You’ll pay for leading me astray, heart.

I’ll pay by turning to stone.

I won’t choose the pain of losing but the pleasure of forgetting

You’re not just a memory, You’re a habit

One that I need to rid me of me

But how does one cut the very veins that hold you aloft?
Death is always near.

I see you. With your nipples creating peaks underneath your tee shirt, its neck so wide it exposes a sun-kissed shoulder. But what of your slender throat?

I see you. With your disheveled, bourbon strands of hair covering your face in places, exposing only lips so plump and ripe, they’re the suede of a peach bum. Those jaws where my hands would fit perfectly.

I see you. Your arms slim, the blue-green veins of your hands like rivulets rounding up knuckles and wrist bones in a path only they know, like weeping willows they hang by your side. Raise them over your head and let the river flow.

I see you. Sucking in air arrhythmically, defining curves beneath ribs, but the bulge of your soft abdomen cannot be hidden as such. It finds a home in your stride.

I see you. Slowly curling up, your knees rising mid-air and hips rocking to your right as you clench your inner walls to an imaginary pleasure. Those long legs beg to be held by the ankles.

I see you, I see you, I see you. Exactly how you want to be seen.
Don’t fear my gaze, it caresses you, tenderly.

she loved lighting candles. tens of them. it would make the rooms warm, then hot. and she would sit there in their soft glow and sweat, watching so intently at their shifting flame; sometimes still, sometimes a raging dance. there were others in the room with her, you could not see. they blew the flames this way and that and amused her. she would then lay down and cry softly. the rug would soak up her loneliness. they could not touch her. the one who could did not come.

He kisses like a miser but not when it comes to my wounds. My lips are parched, but he misses that. Just like he misses the hunger in my eyes when he asks if I’ve eaten. These arms, these hands have lost their elasticity, the bolt. I seek a man of the desert.

Oh, come on! This tale of ego and hormones, just who are you to make my mind up for me? I thought I had this jigsaw pinned just right and then I realized too late I had been playing with the wrong pieces. I fall for it every time. But I want to hear it. Lonely bastard that my heart is. “Tell me lies.” Sweet fucking lies.

I’m a heap on this bed, your bed, our bed. Heap on the floor. Heap in my mouth. Relishing the moistness, I lick the insides of this fruit in my hand.

Your hands. Your knowing hands have left thousands of little secret notes on my skin. And I open them impatiently, tearing my skin like tissue paper.

My stone of worship, come kiss me again. These long stretches of skin are thirsting with pores open. I paste my cheek on yours, sniffing you like a newborn pup.

My whole life with all its thrusting sighs is on hold for you. Like dust in the sun rays, suspended. I look for you in the songs of Paul. I trace the O’s in your name when there aren’t any. I’ve walked those streets with you a thousand times but this city is not familiar to me any more. The sky is losing light. This sliver of your being, held tightly in my chest, is now the hot vapor of my breath.

: dressing
unspun clouds of cotton. drop big drops of indigo ink. mini fountains, mini puddles, trickling down wrists and forearms. pouring myself out of you and into arbitrary things that resemble you; i, too full for you, too empty for me.

: that yellowing sap
nagging pulsation in between temples. insides dissolve. feet, the ugh of swamps. pulling away your dirty words stuck to my head like gum on the undersole. pull and examine the struggling mite. squish, i am unable to.

: syrup
flaking now, dried up for 265 days. it keeps coming in spurts. on top. fuck until you can no longer hear yourself.

: tickmarks
red pencil. circled, underlined, highlighted. tear page in vehemence. stare at paper buds from the spine.

: xylophone
clink on the glass, laugh coyly. it will disappear, it was never there. sound to your ears alone. mad woman, playing music for herself.

: onion juice
invisible, unviable. tongue behind teeth, short of getting caught in the grind of anger-filled curses. hold it up to the candle glow, you won’t find the words. secret whispers are horseshit.

do you like these apricots, ma? are they firm enough?

just please don’t serve me that dreadful cup of nescafe with the neer dosas.
i miss your hands, ma. long, delicate, brown. especially when you’d be kneading dough. how much you love to cook. and feed. was the stew of my bones enough to sate your angerbursts?

i couldn’t stand your ugly silence. you made me feel like the loneliest child in the world. but look, the heiress has inherited her mother’s jewels! they all but fall from weary eyes, crystallized and frozen. they call me ice queen.

there are oceans now between us. yet a warm glow of sun falls on its waters. like the booming sounds of a whale cry underneath, do you hear me?