From Now And Then

Leaning against the frame

Trying to climb into those arms

Oil and pigment

Open at a distance

Here I am

Tearing at the fabric

Covered in canvas

Covetous coward

There is no art in my arms

No beauty in what I can hold

Here I am

That which devours

Knows only longing and loss

Hunger as a vice

There is no greed quite as that

There is no desire in the hands

Soft and cloudlike

I feel the touch pass over and through

Mist

I am here in this condensation

Hiding in these droplets

In my eagerness to have you

I consumed the whole world

I thought it would fill me

That I would swell beyond imaginable

Eyes bursting from my skull, perforating galaxies

Pressure turning inward and collapsing .

But I swallowed it in my sleep

The flashing electric zing briefly touching the back of my throat

All of it tumbled down my esophagus

Recession and war, kindness, telephones

Everything distinctly human, dinosaur bones

The taste barely grazing my tongue

Heavy in my gut i felt a falling

Heart sinking down my ribcage, down

Beast as i felt the agony tore tears

Eyes melting down to primordial waters

Snaking down my being

The heart a monster filled with greed

Had the mouth not taken you the heart would have stuffed itself, glutted

Pulling down and together boring flesh

I would have you .

I will have you.