(or: his beginning, no longer my end)


winter storms usher in
a weakening
of
all that has grown strong.
lightning splits tree in half
its' charred reminder
etched across tender heartwood
two paths diverged in a yellow wood*
but Robert is a stranger
and when frost blankets the night
the road less traveled
is a lonely place.

warning:
a broken compass
keeps running in circles and
sometimes maps dont help

in the darkness
memories filter through cracks
in hallow facades.
the warmth of temptation
melts fists into fingers unfurling
slowly tracing
the aching grooves
his sleeping form once wore
into sheets now cold and empty

in the darkness
phone and key and car and door
turn enemy
inviting me to run,
arms outsretched,
into midnight streets that should be forgotten

(resoluteness has never been my strong point)

but morning breaks
all too soon
and again i don the mask of aloofness
like a scarlet letter
damning sins of the flesh
in a self-constructed display
of strength

and through it all he laughs
claiming to know me
better than i know myself
not realizing
that warmth now comes
from a brighter sun
and i have no need
for his candles in the darkness.




*from The Road Not Taken by Robert Frost

i.
you are a tattoo.
a swirl of ink stretching
across the pages of my spine
calling me to look backwards over shoulders
at roads once tread by cautious feet
and i am weak.
kneeling before you
palms upturned
fingertips rubbed raw against
the coarse hairs of your jawline

ii.
i have lost myself
again
in words spun sweet... the
tenderness of your voice
warm breath
to calm the
pulsing vein
at the curve of my
neck
don't stand so
close
to me
take your sunshine
son, i
cannot continue to play mother
no more
resting weary heads
upon chests to relieve
tensions from our
respective realities
please
crawl out from under
my skin
i cant bear you
embedded in my pores

iii.
goddamn my breath.
it reeks of your kiss.

iv.
when it falls the
walls become rubber and i
hold up the sky with one
broken wrist.
this longing is
not foreign
but the insanity that follows
is a new form of emptiness

v.
this is the hour of the hurricane
trapped in a vacuum
this, of the storm
that bleeds through fabric
on its own irregular cycle
pages
ripped from calendars, pasted
together with saliva and
salt water

vi.
a figure
bent at the waist
tripping through a forest
with a candle, soon
to burn out
a jumble of continents crumbling atop
sloped shoulders-
atlas shrugging off truth
once more

vii.
in the darkness
hands grasp at shadows
and
words fall on deaf ears
for you have gilded my cage
with gold and rubies
and I, the unwilling prisoner,
lack the strength
to find a way out