know.

The star will strike, whether star or not. The atmosphere will compress and burn, the world will split and shake. We will die or we will tremble, a thousand dire prophecy always just arrived. Someone will read aloud some long dead utterance as if spoken for the first time again. The arrow loosed, the bell tolled, the sign at last revealed. The end will come, and every reason will be equal. The end will come, eternity at last.

impotent

The measure of my incompletion is the unsettle of your gaze as it weaves and as it wanders the jungle of this disarray. There is no blow that could hurt further, no strike or wound that will injure more. You lie and flirt with calamitous abandon. You reject me with each heart beat, betray me with every breath. There is nothing left to feel from you, either too cruel or clumsy to allow access. You take from me this name and number. Leave me like your soul, bereft and desolate.

Still I shall always light a candle. My window all aglow at night. While I ache and crave your smile, knowing I am only filler and you are only mirage, you toil away with other hearts and so can never have my own. Go away, though I love you dearly. Go away, though I love you true. You are only born of lies and pleasures. Go now before all you are is this evil you pursue.

I know at last that I am nothing. Your whole world a carnival. Paper tickets and words like honey. Nothing but breath to keep you warm. Time undoes as it devours. The truth some sound like teeth grinding bone. My life bereft, my wings at once shattered. Dream your dreams without my witness. Live your life with someone else to humiliate and mock. I love you, but I know now how little that ever meant. Love someone true and without ruin.