This Was We

When my heart was an object
you would hold it
in your crippled cupped palms
Your touch could dictate it's fevered pulse
Alive between your fingertips
Beating and breathing in your lovely hands
Wrapped around me
your touch defined it's very rhythm

Your reality would
recreate memory
Breathing life
Pulling at strings
to mock God's creation
You would possess me
without meaning to

Like a surgeon
bringing to life
some desecrated relic
In spite of all life's acrimony

My heart: merely an object
Cupped in your crippled palm


We flat-lined


The beating stopped
I opened my eyes to some separate reality
dowsed in scattered shadows and reflections
The life I led
strewn before me in photographs and sound bites
A collection of all the then
unfolding before my very eyes
A blatant fictional account of what love should look like
what love should sound like

This was we
You and me
Now, lifeless
without the you

I Would do it All Again

I spill over symbols and shapes
Sounds so familiar
                          I can almost see my reflection in the vibration
We designed the structure
                          manipulating substance
                          but never saw it through
I skim our surface
          almost ashamed
Belief was the one truth we never sacrificed
Stubbornly holding onto one another
Even if the ghost outweighed the idea

Every breath I take clouded all the more with memory

I do not wish to replay
What matters is no more
We took our chances
Tested time
I would do it all again

I would do it all again
I would disassemble the mess we have made
Walk the thin line
                          and do it all again
Symmetry is far too misleading
The hands of time are not intended for those with paths better left discovered

It took a lifetime to get here
Our promised land
                          perhaps built for abandon
This is the life we both lead with
                          but never live
A brick and mortar no man could claim
Just as we dismantle this weathered masterpiece
                          the writing remains written there
                          on those crumbled walls

Limbs

-- There are those who play for keeps
                 and others who recognize they cannot be kept --

I plant these limbs
                 deep into the tangible
Licking skin for sustenance
Sinking teeth into supple flesh
I’m breaking ground
                 slow and deliberate

                                      If only I could seep into the missing pieces

I know this is only a moment
so I remind myself to keep breathing
                 in and out
Outlining your face with my steady hand
                 you press your fingertips to me
Lending
                 this gift you refuse to take

My mind races
pacing itself with my hummingbird heart
                                            the two refusing to mingle
Fearing only resolution

We will not allow pain to manifest
Too caught up in pleasing
                 or the pleasure
A fury frenzied writhing
                 salacious and steadfast
The climax too few ever confess
This is not lust
It is raw

All set to motion by something absolute
                 yet denied

Piece

Wrapped up in this deafening cacophony
we run our mouths
                                     Words like elixir
            numbing
While we repeat magic phrases
allowing us to remain
                      broken
in shambles
                      An array of scattered memory
pieced together
held only by a frayed exterior
                                                                         infinitesimal
The time and distance:
our atom bomb
                      without fuse

Setting aflame this frame
I look upon what a wonderful mess we’ve made
In foreign stature
                                     I fall upon these knees
                                     baring witness to our final demise
                                                                         endless in the end

Tempted to turn back
to revisit some lost ruin
map-less and betrayed
                                     We swallowed the key
                                     then washed down the remainder
                       drunk
                                                               within our separate reality

Dedicating myself to excavation
amidst the rubble of this crumbled kingdom
                                     Signs still pointing back
                       to when it all began

Bellowing softly
ruthless and dramatic
Like some bold ballet
we allow our bodies to sway
                            Curving listlessly
                            Bending to the point of break
                                                                         yet we release
                                     every time

Senseless
              & Divided

- a poem in three parts

               In a world of odds that are rarely even
                                     I’m attempting to even the odds
               Piecing together reflection
                                     Balancing the broken
               What was, was
                                     And now
               We are memory
                                     Sick with suffocation
               Your feigned desperation
                                     Where was I in your temperamental                                                                          misfortune
               Your subsequent suffering
                                     Posted to walls
               Smiles and focus
Just another blue dress pressed against a sunset
               The division of self
                                     The discovery of sin

Do as I Say, Not as I Do

Like a seething storm beneath this skin
signs of dilapidation
           slowly rising
In a fury
in an instant
the tainted truth trembling at my fingertips
We break our wounds wide open
Salt and vinegar pouring in
This is no fabrication

Once an island upon an island
now I live and breathe amongst the masses
Exclaiming nothing
bottled up
           waiting to wash ashore

I roll with punches
dreaming of pacifism at its basest level
Wrestling with self
           Wrestling with other
Awake in this nightmare
I stumble
wide-eyed
Wishing for explanation
           and purity
To be rid of this momentary madness
but the madness is no longer built into the moment

I am blanketed
covered whole
No remedy for reality
Love and longing taking shape in a manner better left for someone else

This is real
This is raw
This is now

Always seeking to unveil truth
I kept one eye open
           in order to believe
Only now: both eyes wide
           I see what a fool I was
               ever to believe

Holding on to hope
           searching for truth in forgiveness
Masquerading as the chosen one
but cast aside for the high
A world I bare witness to
           yet knowingly live on the outside peering in

There is no going back
There is no standing still
We fall from grace
We retrace our chosen mistakes
           never reaching destination
Collecting stories and scars
retold and remembered in fraction
A portion or just a piece
           Straining out the bad
               allowing only good to remain

Beneath our delicate façade
lay the hidden parts
           the better off forgotten
               slowly creeping in
Daring us to remember to revisit a past we’ve buried beneath flesh and bone
Time disguises the answer to the question no one is really asking…

What now?
           what now?

Sentenced

Perhaps this is her punishment
an existence heavy with remembrance
The lone lover
stuck to her pages
solemnly confronting the idea of solitude

Pushing back -
staining sheets with smells she hopes will never dissipate
No longer holding on to moments
but simply living in them
Scarcely
one by one
no matter how quickly they come and go

Her heart shattered and aching
frozen in some other time
the chill overwhelming
Redefining lonely
she is now homeless
without shelter

Banking on forgiveness seems utterly hopeless at best
What then?
The mark was made
Her consequence this:
          A lie
For truth is ruined
          so he says
Who is she to argue
Merely the contravener
shamed
a victim all by her own doing

Yet - Love
still unmeasured
no matter what the transgression may be
they Love
An adamant, stubborn, outspoken Love
existing without fail
without try
Effortless

While this Love may not recognize error
- and the human heart will still beat with one direction
the mind fails to practice with the same conviction
Spinning circles
creating reason thick in conflict
They're torn apart

He faithlessly marches on
while she stands still mistrusted
numb and naked
in fear of what may not come
Perhaps her punishment - is this
Living life
parallel to having it all
sharing Love with no beginning and no end
yet never finding the way to stand on common ground