It cuts like the cold wind
winter’s bitter old me
you got yours
I got mine
it’s tight like
I can’t breathe here
or too big like open sea
dizzying extremes
it still hurts like crazy
whichever way I squeeze

like you and I
how could I
trip and avoid
dredging through
this seventh house is
always the hardest
the more I resist
the more hellish the pain

I want nothing more
than not to want
just to make this ache stop
every time I look at you
like I do
I put my stinger
right in my wound

over and over
each beat of elation
has its equal proportion
exact counterpart
my fingers break what
they touch you beneath me
a choked spasm

I wish you could hate me
so I could just leave me
and this whole ridiculous
rhythmic debacle of longing

your acid tongue says I fantasize
about something else
flying free
as if this was
another part of me
a life lived briefly
my intrinsic sense
of death enclosed
in this breath

forget it

I’ll steep myself in defeat
drive all loss into me
I gladly give my joy away
as my skin turns to ash
molting from everything I touch
my tongue revives it back to beauty
words dust away the rust slashing
the excess outdated form I was
nourishing cause and effect
it’s not right and it’s not wrong
I’m put to the test
to claw my way out dreaming
of flight in a fight for my life
it’s beautiful distress
and I’m honored to be a part
of the saddest story ever sung

I live on a whole
other plane of existence
and I know you can’t keep up
or completely relate
to the transience
the frail stage where I’m at
a mortal being who can’t escape
that I can’t be everything to anyone
no one can
I’m here then gone
so fast

maybe I’m just unable
to be as simple
as being nothing
more than a path
we travel
or maybe
I’m just unstable
because I’ve seen
how one day
I’ll burst out
of this dream
like a bubble

the chrysalis shell cracked
and I don’t know what else to act
when dramas of self
complex inventions of who I am
run dry
I try to relax and don’t repress
what I can’t express
instead I just sit on it
and let it breathe
let it be a bulging bruise
with no reason
to cover it up

beauty is effortless
arising from the bittersweet
loosely taught
rich agony of longing
the presence of happiness is
the heart’s birthright
yet you feel so betrayed
by the ride
just like I feel broken up
it’s all so imperfectly this
there’s no one to blame

masked angels with dirty faces
walking holy steps
such different spheres of being
I need them to be
balanced so I adjust
after all we’ve been through
I’m still so alone
afraid of the dark
going nowhere
but here
the best place
to be
chasing sparks

this now is the only real
possession I have
a refuge of this unbiased
present moment
experiencing being
with and without you
with me entirely
whole yet emptied
carving out my heart
one loss at a time

find the remaining chunks
of burnt rotting flesh
these memories that hold on
to the bones of my integrity
the bits of what’s left
after shedding the ending
a fresh shining edge
slices light into the cracks
of your understanding

a bit slimy that first
trembling uncertainty
to get used to the razor’s edge
the pain of breaking
an all enclosing ignorance peels away
fraught in anguish
midwifing my emergence
from a cocoon of self
I give you all that I am
wings spread
breathtakingly majestic and humbled
I ascend