I am reaching for tomorrow by trying to preserve today.  I'm not sure what that means, but it's true.  Truer than true.  

Dying

I keep on dying again...

What my heart murmurs to the night

when I think about it:

the lacy flowing hair down your back,  

tracing the the veins of foresight,

of good-intentioned agreement,

sunny dispositions wrapped into a convenient

ham sandwich.  A disjointed poem;

and no one calls at night to tell you,

"Wait...I love you."  

I might do that right now

but something in me stops me

something in me wants to see 

you reach out and melt the clouds

down the rims of the sky

so that a clear blue canvas

is all that is left of us.  

Where would we go 

if we didn't have the tender kiss of night 

to lengthen our unhappy dreams,

and why would we die

if not to be carved like headstones

and set in the ground for all to say,

"Here lies two so devoted 

as to be buried in the same place

and look! their headstones bear their name!"

Where does the moss grow now?

Under my armpits.  But moss is soft.

I feel like weeds, weeds grow there,

and every day gets harder to say goodbye

and every day its easier to look out

upon the unshorn lawn and say,

"I will cut it tomorrow."

Tomorrow I'll be dying again

and you won't know it,

because the moss under my arms

will continue to grow.  

And your leather-chapped skin

will always be a degree colder

than the warmth of my world.

Slow Flame

It was so important to write this down

I forgot to and then, you drowned

of your own volition.  You were a pile

of mismatched logs, that somehow never

got sorted and cured for winter.

When the snow fell, you lay there

and froze and burst open,

the sap oozing from the red wood

like a slow flame from a burner.

When the spring came, it was all

happiness when the birds

picked up your pieces.  They used them

to make nests to lay their eggs down

and so you see you were useful after all.

But it couldn't be anything more 

than an afterthought in your delusions

and so nothing really saved you in the end.

Summer is when I think of you the most

and summer was always a time for you;

the golden bark of your skin

growing dark among the haze 

and humid light of the summer sun.

You were doused in wet thunderstorms,

cracked open by thunder and lightning,

and busy streams ran perpendicular lines

down the crack between your breasts.

Autumn began the day you fought 

your 'demons-in-boys-skins' one last time

and came to me dripping wet, having just 

drowned of your volition.  The salty stains

on your cheeks ran parallel lines

down the crack between your breasts,

and I told you what it was to be a woman

and you lay their like a girl.  

You didn't have time to cure 

and so burst open and suddenly,

suddenly we all took notice.  

But I forgot to write it all down,

and you become a slow flame

from a burner.