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.

Wandering/Wavering

the highway is beautiful at night
a ribbon of flowing lights
mesmerizing
and I lose myself in the drumbeat
drowning in the bassline
pretending it's your heartbeat.
consciousness flowing through
the empty passenger seat
dissipating out into the air.
it is twenty eight degrees outside
and I hardly notice.
I'm eighteen miles ahead
and seven months behind
walking the razor edge of ambivalence
as you slip in and out of focus
flying past
lingering, maybe
but only for one grasping moment
so I'm left again with only air to hold.
you're my cloud
but I haven't found the sun yet
what is it that burns you away?
I'm sorry that I can't feel your vapor
waiting for the rain
or another sunny day
I'm assaulted by mist and fog.
she twines her hand in mine
and I...
twitch.
what is this silence?
I patch your holes with scraps of plaid
but you're wearing so thin
and I'm almost out of thread.
weave me tartan from your hair, love
it's brazen, oceanic
just the thing for mending this
unless I'm illiterate
unless I'm deluding myself
into thinking I could read the words
you traced upon my arms
so I'll sit here calmly erasing you.
I know you didn't mean to kill my balance
but I'm tumbling.
if she catches me
does that make her mine?
alternately pushing and pulling
it's go limp or tear apart.
I stare out my spiderwebbed pane
with mendacious clarity
hoping the shards hold
always just a few more weeks.

Glaze my skin with selflessness

A seraphim's self-induced chemical haze
The backbone of the drumbeat
As the spinal c(h)ord beats a soft tattoo
The rhythm chronic, neurotic
Burrowing insistently into her dazed head.
A catch in the throat
And a cold, resisting lump
Deep in the center of the chest.
A heavy, intoxicating weariness settles over the skin
In a sticky, noxious film
Sinking and crawling its way into the marrow.
Each heartbeat lasts longer and longer
As the blood cools
And every limb is slowly transmuted
Into hardening clay.
Tiny veins of ink spiderweb the whites of the eyes
As her brain begins to sublime.
Infiltration, yes
The insidious invaders have inserted themselves
Into every fiber
Every vessel
Every microscopic pore.
Infection, yes.
But don't call it a disease.
She has become a stony effigy
To those who cannot
Will not
Should not resist
Letting go
Giving up
Giving in.
A one-shot chance at attaining nirvana.
And if you miss...
What, really, have you lost?

Weather

We fly straight as green arrows into the heart of the storm. The sulfurous wind whips our sodden feathers around us as we labor determinately onward, our focus as sharp and deadly as the spears of lightning flickering in the distance. We fly out of the warm vernal sun, into a forbidding shade with a purple hue and a sickly yellow underbelly. We leave the light behind us, and we never once look back. Icy drops of rain assault us, pounding our backs and our heads and our weary wings, maliciously trying to chase us from the sky; we surge upward, out of the torrential downpour and into the choking clouds. The wind gusts in dizzying eddies, and I struggle to keep your sable form in sight as you begin to fade away into the haze. I struggle on blindly, desperately hoping that I have not gotten twisted into a spiral, perpetually circling the eye of the great storm. Fear drives me on as I cling tightly to the belief that I still follow you.
The fog at last begins to weaken, and I push my screaming, leaden body on with a new rush of hope. Shafts of light pierce the enveloping shroud, glittering with defiance. I burst through the final wall, and when my vision clears I see you gliding ahead of me. Exhausted and aching, but flooded with triumph, we fly on through pale azure skies, as thunder rumbles on the horizon.