An artists rendition

Hold up a mirror to face my flaws
Saw you watching me
Quietly in the background
Mirrors show us things we cannot ourselves see
And how can such an image be trusted
It reflects but does it reflect true or
Is our brain trying to fill the edge of space with maybes
I saw you there
Crying in the mirror
No sound
And I turn and you are dust
Each morning
Getting ready
Fogging the mirror with steam
so that I can not see
Until I look and see
That I have become whole
And what I’m missing is you
This is what healing is
Another way of losing you a third time

Inexorable conclusion, perhaps

Your hand on my arm
That simple touch
Means more than I can ever say
No hesitation

I hesitate
Wanting more
But stutter

Brush by you
Touch
I see him watching us

Circling each other
Wondering if maybe
Give in to passion

But there is a right way
And I need more than a few hours
With you

And I see him looking
His eyes like coals
Daggers into me
Do you see?

You belong to you
Keep his opinions to himself
I’ll not allow an insult

Slow steps
Make the dance
And perhaps a symphony

Or perhaps I hope for more than
More than can be given
But I know
Now

Not more than I deserve

Embrace as wounds close

Slip below the waves
Warm water washes away
Hands reach out
Catching before slipping
Further into peace
Long minutes of silence
The hush of soft breathing
You stretch out
Reaching both away
And back to touch
Eyes open to find you missing
Not empty
As if the scent of your heart
Lingers in my mouth
Acceptance
And the fresh scent
Of dawn

Deeply held games that are no such thing

There is pain in the things that are ignored
No rest for the unnoticed
Desires well fed by dreams
Forgotten upon waking
Always they come
Dreams and words
Wanting nothing more than that they stay
Instead dwindle
Grow distant
Declared you mine
You didn’t realize that outlined my obligations
Not yours
But I do wish
You’d say the same

Pep talk for the tired

I just want you
Just want talking in the morning and touches reassuring me that you’re real
Just want stupid jokes and silly songs
Just want Dominance and submission because I’m unwilling to sacrifice a part of my identity to conform and neither should you
Just want arguments. That’s right. Disagree with me. Let’s talk it through and come out stronger, or at least feeling OK about the compromise.
Just want talks about our days, the minutiae. It’s in the cracks that flowers bloom.
Just want passion. From sweet forehead kisses to romantic gestures to mind blowing creative sex and sensual play.
Just want all of you. The things you hide. The things you consider bad. The gross. The beautific. The highs and the lows. Everything. Everything.

You. Who are you? Maybe we know each other. Maybe it didn’t work out. Maybe I ruined everything. Maybe you did. Maybe we see each other but never think, yeah let’s see. Maybe we jumped too late or too soon. Maybe we have yet to meet. Maybe I don’t look like what you are looking for. Maybe I’m too blind to see.

But I am looking. Am hoping. Am wanting. I’m not waiting. I’m active. Find me. Look for me. I’m looking too.

It is all possible. Don’t give up hope. Don’t give up.

Journeys begin and continue only with consent

You say you’re innocent
While you fumble manipulation
While you look for my attention
Saying your naive
Knowing that makes me want to protect you
Protect you and take you
Waiting on that yes
Waiting for you to speak
I’m just the freak
Waiting on consent
Before our carnival of sins begins
Yes
I want this
Build
Creative structure
Of pain and pleasure
Until all is undone
Until I’m satisfied
Never
Always wanting more
That next step
That next depravity
At the edge of your desires and back again
Watching your ecstasy
Your whimpers
Your tears
Kiss them away
Each new innocence
Each new horizon
Together
Say yes
I want this
Turn the key
Open the doors
One step away
We’ll start slow
Consent
Or
Good morning, how are you?
Only the gentleman
Only the kind Sir
You’ll never see the barbed wire
Unless you desire
And say
Yes

If strange is a journey then I am a explorer

Looking at things with passion, with bright eyes
They crack as if we weren’t shells but mindless mysteries
Dreams experienced in the flash of exhaustion
Waking to strange words on lips
Time for an emergency landing folks and this time, need your votes
Talking but my eyes tell a story of microsleep
Dreams turning about in prophecy
Watching her drown
Covered in snakes
Wake
Images seared into the mind
No vague lifetimes lived in the dreaming
Sidereal journeys to tomorrow
To strange branes
Through bioelectric signals
There and not there
Affording glimpses into
Reality

Stress dreams

Waking up sleepy
Sleep brings dreams
Dreams that feel real
Real like a life not being lived
Living in ways that I’m not
Not happy with what is happening
What happens when you wake without
Without that connection to someone
Someone you thought
Thought was forever
More than a friend
Friendship led deeper
Deep into companionship
Companions who loved
Love doesn’t mean together
Together romantically at least
Least among equals
Equality of choices
Choices I made hoping for you at my side
Side by side in companionship

I never thought we’d end up together
But I did think that we would be more
Than the past heights
Echoing forward
Losing coherence

Churn and boil

They say that no one truly loves you until they see every dark shadow inside of you and still chooses to stay

But what if those shadows are not caused by murk and pain but instead cast by bright lights shining into deep holes. What if when you gaze in into the shadows and the shades feel love they burst forth in incandescence burning away their shrouds and the darkness promised from lips bound to truthfulness instead drip light

Do you feel betrayed by their love and how dare they show this deep painful darkness which is so easy to love but then switch and become joy and light. In foolishness and hopeful acts they keep moving forward, they don’t see the change so drunk on this absence of pain. They keep going and not knowing break what they sought to forge.

And Dwindling is requested, affronted by this light and their words but though some time has passed they never forgot their oath to say what is in their heart and they cannot help that what is there is love. But they do love and they do care and they say, quietly, ok. We’ll talk only about the weather and the small things with nary a serious discussion about anything. And the silence reigns and their lights turn to blood but they remember the light and they break and break and break

Until you can stand it no longer and a short sharp slap across their face wakes them from their ocean of blood and they apologize and turn their daggers inward to spare you their pain because they remember that light they felt in the failing embrace of winter

But still, they remember their oath to always speak what was in their heart and their second oath, to always be silent in those places where they once were free

And torn apart by their own words, by the words that have always been the catalyst for destruction. No one really wants the truth, their truth. Not forever. No one expects them to remember the oaths they spoke in exactness. The things that they follow. Maybe it’s not human to do so.

Maybe they should have or should now speak directly, but it is forbidden and until it’s rescinded
Silence
And these words slipped past with bare context
Are all they have
We are broken until we are whole. Darkness until we are light
And the turning, we never expect
But the fall
The fall we know all too well

She rips me up

She rips me up
Just a text out of the blue
And she puts my whole world on tilt
Because she could have me or break me with a word
My could have been who never was
Who I fell so hard for
I left a cartoon like impression on the desert floor
A man shaped hole
I fell like a shooting star
And burrowed to earth
Flame kept alive in flickers beneath the surface
I gave up
Because I had to
Because sanity demanded it
But 3 words in a text
And no not those three words
And I’m right back at the beginning
She has me
But it fades
Quicker
And
Quicker
That’s almost harder than without
Almost harder than with
What could isn’t
What might be
Depends on her
And it won’t happen