259.

I practiced wearing a ring, night and day

and the in-between. Practiced patience.

The core of a human being does not change

with years, hands to hold, breaths to count.

My fingers have slits from base to core,

every time I move they crack open.

Sometimes they bleed under running water.

258. Q: Where are the arrows of love, now?

A: There is a bruise on my thigh in the shape of your hand

and I haven’t seen you in months.

I slept last night, I think. I keep dreaming that I am sleeping

with you, but I am not sleeping with you

and I wake up in sweat and it is all very confusing.

I’m jealous of whoever is hearing the rings

of your laughter. I had exactly what I wanted. Exactly!

I had taken many things from it, but never for granted. Not that.

I am in the heartache now. Right in the middle, blood and dark

and ventricle walls screeching apart.

You say I always want more, but there is a difference

between “more” and “better.” I want this and you,

but the version of it where we’re kind to each other.
Where the wounds are clotting and every day is light

falling out of our mouths.

I want for this cascade to be a different color,

a different number. I want to live in a life

that is without your absence.

257. Serenade

Each evening I dip my hand

into the bottom of my mailbox

praying that it won’t come up

with your set of keys.

256. Haiku: Black winds and the crosses we made over our chests.

Here, why you left me:
I was the kind of monster
that made you happy.

255. It took years but it rebuilt us.

We ran through corn fields reaching towards velvet sky,

with ghost fingers at our heels while we learned

how to make the shadows move for us. I am your gravity,

the pill that helps you sleep at night. You tell me that I am brightness,

bettering. We are the pillars, the chariots, the temperance.

Once I tried, and failed, to explain what it is like

when you step into a room. How miraculous it is, the light

that fills up the cracks.

I think this took more work than you expected.

I ask to dream about you, and in the morning am disappointed

that it was only darkness. I am told,

“It will be a quiet passage through this sorrow.”

I am told to not tell you what I want, that it is not for you anymore.

I think that I am too much fire and water to live with, and never at the same time.

254. Please let your boat come back home.

In a dream, you walk into a grey sea and I don’t 

follow you. Clothes and all. 

Later, you are reborn 

and we are kissing in a grey room. Gunfire, 

meant for me, and then it is my turn to run 

without being followed. 

I am over the fence. 

I am in the fox hole. 

I am in the dusted shadows. 

I am in a forest of brilliant jeweled blue-greens, 

but the shots still scream out behind me. 

I am never out of sight 

but at least in here, 

the color permeates everything.

253. Marblehead

When I came home from work today there was glass on the floor.
The window, next to the front door. The cat had bloody paws.

When waiting, time slows like sticky sap from a tree
and nobody wants to get their hands dirty. I think I'm out.
I'm not comfortable with this level of vulnerability.
There isn't even any skin left.

You are the lightning of my life. Am I the leaping crocodile?
I could hit my head on the curb and dream about you for days,
and when I wake up my hands will still go right through you.

I am tired of taking myself so seriously.
There is always a hidden dragon in the fields, but I just want it all
to look like gold, swaying and singing.