Monday, November 23, 2009

on the road

all night
i grasped the pillow hard,
my teeth grinding
in my jaw,
i was clutching
the lack of you
wanting only to come home,
and resume
the hold of us,
a molding into my mattress feeling
the grip of you.
or the lack of it, rather
in a hotel bed with scratchy blankets
tossing in the quiet
and solitude.
i am so unused to sleeping alone.
only ten days has me
tossing in my skin,
writhing with your absence,
a decade of days traveling
on the road, my life
packed into my luggage.
i am not running
away from, but toward
you, love.
i am counting days,
holding stock still,
breathless
for your touch.

Wednesday, November 4, 2009

i write to people who will never read it

how quickly we forget things,
until they spring back to haunt us.
calling you kitten...
trying not to, but
failing miserably.
you leaning into me. the way it feels
to be curled into your chest.
and you,
refusing to let go,
and standing in the doorway eagerly
awaiting the next time
i'll be in your house.
these things should, but don't,
get any easier with time.

next time...
next time i'll have my brother along.
and we won't touch, we will pretend,
like we sometimes do,
that it isn't there.
that we have given up.
and maybe you have, but i doubt it.

i wonder, when i leave this state,
how you will say goodbye to me.
meanwhile you are an itch i
cannot scratch,
a truly terrible idea
someone i should hang in the back of my closet
and let rest
until the idea no longer consumes me

but that isn't how this goes, no
i will court the fire, breathe in flames
until i, too
am burning alongside
what we give up does come back to haunt us.
i wonder what will haunt you, in the end.

meanwhile, i shouldn't give
a shit.
i should be occupied,
not wasting my time dreaming of you
although i don't know how i could stop,
no matter how much i tried
there is no forgetting this, no pushing it aside

so next time, yes, next time
when you stare at me with that
look in your eyes and awkwardly
kiss my cheek
i won't look away, or try to separate
i think what i want is to stay in the
fire - to burn willingly, knowingly,
seeing that no matter what the outcome,
there is this
this burning,
the branding you've made on my skin

and when the time comes
that you will take my naked body
and deliver art into my flesh,
i wonder how hard you will resist
and turn away, or whether
you will break, like time and time again,
give up the resistance,
you forget
that you are trying too hard to quit me,
like i am a drug

and this will not be the end,
or the beginning, just
another chapter to the cycle
you wish you could end,
another captured moment i wish
i could forget

i hold another, now,
in my bed. i should not regret this
but i do,
when near you and all i think about,
despite my labor,
is what you feel like
when you do to me
what [s]he does, what you make
of our patterns,
how we move and trace shapes
in the dark