imbedded pieces

While I slept you did this:
torn out, picked clean,
reverse so inside is out,
preening out the tender and pure,
leaving the dark,
angry,
BLACK,
that saw once,
but swallowed to prevent release.
Sewn up and all that functions is what you left in your
disgruntled surgery;
a Frankenstein with malice and sutures;
dark over my eyes, my mouth;
pickled poison smokes my tongue.
The cancer is complete and you like it that way.

"this is how it works, you peer inside yourself,
you take the things you like, and try to love the things you took.
And then you take that love you made, and stick it into some-
someone else's heart, pumping someone else's blood.
And walking arm in arm, you hope it don't get harmed,
but even if it does you just do it all again..."

Wedged between old things,
memories already breathed,
heats broken, mended,
pumping solemn and proud.
Slight displacement, space begged and received,
warm;
they find a home only to jump ship,
only to find magnets coming through your eyes.
Pulling, channeling within and its birth begins.
Blossoming out my throat, almost full;
leaps out of my mouth,
into the wild;
a round full beauty at last.
Looking at what I didn't know was there;
watching it take flight,
I miss it and admire its beauty thats not mine but ours.

before he's awake...

Yellow,
not quite though,
undimming slow and sure,
gentle rise and fall,
slight slope from shoulder to spine to...
your toes are warm,
tipping over some scenario behind your sleeping eyes.
Leaning over, close to smell your dreams,
warm breath,
content repetition that is my intoxication.
Sheets slip,
pillows pin me to this spot.
I know there are word for this,
If only I had them.

12/26

Straighten that up a little,
kiss it over to the left.
I plan on feasting on Friday til it's gone.

Offering from a stranger:
"The organic December reminds me of Nicki's green top. Only if her sweet personality reflected light on Riverside, the I.E. would be even sweeter"

Allyson's additions:
"Revel of youth! Amber taste of summer on the tongue, a golden hum in the bones, a hymn to endless nights. Surge of sound, open eyes that meet in public rooms, secret smiles, pleasant shadows touching under soft lights. Freedom from self mixed with that sort of illusory, unmarred, temporary love that exists between strangers."

Forgive the darkness, it slows your heart that resists rest,
makes things hard to see, but do we want to see everything?
i could name a few that I would rather stayed in the black of unknown.
Forgive those heavy eyes, that read a story but won't share,
that know the words but mouth only regret,
they know a truth and teach you with a gentle hand.
Open now to that strange road that feared you in your wilderness.
Tamer, as if by the will of your future, half eyes open,

something jumps awake,
that soft calm you remember in dreams you forgot.
tears, hot and mild fill that place that was defense.
flooding the bristle of anticipated destruction.
quenching hot anger, deflating remorse.
Standing here,
in the dark,
your eyes aren't so heavy anymore.

monday

writing among writers:
Once in a while, a great while, most whiles,
I discover that i am alone in a room full and thirsty for a joining.
Their words ring in some re-run past as I scream for tomorrow,
for when it's fair,
and they want it over already.
Stiff in their envelopes of self recognition,
I free leaf words into brief impromptu.
Finally, I can't, I won't let it go.

I think downstairs is best,
half blue, half red brick,
dim red lights light the page,
second hand decoration,
mismatched:
husband chairs, wife tables,
grandfather arm chair, creaking and well storied,
a grandchild mic
listening eagerly to hear and re-tell.
Can't ignore the great rock back wall
that supports the upside where the rest resides.
but we're down here, away,
writing, clapping, whispering,
waiting for something to click.
It always does

outside: wet cold on my feet, wavering around me, seeping into skin, shrinking what is firm and proud. Not like yesterday.
words: are thick today, disgruntled in rising, darkened by the possibility of failure. Friday was better.
my hair: tries to escape, a wild hare tied to a leash of fine iron.
fingers: don't, didn't ever belong to me, hardened, naked, to cold to touch themselves.
Papers: scream for milk

slow, slipping toward it, whether you like it or not

my handwriting gets smaller and smallest as does my voice in chances of disagreement.
but not today;
or tomorrow: wet cold can't steal away what's mine, a gentle reassurance that it's warm soon,
and the pages will turn, the switch is flipped.

I need you here today, not tomorrow or yesterday or some square in a month unforseen.
I want you to feel that surge that I feel, that takes control, out my fingers, into the world. I have a pretty good idea you know about it, but I want you to see, just the same. I want us to document, together, the slant and slang and slips that make no accidents. There is no such thing, they say, as a mistake, as a thing for no reason. Every note has led to you, but I love the melody. Can we listen to it together? Hum along, our unpredictable song, that leads to us. I almost have the words down and then they change to a shade of love I didn't even know was there.
I guess I can wait another day, another gathering of space between sun and moon. But I need you to know, patient though I seem, undeniably gathering steam, I'd like you there, as you would feel the same, to see it together, Love.

Poem

I tried to find a poem that was you. but not just you, everything that surrounded you was caused by you and the the little things that you touch as well. All that is inside, hidden, shy and strong. I wanted it to be what you left and where you have yet to go. I needed to include that taste you have, the breath you take, the clothes you leave lifeless on my floor. A small taste of your words on the page, entangled as lovers. Maybe a couple pieces of the hearts you broke, a brief stroke of your broken hearts, too. To much? But for people to know what I am trying to say, I want to include a few words you have said, and not said. Some moments that were stolen, shared, and sealed into what is now OURS. The tone can't be sad, because that is not what is you. You are that which is bright, despite. You make others bend with the pressure of not knowing your life. A room, without you is missing a part, or parts. If only they knew. Time rushes toward you. The music is sweeter with you, the food finer, the couch a throne, a bed, a confessional, a dinner chair, a movie seat. And bed, the bed is...
I couldnt find the right poem. But I want you to know, I really tried.

Stepping out, now, again, not tomorrow though.
Sitting square, a little later, tonight, kissing a hope.
Feathery, weak in ribbons of tandem dreams.
Unshredded licks of soft attempts,
delicate pieces of strong armed enterprise,
towering pages of whispered entreaties,
all wait in que for their streak, their link.
Fix, arrange to please,
you know whats been placed in your hand.
Now, how to spend it...

a flash in the pan is all that's left of you,
dazzling remnant of memory,
sticky stuck to the tin of my mind,
painfully aware of its brevity,
wishing it could stay and be here for a sit,
breathe in a bit and know what tomorrow feels.
The breath on the glass reads my sorrow,
static clung to a sweet remedy,
snapped in half by a faint, weary quarrel,
I climb back to the shaft that sleeps next to me.
Back to the endless dream of a second
chance

Slither back to defunct, to the solace of your turmoil. I'm sure you will be fine with your slick screen of memory. It will keep you company as you run from reality. Ankle deep with no where to turn but up, I pause; in disbelief, in awe at what thrashes around my regret. But you keep on running, spewing lies and malcontent. The poison is your partner, with you so long you don't notice the cut it makes and takes, leaving less and less.
I am tall and fine here, the level lowers and I am dried from you and the liquid I was trudging through. Tomorrow will be fair, the next better still. The fog was thick today, not so tomorrow.
Broken today will be merged, blood spilt will suck back in relief. A scab you left, a heart now healed, a soul now free from your toxic repetition.

I could never understand someone willingly causing pain to another. Could never see what benefit it has. Calling in the early morning to say it's over, calling someone a liar again and again,
drunk and angry, mocking and derisive, blaming, spitting, cursing; waiting for an opportunity to do it again. A sick sport with only one spectator that receives the down pour.
Not the middle of the night this time, but near it. He called and called and called until i was awake and raw. I picked up and wondered would could cause this rage, this break from rational behavior. Why does he insist on me? What gives anyone the right to make demands, at night, when I am tender and alone and ask nothing but the solace of dreams?
"I know you are lying." You must have been lying when you said you loved me. No one in love would throw these massive terms around simply in defense of pride. I hung up to keep afloat, cut the line to save the ship. Stress rocked my dreams, pushing me in to the submission of my failures. At night they line up and ask for bread, spare change, anything to get them through. But i am helpless, i cant even feed myself because you took it all. Work creeps in my bedroom, money lays next to me, strangling my breath, tumult and strain, together in my bed as I grasp at the slowing of breath, at a bite of surrender. Awake again, to more tiring tirades, more misappointed meanness. I can't do it anymore.