Rough Silk

Ribbons, ribbons, ribbons; my hair, your fingers, my face. Laced between our outspread arms, silken cords of what-nows and I-wonder-ifs stretch taut through cellophane silence that freezes our limbs and stifles our words. Eye-to-eye and breath-to-breath, our lungs are paralyzed in empty anticipation of speech; we are waiting waiting waiting on the verge of confession, petrified of refusal but hanging heavy and unsteady on fraying bands of wanting. Your eyes twitch with unspoken questions as I stand-- colder than I ever meant, than I ever wanted to be-- with a face that leaves no room for queries, but a gaze that begs answers. Plaiting strands of barbed wire and organza across your shoulders, I weave patternless purposeless tangles in a fool's attempt at intimacy, wanting only to find clarity and comfort in the opacity of crumpled ties, in burgundy ribbons across your spine.

Bare

I haunt the sharpest place in the world, where the trees ring with astounding clarity before my eyes, but slip, shivering, out of focus at the edges of my view; they slide into a vast, unknowable darkness of rustling wings and shifting shadows. The curling smoke spiraling tantalizingly upward carries abjection, remorse, anxiety to the sky, leaving behind only being. Let the fire burn, oxidize your raiment, expose yourself-- let it go. Forget to remember. Strip down to your bones; stand calcified in the omnipresent, omnipotent blackness, close your eyes. One, two, three hundred heartbeats pass before you regain sight, eyes open to the ever-watching, ever-patient trunks. Hopelessly dwarfed, your eyes turn upward to the great velvet bowl of the sky, as it sinks slowly downward to envelop you... swim amongst the stars, love, and condense, brighten; let yourself burn.

I'll watch from down below, ossified in my ring of stones, roots pushing ever farther, holding fast-- the waxen fingers on my weary boughs reaching, reaching as you shine ever-distant: cosmic and unreachable.

When there's nothing left to burn, come back for me-- inflame me, engulf me in your silvery conflagration. Constellations, we'll fly.

Travel

We're on a train in the night,
accelerating with such a solid relentlessness
it sometimes seems we'll never be able to stop,
we'll just barrel on through the coaldust darkness forever,
ghosting through the skeletons of ironworks
and the shuddering bones of dying industry,
watching civilization level and smother the landscape,
watching flora and fauna slowly but inexorably claim it back,
watching the atmosphere oxidize the shining lines of the city's arteries,
watching each capillary turn to rust,
watching the blood rattle tiredly on.
Bleed it out, bleed it out, bleed it out.