you

My unfazed face

My unfazed face

I dreamt of vomit

And purple flowers

In marble basins

Amassed by massive bouquets

(I didn't want to say it then

But maybe I had died in yours?

And mine was a precursor to yours?)

I dreamt this place before

I'll dream it again

In cyclic passion

Just a natural reaction to

My forever discontent in

between slurred speech

Once while and never again

gazing between bleak outlooks and

Fingers and trees caught in kiss

Pulled away pushed into and thrown unto

Winds that felt so warm

Even with just us two

If i find myself backtracking

It is with heavy cost to the memory of us

Gleaming brighter as we danced slow

Burning and furling at edges

Melting on tongues from the last of snow

The lights iridescent

In your glassy eyes

That said I'm sorry

And me in fractions

Reflected as whole in you

i made that decision once

And never again

And since then

I see my paths diverge

Split like lips in winter

Ensanguined like flags in war

Lost as child without father

As mournful bell with no bow

Gritted teeth and clenched fists

Wave after wave

Of wind twining silk

This is a dream

And it slips softly beneath my limbs

Rough linen leaving burns come morning

The deluge flows upstream

Mortar and pestle bones clash as

clay chimes would caught in tempest

And the smell of wet cedar bark

Crushed yarrow and tepid earth

Stirring beneath my feet

Like sand washing from shore

I sink ankle deep

Numb to fear

The dreams slip out

Through wispy black curtains

And the gentle clink and roll

of chocolate brown marbles

Signals of daybreak

Questionable wakefulness

A sleep debt accrued and never paid

I could never hold on too long

And through out the day

The dreams become

Moss growing north

Sunlight slanted through shivering leaves

Lead my blind hands forth to the

Cool side of my pillow

Begin my ritual of

Grasping at scattershot thoughts

I lay down a humble hut

Of bamboo and concrete

With a clay fireplace and

Iron cast pots and pans

And woods as warmth

With ivory rope round the trunks of trees

and bells in its knots

The moon shines bright in this space

The shade brings a coolness equal to the stream a hundred paces east of this place

As my sun dried herbs slung above my makeshift furnace I watch

With softening expression

The blue afternoon wane to embery evening

Watch as veridian turns to silhouettes

Sleepy, foggy stars beneath your lids

And crumbling recalls of your dream

half moon still risen in the violet horizon

Awake again, you thought

sensations like fresh dew on leaves

curious of hastily built black iron fences

And crackling of dandelion weeds

in splitted downtown sidewalks with the

silent shaking in the airplane ransacked eves

Try again,

though this life is mediocre

The wondrous visions presents itself

In people who say hello sincerely and

Smile soft and ask how it goes

Your time is shared, a lonely confession

To the self, submission to the forlorn grace

And swinging hands of time

Next year, two years from now

You never thought you would live this long

the pages are waved from rain wrought days

bloated corpses through blue green tree veins under each ivy tendril wrapped home

With their cold skylights

And their yellow unlit fireplaces

Soft milky barks i had fingered in the parks i visited in this lifetime

I never knew its name but I loved it all the same

And dry white dust coming away with each slip of disconnected digits

Floating floating and so

What does this all mean

Whats all this for?

What is it

Sometimes for a few minutes

Sometimes for hours at a time

Sometimes for days and days on end

between each silence

To swim within and around the beauty of breath

and hold it warm and close to every organ

And to practice living in moments

That I know you'll surely forget

So that I may tuck it away for safekeeping

So that even as I feel my spirals descending

I'll remember that this occurred in our many life times together

As surely as you leave

As surely as I weep

You sat next her on that couch with the blossoms falling onto you. You said something about my sister, that unlike her i will place my ring on my pinky; you curled yours in example. I watched her lean over the couch, her hair fell over my arms and my eyes captivated by the way they caught light, soft and seemingly weightless like autumn mercury.

My jaw clenched and my fingers twitched. I wanted to run my fingers through her hair and kiss curious eyes closed. In the dark parts of her eyes I saw storms, regularly unpredictable. Filled with sand and uprootings of anything solid and standing. I watched myself pick up the pieces with her and told her to come with me. I wanted to climb the sides of mountains, and feel wind blow and fill me with joy, and fear and some semblance of life. I watched her imagine it and saying no, she'll pick up the same pieces uprooted over and over again if she has to. That this is life, too. I nodded.

I turned to you then and you followed me off the couch and we plopped on a creme colored bed together staring up and stretching our limbs towards the ceilings.

She sat on the other side watching me, the other room outside with its different season, different light. I asked you What would it be like to sleep in a bed and right on the ceiling van gogh had painted a piece? Any piece, I asked you. My eyes swam in the turbulence of the milky whites and yellows, of sunflowers, and falling petals.

The vision replaced and muddled by the hands of a dollhouse collecters lovingly tracing each ascending step and rail of a dusty victorian home. The hands opened a door and in it, a lonely dining room. A convalesced withering woman. Her wheelchair squeaked to another room, A resting room near a personal office perfect for the workaholic who has no strength to haul to bed, the collector mused.

in exchange for a dollar

he gave me a slurred conversation

and a handshake he tried to bring to his lips

to which i firmly said no

he looked at my knuckles and marveled at them

and i bared my teeth in a smile

and half joked that they are good for punching

he laughed let go and rambled to himself

his friend waved him over and i said my goodnights

i took the long way home to finish my favorite song

ii. Lori

in exchange for a dollar

she shuffled to me away from her cart

i asked if her if she needed a light and she said

I have my own I wanted to ask for a cigarette

But it looks like you have really good ones and

I don't want to impose

i shook my head and dug through my bag

and gave her my second to last and told her

to keep the money for something better

She asked me to accept this binder clip

and i thanked her conceding that it is useful

we shook hands and exchanged names

ive been wandering dazed

watching the leaves and thoughts permeating softly

how the branching of the trees

bleed and reach toward the sky

how everything is one

and i a walking ghost now in these strange streets

is none compared to thee

at two or three o'clock in the morning

you'd drowsily say the same to me

i just wanted to be with you

i laid in bed for hours after looking at my ceiling

following the constellation of your face

that dream i asked you in a soundless voice

where do you go when you close your heavenly doors

do you traverse twilit universes or wade through misty moors

i watched slow steps taken while you lost track of the score

ii.

i saw your face once next to mine

in floating parallel mirrors heart thudding our hands intertwined

we catapulted by the soft sharp consistency of time

your chanting in rapture twisted in velvet

sheets soaked in sublime

my fingers dug deep and gripped your halo

With searchlights stuttering about

In between stalagmite earth colored buildings

Of hiding inside night green bushes and

Staring up at the white speckled indigo sky

Quiet as the couple ascends concrete stairs

Comes home and greet mother

I lay rapt and I breathe here

The rustle of the small leaves tickling me

Get inside and I come back out

Back to leaping atop buildings

Electric poles caught in light prisms