I am asked to let things go.,
   to take account,
   to measure,
   that which is important to me.

I am asked to set the ledger,
   to inventory,
   to categorize,
   set aside and identify.

But I can not do that yet.
I am still seeing through the eyes of all things,
and feeling through frayed threads and ripped edges.
​I am still watching the familiar scenes,
miming the words and settling in to that old, contented role.

Eyes closed but the scene's set - 
to play the part I know best;
I know that the lonely will get what they'll get.

Only now, as my toes sink into the mud
and my fingers grasp for remaining pieces,
am I to remember that  while my mind
sinks roots into wreckage,
my hearts finds comfort in the wind.

Trust is a line on your eyelids,
it's a cracked smile.

Trust blends the edges of our shapes
and clings stubbornly to the ends of our fingertips.
Whispering consent is a power
that touching would rather demand.

This is the body in secret.

This is a body that won't tell a lie.

All of the honesty written in
fine, uneven lines over soft peach skin.
A ledger displaying debts without guilt.
"To whom do you owe the most?"

I am doing my best impression of myself.
I am doing my best impression of a person in control.
_

You have said everything I need to know.
A proclamation for the emboldened, 
the brazen lads.
That, or a cry for help.
_

It's possible, yes,
for your body to become your home.
To feel safe.

To feel something at all.

When the sweat collects on your brows
and tension tightens each muscle taut.
Teeth clenched, legs stretched.
My own Prometheus.
_
 
This is the past calling in a favour,
fetishizing love that can't be unmade.

Tangled hair gives way to hips that strain and stretch,
threatening to split their weary restrains.
It's a bruise that echoes on each subsequent touch, 
long after the colour's faded.

A manifesto for every cell,
defining each goosebump,
tracing the contours of my mind
until every fold contains a place to hide.

This is a brain undercover, with the flesh complicit. 

This is a brain searching aimlessly for reprieve. 
-

The hallmark of an effective imaginary
is the absence of that which made things real.

Skin, so easily, can be ripped and repaired.
Subtle reconstructions of a scene that
playback like a record;
the testimony of a vigilant witness
ushered quickly from the courts.

To try to cultivate the space between us,
to make it rich with love that would spare the void,
was to run a fool's errand on beggar's time.
Easier to let gravity do the work than to 
exist only in the violence of inertia - 
that which is going nowhere
and not bracing for impacts.
-

The ghosts in dead bedrooms
are haunted only by the demons in the living.

Let's play pretend,
and fall back into those familiar roles
that we've grown so accustomed to.
Only now, when I'm not myself,
can I weave and wind 
my way around these things we've made together - 
I can find each tiny nook and crevice and
fill their quiet spaces with secrets.

I can't forget what I know now,
but I can kiss away the things that hurt,
all those things that left their marks on
the edges of our love.
Let me be somebody else and bring you back 
to that place where you go when no one's looking,
and we can stay there as long as you'd like.
​

Asked to speak
on behalf of all things,
as if one could.

Longer nights tumble into short mornings - 
it's always bedsheets as poor substitutes.
The miles might not measure up
but the distance is great than notations
on a map, on a heart, on an expense claim.

When the calling echoes from the same corner,
how is it we don't find ourselves there?
Under ceilings of constellations and polyester,
drinking in lunar shadows and plum lipsticks,
it's not the love that feels the heat, but the death.

 I feel the frost nip at my hands and cheeks,
but the blood won't rush in.
I need you to let it burn me,
and promise to follow with the fire.

The dogs bark, and
they'll nip at my heels, and;
each step crunches on stale snow, but -
I go on.

And this night,
just like every other,
will be naked as a nail in the wall
​waiting for something to hang.

1.
I am at the awkward age - 
trying to fit in the world of ill-fitting suits and time-off forms,
coupled with late-night rock shows and ankle shoes.
Harder now:
  feeling a love that isn't mine to have,
  cotton-candy, caramel apple, mini-donut
  sweet kinda sickness
  the things you can't have but other people will.
  (That her eyes are glazed over with satisfaction is no condolence, thank you.)

2.
I've got the sense that I can no longer tell the bags from my eyes from yesterday's makeup
and that I'm better-off saying nothing than telling you that the change isn't working
that it wasn't worth it.
I'm swallowing my pride, and swallowing my words too.
It's a visit of blank-stares and paper-shuffling.
No touching.
I can taste the jealousy on the tip of my tongue and know nothing better than to swallow it down.
This acute kind of affliction I'm not so familiar with.
I hope it's an acquired taste, and I swish it around until I can demonstrate my familiarity with each individual note.

3.
My fingers don't feel the cold anymore, but my eyes do.
It's easier to be the one with red cheeks and eyelashes of frost than to be the one 
who believes in permanence.
We know that this too shall pass.
We're waiting for the great melt.
We're waiting for the storm to pass.
This is not the end.
This is not the end.

I can see now
that the problem is mine,
and while I can still keep the truth
tucked away in my sleeve,
the weather is changing
and threatens to expose.

It is not enough to crush the thing that hurts us,
we also must replace it.

Embracing softness;
finding it in the corners of the room,
the cushioning between ribs,
the fullness of stained lips.
These are things to call my own,
the things that you don't wish to touch.
Each supple reminder that the spaces between
are the ones where we exercise delicacy and practice patience.
Where I lie and wait, in weight.
Where I lie, heavy with thought.
Where I lie and feel the force of gravity
​as it pulls me closer to centre.

The smoke is not enough to choke on, yet.
It's close enough to fill your lungs
to  leave you teary-eyed and hoarse.
It's enough that you can look directly into the sun,
painting dusty rose over the horizon.
 It erases geography and appoints new frames-of-reference,
it alters your perceptions.
When everything is a catastrophe, nothing is,
and now every hour is golden.