I dreamt I was a leper and woke
up with no voice. I dreamt I had
a lover and woke up without hands.
What are the things the keep
you up at night? Who is left
behind once your eye is open?
I look to the blue face in the
mirror for an answer, but she
is voiceless too, wearing nothing
but a silent smile and oil paint.
I have known her all my life
but couldn't see her until now,
the sunken, shrieking visage,
eerily familiar, like a handyman
who knows my father's name.
There are things we try to forget,
and things we cannot unknow:
this is of the latter. This is the face
of Death, the inescapable; this is
Yesterday, Today, Tomorrow. This is
You, now; so scream all you want.

After The Fire

On the surface nothing
is left unburnt but dust
off the shelves and
discover a world within
itself, in the lower attics
we birthed the amnesiac
allure of a fresh start, or

what is whispered when
everyone is watching; alone
we sing songs and remember,
live in picture frames, tattoo
birthdays on our breasts,

live gathered about a pyre
of memory until someone
is brave enough to light

a match!

Tightropes

5:00AM in the suburbs:

Oleander moon wilts in the aubergine flames
of morning, dripping 
with frosty haze of first light.
Warm feet flee from icy tiles like soldiers in retreat,

eager to nestle into their goose-down coffins,
 make
love with Death’s cousin as their cell phones snooze.

5:00AM, my eyes open, soaking in a bleach-stained sky
.
Light seeping through rosebush lashes, 
tangled in thorny
restlessness
 as our great cantaloupe, the womb of Today,

dangles along the strings of the horizon,
 balancing
above our colony, wondering why
 She walks her tightrope
so diligently only to be greeted by the tired eyes
 of a silent
audience, waiting
 for an escape from 
the dark.

Pectus Excavatum

Fingers run like cables
down your chest
stemming from the recess
where your hard drive was
That concave dip
Cavernous flesh
has short-circuited my dendrites
with its electric emptiness
but together,
I am at peace with this blackout.
The limited bandwidth we share
is enough for me,
so long as you remember
our spark is but a spark
and when I reach inside
I’m only measuring the outage
and how much of you
is leftover.

Materialism and You

My guts,
my blackest blues
whittled to the marrow
(what attracts all the dogs)
Frozen lakes
through forest fingers,
the absent space
between nightmare
and consciousness:

These are my gifts to you
No candy hearts or
billboards needed.
In this certainty
I show you my bones
so you see I have nothing
to hide.

Waking Up Alone

Coffee brewed black
cold now as your side of the bed;
kisses never leave such bitterness.
The teaspoons you've given me
aren't deep enough to carry
the sweetness of your words.
Your love crept into my cavities
rotting me from the inside,
stretching roots into my jaw so deep
I could only speak eight letters,
all for you.

Below Zero

Winter born of bone, flakes like krill
in gaping mouth. Champagne powder
settles on our heads, thick sheets of
worry packed in valleys of past
become white noise -
blizzard, brain, and nerve.
"A static mind leaves freezer burn,"
you say as I kiss your frost bite back,
sweat beading like hail, lipstick melting in fever;
"You'll never feel anything warmer than here."