fragments.

I would never tie you down, not even with garlands of roses. I don't want anything from you that doesn't come from your own impulse, like water from the springs.

And in the last seconds before the breaking light, when you are nearly broken with the secret antelope of compassion, when the last guardian angel has flown west to the Pacific to see someone else through their nightly death, a homefire is slowly kindled in the village of your body. And the smoke of dawn turns all your worded enemies into ashes that will never rise. Mythic cattle graze in your throat, washing it with milk. And you will sing forever.

I cannot sing song of either staying or leaving unless I know what shape it takes when it leaves my mouth. And which direction, because I forgot to tell you that love changes molecular structure. I am transformed but without a map.

but to be alive is to forsake the fear of blood.

...but here is a heart betrayed by childhood catastrophe, or tormented by original memory, [...]

If you prefer, I'll be pure raging meat, or if you prefer, as the sky changes tone, I'll be absolutely tender,