Sweet

Perhaps I call your name in the night

to hear only your name, if not you breathing,

slightly snoring next to me.

And the light of streetlamps does not

shine through bedroom blinds to paint

nose and chin and length of hair

in lamp pink of made moons.

But I may feel your leg against my knee

as I shy closer, feel satin over perfect skin

of shoulder, a whisper movement and smiling

you snuggle closer.

Familiar bones and softs relax and breathe

and rub chin into my hand, to take it

as a bear or blanket,

as a hiding nesting place.

Amidst family scents of breath,

female sweat and happy wets

you pull me closer, I am your husband,

your mate with the promise of loving

rolling about my ears, in hollows echoing,

the scream of your name begins

as your scent disappears,

your touch is cold before my hand,

and opening eyes see only empty pillow

and bare walls that mirror terror

in eyes that see terror in themselves

and the scream does not mercifully die

but rises to waken neighbors as world spins

about a pillow and anchor of you is lost.

Cannot sleep

When I cannot sleep because the walls whisper your name

And when holding your pillow to breathe your scent doesn’t help anymore

I just go sleep on the couch

Sometimes, in that empty apartment you left me

You are everywhere now because you are not

And I beg for you

When begging becomes crying

and the walls breathe you back to me faster,

the bed, the couch, the kitchen, the bathroom,

our son’s room, all empty

I learned to scream quietly

I’ve learned to take bad news better

It doesn’t ruin my whole day except that

Sometimes when I laugh at things that aren’t funny.

Like when our son tells me that mommy cried

Because her boyfriend broke up with her.

Stupid things are funny but to stop laughing I hit something,

dent a wall so the hurt helps me cry again and not laugh.

The tricks are not easy ones. I learned to eat my body from inside.

Burning great holes with stomach acid and after that

I’m not crying about

You anymore.

Silence has a buzz

Silence has a buzz like alone has fear.

Closed eyes have ghosts when squeezed into hiding.

Breath comes as heartbeats counted now in the rocking postures of knowing.

 I want to sing something my mother taught before my eyes found her.

From when god was blond and skies were his eyes and

sleeping was his breast.

 When the world spoke and I only knowing thump-thump and

something new; a just learned cold,

the exploding in here of open eyes,

 the fighting through this, this space connecting me to warm and soft,

now pain.

 But I was, and it was.

 Was, I knew when I heard your voice,

 your touch already familiar,

 and you tasted as warm as your scent soft.

 To feel your smile on me was to again recognize god.

 Seeing for beginning that mouth full of breast, warm soft,

 quiet thump-thumps caressing was not a me thing.

  Was, was a caring for me thing. And I dreamed then

  knowing hearing of my last thump-thump

  was from your wrinkled

  soft chest holding my…

  where noise comes

  and your scent to say… 

  But I was gone.

Death can rise in you

Death can rise in you.

If you have it, you hold it there,

black and comforting, a pearl.

Deep inside you hold it,

and show it to yourself.

At night, in the hollowness,

It rolls loose among memories.

The crashing, falling sounds, a lost feeling of love.

You can hold it in your hand and finger it numbly about.

You would expect it to be heavier.

It can sink through the skin.

Into the veins where you cut at it.

Awash in your blood, it rolls.

The veins you open before it.

 It reaches your heart.

 It is now hate, and it will crush.

Growing still, your lungs quit.

Your eyes skitter for a tool,

Something to open your life,

To scrape the hate out.

 It was never for attention.

 This time is for compassion.

 This time is not for pain.

 This time it is done.

  weakly, quietly

You

You said, you loved

bleeding. Twisting, turning, spinning, cutting,

Impact. Run down halls screaming.

Bruise, crash, break, hurt.

Twist, turn, spin, cut, Bleed.

Yes, I will, I promise. Love me.

Live for us, live for you.                                                                      

Bigger Than me.

Part of a whole.

I can never leave you.

Forever. Just please love me: It was you.

Til death do us part. Make it yours.

It is mine, please love me.

I can't stop loving you.

You are my Life.

Statement, truth, life.

I am yours, don't hurt me.

Uncaring, you kill me.

A promise

To you, to me, to everything.

Til death do us part.

Cold comfort.

I already gave my life.

To just hang on hoping.

Once I was begged

Once I was begged to say "mine"

To be an "us", with an "ours", together

And your body welcomed mine

Told itself to me with indrawn breaths

Eyes closed, and a pressing together

To say itself in me.

But a "we" was withdrawn, you took the "ours",

Pain was a "no", a "me not you".

Only a tear could be shed amongst the blood,

The draining of one from the other,

A separating of lives.

The images

The images are all thumbed cards

maybe lifted, replaced,

sorted in fields sweeping

deliberate movements to push gods

recall names for emotions,

for dreams of brown

hair replacing blond

for her face over yours

thumbing down

I am reminded of the price

already paid for a chance at love

the love that, oh gods, I begged for.

And you, I realize, are the canvas,

no, the land my dreams grew from.

You're the name I've given to love

the other half of my soul

What God gave in return for my dreams

the thumbed cards are only cards

I rub clean the stars, the night

the universe I lean on, I made

and now try to build a card house in.

Try to forget that it's only my one small house

in a great big world.

Nobody

Jawing the words in the midnight surround

Want, wanting to speak or to have

To feel and hold, slip inside

And explode into being.

Not quite, shake head and work jaw

It creaks like worn floorboards

Before the door I squeeze eyes

The closing in of light pressed hard

Head into hands, the rise and crashing

Noises onto my shoulders, unseen

Felt though, felt like an urge to breathe

As dirt tossed onto my grave

Those things that exist

Those things that are not me

They fall in and are not

But I am alone as before birth

Knowing now that in the life around

Nobody is holding me

At night

I dream about it at night

Hold it on my tongue like honey.

A promise of an end, and I fear it.

It makes me stupid as I stare and now am lusting for it.

Taking my sight, my world, my life into it.

Promises, pain, future in stone.

Solid, heavy, slow truth.

They come, angels, demons,

powers of nature, my Gods.

They argue and gamble for my bones,

worn, useless, weak and brittle now.

Yet I call, and feed the night my fear, and love.

Suffering so delicate it does not fill their empty bellies.

But they are held still, drawn to my blood I hold forth,

Communion to spirits and promises.

My dark horde of memories and love.

Come, take, drink, this is my life which I shed for thee,

that there might be forgiveness of me.

For thine is the power, the hope, the glory.

So, saying, I empty what could be into what was.

Tasting what is. Poison, slow spreading,

sickly sweet and noxious.

In fear I welcome it.

That hurt

Do you know that hurt?

How sweet it feels when all I can do

Is hug me and say “no”

when it’s like a tooth nerve shining into my skull

Feeling like a scraped knuckle, a stubbed toe

Pulling me away from the holding to lick and

Tongue and suck what hurts,

Murmuring to the bleeding that pulls

Drowning air from my ears

I grabbed something I cannot let go of

Soul tied to what was pushed over to sink.

Wriggling into darkness rushing past in descent

Shiver and try to pull that weight back up

But it pulls me down more.

I hold onto it now as if it was you.

Grey light above fading, so cold I’m blessed

By waters pushing into my chest that aches, numbing it

Below is darkness pulling

Last prayer

Someone should pity the victims of suicide:

The jilting lover, the unfaithful wife,

The murderer who takes all of a family, but one.

Hold them as they cry or laugh now

In astonishment “it wasn’t my fault.”

Because they are correct.

Nobody can return love as it is given.

Vows are not meant to be kept

Your life is not your family

The suicide forces it on you

Raises the guilt of shame

Shines on you the light of broken faith

Or the despair of being alone.

It is a crime they do

Protect the victim at night,

in another’s arms as just

Before sleep they hear the heartbeat of the gone.

Sounding alive, in the body they now hold.

Don’t you understand

But don’t you understand

It hurts

Truly, lord almighty hurts

Without you it hurts

I couldn’t breathe or walk

I tried my own arms to hold me

But the feeling choked and burnt.

Your noise exhaled from the walls

Your prints stuck to the sheets

My fingers tasted notes you had written

And finally, I believed your assurances

I wasn’t good enough to be

I tongued each curse and agreed

I was bad, should go away, we hated me

Where I can hide

Where can I hide from the terrible shades of your love.

Amongst those broken things called memories.

There is a dark around living light.

A me holding you.

An Our hands.

A Your lips to mine.

Wandering lost.

So many signs to ways now gone.

Wandering lost

to you no more.

They hear the grief of my scream,

      the laugh of my frustration they know.

      They will not look where my eyes lead,

      to me lost, wandering and forget the safe,

      the here I came in,

      the not you loving me.

Better

I shouldn't.

The phrase guides.

It hurts me: I shouldn’t.

The doctor said so.

I won't.

I shouldn’t.

If I wasn't here I would.

But I am, so I won't.

Simple, simplicity, not too hard to do.

Follow what they say.

Do as they say.

I know how to be well.

Even if I am not.

The Lie

It' s never gone.                                                                                      

It's just inside, streaking pain that lies

fires whirling, hell is calling, feral eyes that stare inside

monsters raving, to sand they're stomping

this thing that was I

Green, I hear green mold that's spreading

disease is eating the pain that's crawling

Where am I?

circles, balls are spinning,

flesh is crawling nails to open eyes

See, see, shaking light, fear,

It’s hiding as the worm is crawling,

Was it I?

Tears they're falling, hands are wringing

head that’s blackened, skin falling from I.

Stomach tensing, muscles wrenching.

 Open, open. close the eye safely hidden,

staring hands that hide

      Pain is driven, darkness calming

lights, streets, town am I

walking slowly, rain is lifting,

scent of growing

 love is waiting, thinkest I.

 The lie.

It hurts

It hurts

you cry

but just a little.

Cold, almost fear on the ward.

They're crazy, they're here.

They’re not leaving, I’m here too.

A cold telephone in the hall carries conversations all night.

The people reach but miss the touch.

Lonely people who are only seen sometimes.

They want to hold something, to let themselves cry.

It hurts, I cannot do that either.

If I open my mouth to scream, I could not stop.

My eyes will hold it in. Here the pain is wrong.

Drug it.

A poem is only of words and fears.

Not plastic sheeted beds and urine-stained chairs,

cold painted block walls, doors that don't lock.

No mentions of plastic knives, plastic bottles,

plastic wrapped food.

Plastic attendants that come and go.

We are different and they know it.

We drag grief to us like blankets in the night.

Or does it attack like flies where we cannot reach.

Something is broken: I cannot remember

the pain or its names or its many faces.

Caress

 Sweet, The taste of black bliss on your tongue.

 Forgotten, glorified shining idol of grace to be not.

 A mouthing babe on bosom.

 Milk, life of ending, beginning

 Being forever.

Upturned, supplicating receiving.

Eyes rolled behind brows, seeing glory flood thousands,

millions of cells are screaming in pain

and drinking sweet pleasure from emptying

 eyes gone marble cold.

Drain, drain.

 Hold me as I drain.

 Your arms and tears carry me.

 My last breath your whispered tear.

CLEANING

Did I tell you about the dreams I forced?

How I lay, eyes tight closed, heart thump throb in my neck.

And there were strands, stray runaways in my mind and straining,

my toes curl tight, and fists clenched.

Breath held and the yellow net I made,

Had always made to drag and fix and clean me.

I dragged out third grade, playing monkeys with friends and then

naked touches and feeling panties against my balls.

How they kissed her and she them and they tasted

like apricot fruit rollups, she said, and you like milk.

And I didn't kiss her, nor touch her, but watched.

They were my only friends then and I dragged watching,

caught the pain of not kissing, of being milky

with guilt over panties and watching, and I cleansed it.

Third grade lived as a six-foot-tall bean plant

 in a glazed dough planter, the size of it all,

of gerbils my teacher gave me and trying to

get friendship I named one someone and he laughed at me.

And I dragged sitting there hearing it and feeling only hurt.

Scoured clean I dragged and had to breathe and my toes

were cramped arcs and you asked me why I can't just love you, always.

There were things in the way. School, a job

in the mountains and sky, of friends that didn't hurt me,

of pets with their own names. And you were good, so good,

 promised so many times that love was forever and

 My breath was popping, and my fists shaking, my back arched

 to hold my breath as the net pulled

 scraping me clean from black top to darker bottom

 and it hurt and then I was done.

 The air came, dizzy I turned my head aside

 thought how stupid I was to drag free everything,

 to believe I could clean me of everything but you.

Valentine

You leave me lie in a hospital bed,

Tears rolling across my hand.

Strange blankets hold me.

The hum of ventilators,

Like your breathing,

Brings me sleep.

Years, lifetime.

Lover forever.

A ball, curled.

In sleep fetal

Alone fatal.