an ode to mystery

The girls were full of you.

They wore you on their cheeks
like rouge, dotted on the inside
of their tights, at the top of their
thighs, right on the apple of
their bones, to keep you close
enough to count.

They spent too long learning
the way that you taste
to be able to watch you
speak to someone else the
way you used to speak
to them.

Painted in your touch, their
fingertips left lines of shivers
in their wake; the stars of
wet dreams and moans when
their dreamers couldn't sleep.
They let you linger long
enough to count.

Your words hit them like
breaking the sound barrier
even after all this time.
Even after all this time
you took their cigarette
scented breaths away.

They know they'll find you
stuck on that old black dress
that doesn't impress like it
did. They'll find you in the
corner of that dark room,
smelling like whiskey just
enough to count.

Windows open in the
dead of winter, they let their
smoke curl out to signal
-- a desert island in the middle
of the desert city --
for your return.

They've lost your charm,
the perfume that
people once wondered about
when they left in a whirlwind
of exodus.

To get you back.

They'll drain their wine
alone, sitting alone in the bed
they share with someone who
fell in love with you on their
cheeks. Fell in love with you
enough to count.

When your lipstick fades
and the morning reveals
humanity under the selling of
the single night's soul, they'll
wonder if you wouldn't mind
taking a little longer next time
to disappear in the daylight.
Leave them just enough time
to escape with you on their trail.
Leave them just
enough time to count.

rhizomatic

i leave our
bed as the tomb
of an unforgettable day--
wake up quiet enough
to leave you as the statued
relic of meteors.
you grow horizontally
and encompass everything
i can see.
tiptoeing down the stairs,
picking up parts of clocks,
collecting lost time
like the gleaners of stardust.
i lost a button
i missed it
i wonder who picked it up
and where it's sewn now,
fastening bits together
fastening bits
just waiting to be undone
to be dropped off
and fastened to
someone else.

h(e)ard

laying on the bed with
your hand on my neck
I'm thrusting the way you
whisper all those
pretty tiny things
into the
tight wet spot
right above my chin
right below your hips
kissing lip to lips

harder than you could've
made 17 minutes pass
with nothing to say

i burned the table
when you lit the match
with your cigarette and
the flames hopped
hot

keep your hand at your cheek
hold the string taut
close your eye
the target
pounds between
the tits


bullseye

drinking

It beaded before it broke
blushing, her slave to cheek,
the heat took in before it spoke
says more than trying to speak.

let the push back
pull the town
another drink
before you drown

in the night's black,
lesser than the sin
when ethics cannot
quite squeeze in.

what would the savior do
(to you) to them to
free the blessed
from all the rest

seventy-eighty stairs
to climb
in time
to slink into her rhyme.

trying to charm her
with your wit
she's charmed, old harm
you don't get it.

the water's sliding down
the glass
taxis through the town
too fast

she's dizzy and hot
face pressed to the frame,
praying not to loose
you again.

cloves

she had only just become
secure when the door locked
and she remembered
the key was inside.
she walks quickly from the cold.

he's saving his pennies for
the cheap drink she likes in the
bar by the tower,
tastes like christmas and
smokes like black.

she guts the garnishes without
realizing that green is her only
color and that there are
more players than her.

he eats dinner without salt
he takes his coffee without cream
he fucks with his eyes shut
& dreams.

she is smoking while she shivers.
he is shivering while he smokes.

they're too busy staring and wondering to remember that they're not alone.

pillows

You feel the left side of your face
get hot a second before the right;

If action defines what you own,

then your words are my laws
and I am yours.

If emotion defines what you own,

then your tears are my blood and
you are mine.

Yet I am the agent of your question marks,

and you bury me in the back with your hardened
paint brushes

like a given. 

You sleep soundly on me
until the sheets feel tight,
and the nighttime incites readiness.
I see her all behind your eyes.

You think that since I've been here before

that I should feel nothing.

I've slept on both sides of the pillow
and I certainly don't feel cool;

I'm burning up with a fever
until I remember
I'm silent.

I see through the blank stares at the phone
I'm awake and it's
morning where I lay
sun rising behind clouds
and you dream about her
but can't bring yourself to tell me.

I know you tell her but can't bear
to tell me. 

So quiet now, so very closed it seems
she changed the locks.

You're guilty for the feelings but
they sink into my atlantic -- colder
than you imagined because I
try to understand and
can't see anything but the kaleidoscope
of confusion in your words.

And you think I don't know because you're smiling but
I know everything

I know everything because you're smiling

I play your sentences on repeat
but I can't understand what you're saying
seeing as you can't understand it yourself.