#34: Of

Of everything you 

Took it was my words

That have been the worst

It's hard to write with what

I've had to unsteal from you,

Letter by painstaking 

Letter, rummaging through the

Offal that was. 

Some days, I got entire 

Sentences to free you from.

Sentences you were free of

Ran into each other,

Clinical clanging doesn't make up

For your absence.

We keep looking at empty

Spaces we think are better filled.

Words and music and haze and days

Try and take a you-shaped outline.

The edges remain jagged. They

Stick in my throat. 

#33: Halfyear Hiatus

1.

It is almost morning.
I have tried sleeping
Seven times already,
Eyes squeezed shut
In the face of wakefulness.

The cicada probably perches
On a window, outside
My room, resolute -
Its strident song
Replaces my darkness with noise.

And this is how
Our stories never end.
Exeunt Actor one;
Fuck your inconveniences.
The parody must play on.

2.

The sun will soon be seen
Nodding its head with sympathy
At the ones that wouldn't sleep.

One must imagine Sisyphus happy-
How else would you tell yourself
It's alright to keep living

And leaving, and let the
Next knife plug the last wound?
This is alright, we are

All quite okay, nearly there.
All our emptinesses await another
Refill, please, hurry up now.

We'll win, waiting in endless
Entropy, imagining happinesses in sliding spectacles.
Can you feel me leave?

3.

I think the cicada's finally asleep.
Maybe I'll turn the lights out
For a minute, before the day
Takes this dear desolation captive again.

We promise, to keep returning, to
Keep going for going's sake.
Honestly, darling, it's easier
To lie here, sans light, sans sound, than
To lie to a lover, keep the ball rolling,
Exeunt, self. Fuck this.

#32: Hot Days

I turn the nightlights
off, turn to you and see
you turn into an unbargained-
for heaviness in my throat.

#31

her hands probably shook when she

lifted her lightweight life belongings up

onto the shoulder not carrying a 

shivering child, who hasn't eaten since- since.

the trail of feet moves like a slow centipede.

eyes down, keep walking, don't look up,

his instruction is her rosary across the night.

a dog howls in the distance. more join in.

her chant is frenzily feeding her.

walk fast, walk silently. don't look back.

her shoulders grow heavier. she's forgotten

what she'd packed in the last bag she left.

the child stirs. still cold. very.

a decimated people will gather around a fire

tomorrow, trying to rub life into blued limbs.

(i used to be a nurse, a woman with silvery cataracts offers.)

none of them ever learn each other's name.

A few days later, the radio announces

Between news of a new film release and another minister frolicking in another country

A landmine attack. A couple dozen casualties. Refugees. The unwanted. The unseen. 

Their anguish, undeserving of our benevolent generosity, carpeted in a bed of Riverside mud and shrapnel.

If there'd be a God in the sky that night,

He'd probably dim the stars down.

Even the skies know how to mourn-

Even when they mourn the living.

#30: Recommendation letter for a shadow

1.
I doubt you'll ever leave
These serpiginous quarters I've found you.
We're at home, here, safe
In the cement certainty of an odd companionship-
You blow the creamy crust off my
Neglected morning coffee, you
Bring the evening news in (
Voices, even- especially- unfamiliar,
Fill the empty air of my home).

2.
If I could, I would ask
You of your life
And if you were led on as we once were
(My minutes are now mist)
Or if you meander across the pages
Lazily reaching helpful wisps into
Unexpectedly gratified begging hands
Do you let time close its fist around you?
I suspect you've never been tied down.

3.

The wind-whipped arches of our

House are loath to see you go.

The heavy air I exhale keeps you here,

Curled up beside me, days and

Days and daze.

How does one say goodbye?

Sighs hang on dusty cobwebs here,

Shivering in the gentle breeze that will

Someday wash them away.

4.

The past-present-future periscope into my blind eye. Who knows when time even began- maybe on the day I learnt how to ride a bike. (I remember forgetting soon after.) Bitter suns tell us our clock ticks life as we know it must move, merrily-merrily-merrily-merrily. 
Put your shoes on when you leave.

#29: Before I Go

It's the little untruths
That slip over the edge of
Your sunset and begin
The earliest of my morning

Cup of coffee,

Spilling sideways, streaking

Another little pattern over

The old table

Standing there-

You'd never know how

Easy it is to break

Words down into

Silences that creep

Out of the edge of my 

Nightmares, shimmying their

ghastly way 

Up my throat

And down yours.

I'm afraid I have been

The witch and the face 

The mirror told you

Should stay away.

#28: Baiting Bates

Your words
Seep blood into thirsty parchment,
Opening vein after rotten vein
Of dusty stories;

Isn't your jaw aching
Weighed with the heavy staleness
Of all you forgot before it
Could be spokenshruggedoff?

I remember how familiar my
Hand feels wrapped round your throat.

Your eyes glazed over before they rolled
Back, and your back arched in
Such protest of my presence,
I almost felt remorse.