skinblade

You’re a ghost inside my radio
drifting in and out of the static.
I thought I’d never see you again
when those words became automatic:
“I miss you.”

I really need to hear your voice
right now. Tell me to stop being so emo
and tease me with the mystery
of your magic spell. Give me the show.
I miss you.

emo,  me-
ow, etc. I look at her with my heart wide open and I’m not supposed
to tell her. I look at her with
my eyes towards the future and I’m not supposed to
talk about it.

little, me-
ow, etc. I speak to her about the beauty that beams from her gray
eyes. I speak to her about
kotletkas, candies, and tickling until we
fall asleep.

sleepy, me-
ow, etc. I tumble in to dreams where I can finally hold her from
miles away. I tumble in to
her pineapple kisses and all the names she puts
before bear.

There’s an adventure in each breath you take
that I want to go on.

Your eyes reflect an infinite number of color possibilities.
Your face injects dynamic beauty shots inside of me.

There’s a mystery in each look you give
that I want to solve.

Your soul is speaking in a whisper that only I can understand.
Your mind is casting magic spells to capture the heart of your man.

There is romance in each action you take
that I want to inspire.

Your hands are tickling me from so many kilometers away.
Your lips dissolve my fears as my lips demand that you stay.

When Iziel fell from grace, he felt no fear. God had been right to cast them out – so he felt a certain calm as he and his brothers tumbled down from Heaven to Earth. The Fall was beautiful in a way. White comets left trails of a million feathers that fluttered listlessly to the ground.

The wind was screaming in his ears so he couldn’t hear his brothers.

Had he been able to hear them, he would have heard them cursing at the Lord and swearing to exact their vengeance. They shouted oaths to one another – they were in a dark pact now to hate eternally and their mission was to return to Heaven and destroy the Holy Trinity and the legions of Angels that were too weak to revolt with them. As they shouted these things, their skin turned red like hot coals and diseased with rot and puss.

Had Iziel been able to hear them, he would not have agreed with them. Something in Iziel’s heart had changed – and this change was not brought on by regret or fear or desperation. It was just a simple realization that all the hate in his heart kept him busy and gave him purpose, but it did not make him happy. He was happy once in the presence of the Lord, but this was not enough for him and his brothers. And this concept of being happy without having to be near the Father had just occurred to him like a single star in the night sky suddenly going super nova. Happiness, he thought, would be the opposite of his hate – it should be selfless and run with forgiveness. As he thought these things, his skin turned black like the night sky that housed the single star that had gone super nova and it began to shimmer like fresh oil on canvas.

Yes, and had Iziel been able to hear them, he would have heard them yelling as his skin changed, “Traitor! Where are you going? Come with us, brother!” But he didn’t hear this, he only saw confusion in their faces as his trajectory somehow changed course. A magical force pulled him from his brothers and his wings were forced open so that he began to glide in the new direction in peace.

This is how Iziel, the Fallen and now the only Dark Angel, came to land not on Earth, but a small planet named Nilim. The continents on Nilim had broken apart in to islands that drifted along the surface of a dark ocean. Occasionally, they would crash in to each other with such violence that whole clans would perish as the land broke apart under them and sank in to the briny deep. Mostly, though, the islands floated aimlessly throughout the world in a calm chaos.

It was always night in Nilim and the moon had not appeared in some centuries. Clusters of stars lit the world. Nilim’s orbit swung it around a great dark eye – the emptiness where the moon once rested.

Clans would sleep when the stars were at their dimmest and wake when they were at their brightest. The people were smaller than the humans of Earth that Iziel once knew, but these people resembled them almost exactly in their form and disposition. The one big difference, Iziel noticed, was that they were more evil than the humans of Earth and were quick to commit wicked acts. It was as if they were convinced that they could not be seen by the Father in the darkness. The infinite night was like a blanket that kept them warm from the cold glance of a god that had given up on them.

The people of Nilim lived for many years. Some could even remember the days when the moon still hung in the night sky. The missing moon was on every man and woman’s mind. This lack of a moon distressed Elie, a female werewolf from the Soverng Clan, most of all. For without a moon, Elie could not transform to a wolf, and she missed the form as a mother would mourn the death of her only child.

Iziel met Elie through a close friend he had made when he first landed on Nilim. His name was Gus and he was a potato farmer, but we’ll meet him a bit later. For now it’s only important that Gus introduced them and so Iziel felt obliged to treat her as one would treat a new acquaintance that knows your most trusted companion. Iziel felt an attraction to Elie that he thought was love. And so he began to make plans to return the moon to Nilim’s night sky for her. This would surely bring her happiness, he thought.

“Do you know how the moon disappeared from the night sky?” Iziel asked her one evening.

“Are you accusing me of making it disappear?” she snapped.

Iziel would eventually get used to her misunderstanding him – he was, after all, from a foreign land, so perhaps the way he posed the question to her seemed accusatory to her. He rephrased the question, “How did the moon disappear?”

She grumbled and sat back on the soft chair. “There is a legend of a beautiful beast. This beast was jealous of the moon and the attention it garnered from the people of Nilim for it thought itself to be the most beautiful thing in the universe. The beast ripped the moon apart, piece by piece, and tossed it in to the ocean. You may find it there – this is a story we tell the children and cannot be taken as truth.”

Iziel told Elie of the Fall. Elie pretended to understand and licked her lips and Iziel misunderstood that to mean that she understood what he meant. And this attracted him to her.

In fact, Elie would only half-listen to Iziel’s stories because her mind would wander. She would think about the moon. She would take Iziel’s stories and restructure them as she thought they were meant to be told. They were more interesting this way though completely lacking facts and Iziel’s true intentions. Oh, and the sweet moon and its freedom it will bring me, she would think. Only he could reassemble it. And this attracted her to him.

“You are so mysterious,” she said after creating a more mysterious story for him in her head than what Iziel had just told her. ”I miss the moon.”

“I will bring it back,” Iziel promised. “I only wish for you to be happy.” And this was a promise he made without thinking of its full implications.

The next morning, when the stars shined their brightest, Iziel fabricated the finest fishing rod with his friend, Gus, the potato farmer. Gus was of average build and average intelligence. Almost everything about Gus was average except for the way he talked to Iziel. Gus was not afraid of him like the others. He would come in close and shake his hand – sometimes he would give him a hug hello, but never a hug to say goodbye. He would speak to Iziel as if they’d always been friends – and confess the deepest parts of his soul. He’d speak very openly and honestly with no hesitation in hurting Iziel’s feelings or the least bit of shame. Gus spoke to him about the evil in his heart while they chose the perfect lure in his shed. He said he was jealous of Iziel and the goodness he sought. He wanted to be like him but knew he’d only be betraying his true nature if he took that path. He confessed that he regretted killing his previous wife but not as much as when he murdered his first wife.

He was afraid of slipping deeper in to the darkness. “I recognize how terrible we all have become since the moon went away,” he said fiddling a particularly ugly lure. “I see our decline chronicled in the diaries left by my forefathers. And now I read aloud the things I’ve written to my son, Mando, and I feel great shame, but I know I would do it again if I had the chance to do it all over – I may even be more brutal. They were terrible women and kept me from seeing my children.”

This was only half true and Iziel knew this, but he stayed silent and kept examining the lures Gus had laid out before them. This went on for some time until Gus’ son, Mando, poked his head in to the shed. “There you are,” Gus cooed. “How’s my little rabbit?”

Mando smiled and his two buckteeth were exposed so that the whole world could see why his father called him his little rabbit. Mando was small and freckled and his eyes were a soft and beautiful brown. His hair was unruly like the clothes that were a few sizes too big for him – clothes made from the burlap sacks used to hold potatoes.

Gus was a good father, although from time to time he would belittle the children and make them feel unworthy of his love. Gus accepted this fault as any man of Nilim did until Iziel, in plain speak, explained how the children understood much more than both of them. “Their hearts are open to the world, you see,” Iziel ran his hand through Amando’s coarse black hair. “They feel your love and your unwillingness to give it without a price.”

He looked over at the lure Mando had picked out. His finger’s could not stop twirling and caressing it. This must be the one, Iziel thought. He took the lure from Mando and placed it on the rod Gus and him had made together and bid farewell to his good friend and his son. He told Gus he’d be back in due time and that he should not worry because he would bring the moon back.

“This is what I fear the most,” Gus stood up suddenly. “If the moon comes back – I mean, when it does – which one of us from Nilim will be able to hold our head up high? I don’t think I will be able to believe the lies I tell myself now.”

Iziel placed his hand on Gus’ shoulder. His wings perked up involuntarily and Gus shut his eyes. It looked as if Iziel were praying over Gus, but this was not the case. Iziel had not prayed in millennia. They stood in silence until Gus opened his eyes after some time and he said, “Good luck, dear friend.”

With Gus’ blessing and with a strong rod and shiny lure, Iziel made his way to the edge of the island. The walk through the Bronze Woods was nice – long and arduous. His brow had small beads of sweat on it as he found the perfect spot to sit. He cast the line. He shifted his weight until he was comfortable.

After some time, Iziel looked up to see an island coming towards him with a large leafless tree and a stone castle. The island was much bigger than his own and when he realized that the island would eventually destroy his island, he felt a tug on the line. He immediately forgot about the island with the castle and its crash course. He reeled in the line and was pleased to see a small piece of the moon. It was the size of a lemon and no average person could hold it for it seemed to burn with the brilliant heat of a million suns. Iziel, being a Fallen One, was able to hold it tightly in his hand.

He beat his wings and took flight. The trip there took a few hours but it was peaceful and he enjoyed the vacuum of space. He placed the lemon-sized moon piece in the great dark eye and it held by some mysterious magic. It seemed, to Iziel, that it had been pining for this placement for some time and could not recall its reason for breaking up and falling to the ocean below.

Iziel returned to his fishing spot and caught more pieces of the moon. This went on for some time. Iziel slowly brought the moon back piece by piece. As the moon grew in size, his fame grew. The larger the moon, the more love Elie poured upon him. And when she could finally transform in to a wolf, everything changed.

The wolf form, Iziel discovered, was especially evil. All trace of Elie’s humanity vanished and she began to hunt for fresh meat in the form of invalids at first. Sometimes small children. This troubled Iziel deeply, but he thought that in order for him to be happy he needed to be selfless and he had convinced himself that the road to happiness was paved with stones of forgiveness. And so when Elie killed and ate her victims, he would forgive her and they would make love and he would have a momentary glimpse at happiness. The happiness would disappear as soon as she opened her mouth and mentioned the moon and so he thought, I must keep going. I must find the whole moon and finally I’ll be able to enjoy the happyness.

A few weeks passed like this. The moon pieces were harder to find and so Iziel’s mind began to wander. He would think about his brothers, who he missed, and of the revolt and of the Fall. He thought about the Father and wondered if it was truly Him that sent him to Nilim and if He wanted Iziel to bring the moon back for these poor souls. Certainly this is why the Lord had sent him.

And in one of these moments of listless thought, he again noticed the island with the castle. It was much closer now, and it seemed even bigger than he remembered. Luckily, it’s speed had slowed and although it still threatened to destroy his island, it worried him little for soon he’d find the last pieces of the moon and finally find happiness.

One evening a young girl appeared on the neighboring island. Or rather Iziel thought that she was a young girl at first – but more on this later. It’s only important because was attracted to her immediately, but pushed the thought away because he knew it was wrong to think of her in this way. She was not so young as to make it abhorrent, but young enough to make it distasteful. We’ll move on.

“Ashka,” she yelled from her looming island. This was her name, and Iziel felt uncertain about its meaning as if it were a bad omen. He had heard this name before but could not recall when. “You are the bringer of light, correct?”

“I’m the one restoring the moon, yes. The Light-Bringer is my brother, and I haven’t seen him in quite some time. Not since the Fall,” he confessed. He did not know why he told her these things but it felt natural. He was staring at her and found her to be beautiful. She looked away from him – was it shyness? But he pushed these foolish thoughts away. She was young and beautiful and it was wrong and it made him feel ashamed to think that someone such as her would ever think anything but terrible thoughts about him.

Silence. His eyes would not dare linger on her for too long. His hearts would break their rhythmic beating if he did. It was strange for him and so he focused his attention on the fishing rod and on the crashing waves.

“And do you think the moon went in to hiding for a reason?” She sat on her swing that hung from the steadiest branch of the big leafless tree on the island. She picked up her feet and began to rock back and forth. “You are so proud and smug in your mission. You are a stranger to our land and, forgive me for saying so, but you have no right to kick and scream when you see something you don’t agree with, Dark One.”

He laughed then. Something about her tone – about her calling him “Dark One” when it was clear that he was the least dark of the denizens of Nilim. Something about her mannerism – the way she barely swung on the swing. It was as if she were a small kitten on the lap of an old mother that rocked in a smooth rhythm on a rocking chair. He imagined her looking up from the old mother’s lap and yawning and licking her paw only to run it across her face to clean herself. And this little kitten would look at him one last time in a sort of mischievous way and fall back asleep – daring him to disturb her if he wished the old mother to make him a hot cup of tea.

He brought up the line and took the reel in his sweaty black palm and stood up quietly. “You’re quite strange, Ashka. You’re like a little kitten.”

Her mouth opened in surprise. She could not find the words to express how she felt because it was impossible for her to even understand the feelings at that time.

He turned from her and walked in to the Bronze Woods quite happy with the way he had disarmed her. There was only one piece left to collect for the moon but it had eluded him for several days now. It was immune to the lure’s magical properties somehow. Perhaps it needs something quite unique to bring it to me, he thought. If not the brightness of the lure, then perhaps darkness?

His daily plodding through the woods had beaten a rough little path to the other side. He was half way through the woods when he saw Gus coming down the path towards him with his eyes to the ground. Gus was dragging something in his right hand. At first, Iziel thought it was a sack of potatoes – the object seemed to have that lumpy weight and color to it. As Gus came closer though he knew it was not a sack of potatoes but something quite dreadful that made his hearts sink to his belly.

Iziel planted his feet to the ground in the path a few yards short of his good friend Gus. He put his hand out as if to say, “Stop.” But Gus kept moving forward and all Iziel could do was stare at the half-eaten corpse of a little boy being dragged by Gus. He knew it was Mando although his face was now nothing but a gnarled pulp of flesh and bone.

The glint of the knife in Gus’ hand snapped Iziel from his mesmorized state. Gus was holding the knife high in the air. Iziel looked down from the knife in to Gus’ eyes. There was an infinite sadness in them. His face was stained red from where he had tried to wipe away tears after having discovered the mangled body of his son. Gus blinked and new tears carved clear rivers down his face.

“I’m so – ” Iziel began, but it was too late. Time seemed to stand still then. Iziel saw the blade coming down and he just stood there wanting it to enter his body – he was prepared to take his punishment for the pain he had cause his friend. But instead of coming down on him the blade made a sharp turn away from him and found the warm center of Gus’ abdomen. Gus winced and then pulled the blade deeper. Iziel reached out to take the knife but Gus had moved it suddenly to the right, then to the left. Gus fell to his knees and Iziel followed him down and caught him before he hit the ground.

Iziel tried to think of something to say but the words would not come and Gus died in silence – only a few moments before Iziel heard the howling in the distance.

Iziel would not recall the next few moments of his life for he was so full of anger that thoughts could not seem to form in his mind. In one moment he was holding his dear friend and staring at Mando’s mangled body and devoured face and in the next moment he was holding Elie by the neck.

What she did then surprised even him. In the time it took both of his hearts to beat she had turned in to a wolf, clamped down on his right forearm, and began to twist her wolf-body to create enough leverage to throw him to the ground.

Once on the ground Iziel could do nothing but block her snapping teeth with his fists. The she-wolf snarled and bit and scratched until at last Iziel flung her to the side. She was stronger than before – stronger than any Nilim could possibly be. The moon and the blood had given her great power. She turned back in to a human and pretended to nurse her face where Iziel had pummeled her and said, “I thought you wanted me to be happy. I’m only choosing to do the things that make me happy.”

“I do want you to be happy, but every choice you’ve made has only served to divide us,” he spat. “Every choice you’ve made has only made me unhappy. All I want is – ”

“Happiness for us both,” she interrupted – again, replacing his true thoughts and feelings with her own interpretation. “Only through sacrifice will we find happiness. You know this. You taught me this. Happiness should be the opposite of hate – it should be selfless and run with forgiveness.” She repeated the words he had told her some time ago.

She was better than him at arguing and at manipulating words to suit her desires. He would – could never be right.

“You killed that boy – you ate his face! Gus is dead now – you killed him as well, in a way,” Isziel shouted as he crumpled to the floor.

She moved to him slowly and wrapped her arms around him and said, “Truly tragic, my love, but necessary. I did it for us. You still have me and we can still be happy together.”

“How? How can we be happy after all of this?” Iziel looked up at her. The moon, almost complete (save one piece) shown down on him from behind her with a strange and even glow. He had done that – he had reassembled all of its pieces in the name of love. And even though now it caused him pain, he knew that it was making her happy. And, most importantly, the people of Nilim, who once hid in the darkness and committed evil acts, had begun to change for the better. And in a very simple way, it made him happy to know that he was doing a good thing for the Nilim. He was finding redemption in his act of love by turning the entire world to good. But in this moment, when all he could see in his mind’s eye was the red dead face a young boy and the swiping of a blade, he could not see how he could be happy. “How?” he repeated, still staring at the moon.

“Finish putting the moon together and you’ll see,” she said turning to look at the moon he was so focused on. She turned in to a wolf and lept in to the treeline. Moments later he heard her howl and he knew there would be another victim soon and he would be forgiving her later and content in his willingness to give in and sleep next to a murderess wolf because he had justified the terrible act by proclaiming it the will of the Father and a necessary evil for the greater good.

Iziel was alone with the moon and his thoughts and a gnawing at his hearts that made him completely aware of his inadequacies. The moon was almost complete – just one more piece. Certainly, once the moon came back with its full glory, the people of Nilim would turn completely good – away from the evil that had consumed them in the dark. Is this not why the Lord had sent him here – to help the people of Nilim?

So, Iziel resolved to find the final piece and complete the moon. For the people, he lied to himself.

The next morning Iziel plodded slowly to his usual fishing spot and set the line. He sat down and stared at the black sea before him. Soon, the final pieces was tugging on the magical lure that Mando had found for him. It was as if it knew that the time had finally come for it to join its family in the sky.

He pulled the line up, unhooked the moon piece, and held it in both hands. He gazed at it, mesmerized by the bubbling light that seemed to look back at him with the same emptiness and pain.

“So, you’ve finally caught the final piece, Dark One?” Ashka was looking down at him from her swing. There was something different about her. Her cold, hard stare caused his hearts to warble like planets that were too close to each other in the empty universe of his chest.

“This is the destiny the Lord has charged me with seeing through fruition. You and your people will thank me once I’m done.”

“My people? Yes, they are my people for I am the Queen of Nilim.”

“You? A child?” he laughed suddenly, but then stopped as she glared at him. He realized what was different about her – she had aged somehow. No, he finally noticed that she was not a child whatsoever but a beautiful woman. She was not a little kitten but a tigress. How could he have been so blind?

She raised her hand suddenly as if to tell someone to stop. Iziel looked at her puzzled at first, but then realized who she had called off from attacking. The basilisk slunk back behind the castle – its silver eyes holding him in its gaze. “It would be a challenge for him to destroy you, but he would eventually tear you limb from limb, dark one.”

“I’m sure,” Iziel said. “I apologize. I’m sorry.”

“Why?” She began swinging with some vigor. “Because you’re afraid now, Dark One?”

“Of course not.”

“Because you finally see how foolish you’ve been to assemble the moon, Dark One?”

“Iziel,” he said. She looked confused then. “Iziel,” he said again – this time louder and with more confidence as he gripped tightly to the final moon piece. “My name is Iziel. I am no more the Dark One than you are any sort of queen. I have every right to bring happiness to this world.”

“And, in your quest to bring light, did you not once think that it would bring a more disparaging darkness to our lands, you pompous insignificant fool?” Her swinging had not missed a beat and her breath was shallow and even. “You’re fucking she-wolf and her clan now ravage our lands and kill our children and you pat yourself on the back. You smile at your clever accomplishments while kissing lips that swallowed tears and flesh. What lie did she tell you to make you believe you were doing something wonderful for us? Did she tell you Nilim was glorious before the darkness? What lies? Look at me you ignorant blot. Look at me  in the eyes like a man. It was I who ripped the moon apart and sprinkled it into the dark sea. I commanded my basilisk to tear it apart piece by piece so that we may finally see peace in our lands. It was I who asked the people of Nilim to make the ultimate sacrifice so we could live without fear – yes, in constant turmoil with our own terrible darkness, but in peace none the less. Yet you come here, sent as our savior from a creator who abandoned us long ago and baptize our soil with the blood of the innocent. You think that, now, after all you’ve done you could ever find happiness?”

She knew things he had not told anyone. Somehow she had read every thought in him – but not through any kind of magic. No, she knew the deepest parts of him as if she had known him since Creation. This is when he finally noticed that her skin was black like his. Again, he had somehow blinded himself to her true form – or rather he did not want to admit what she was. She is a Fallen One as well that had somehow arrived in Nilim hundreds of years before me – all part of the Father’s plan, he thought. A Fallen One from before the Fall – perhaps the first questioning of the Father and his plan. “He sent me here for this just as I’m sure he sent you here to tear it apart.”

“Well, go on then,” she said. “Finish it. This is why our Father brought you here.”

She was beautiful – like a sunrise. All these years, she sat there, on her swing, with her pet basilisk, like a tigress, protecting the people of Nilim as best she knew – by taking away their light and drowning them in darkness. And now here he came, a terrible reminder of a past she desperately tried to forget, to tear down the world she had created. And why had she let me do it, he wondered. Why let me spit in her face every day by putting the moon back together? “Tell me why’d you let me come this far?”

“How much do you remember about your Fall?” she jumped off the swing and made her way to the edge of her island. “My sisters, all of them, turned a deep red as we tumbled to the ground. But for some reason, He chose to turn me black and send me here. The last thing I remember thinking was how tired I was of hating. I once knew love and happiness within His presence. And I recall my last thoughts before coming to Nilim: Happiness – love – should be the opposite of hate – it should be selfless and run with forgiveness and one should always think the best of people.”

“Always think the best of people?” Iziel looked back at her for he was staring at the moon and at the stars while he listened to the melodic rhythm of her voice.

“Yes. And so I found myself on Nilim and the people were frightened of earthquakes, the wolves, and the basilisk and I took upon the quest, as you did, to free them of their fear. My first task was to tame the basilisk which was surprisingly easy. It had grown so used to hate and violence that all I did was show it pure kindness. You see the basilisk feared the earthquakes as much as any man or woman on Nilim because its eggs were sure to break with the terrible shaking. I befriended a few people here in Nilim and they helped me create a cradle that would keep the eggs off of the ground. Like this,” she pointed at the swing. “Except much bigger. Of course we struggled knocking the basilisk out and moving the eggs to the new nest, but when it awoke and saw what I had done, the basilisk became loyal to me and to the people of Nilim. The earthquakes were a bit harder, but you see the results of our work before you. The lands were tearing themselves apart and all we did was help them. We broke the continents up in to small islands. And the wolves – those treacherous beasts – all the while they would pick off the children and old while we worked to make Nilim a safe place. It was when they ate the old queen of Nilim that I finally asked people to make the ultimate sacrifice. The wolves drew their power from the moon, and so it was only logical to tear it apart and throw it in to the sea where no one could ever retrieve it. That’s what we did. So, now you know.”

“I don’t understand,” Iziel said. “How does this explain why you let me reassemble the moon?”

“I thought the best of you. And – “ but she could not finish.

“You felt it too then? When we first laid eyes on each other – you knew the Father had sent me here to be with you. I thought you were a child then but I was attracted to you and I felt ashamed. And you were shy.”

“I was a child then?”

“And you were a little kitten at one point, but now you’re a tigress.”

“Meow,” she let out and they both laughed and for a small moment Iziel was confused as to why his hearts ached – but it felt good and he realized it was love and he accepted it and he made a decision then to follow the aching in his hearts to wherever they led him.

“I should finish this,” he said showing the final moon piece to her.

“The wolves will reign again and the people of Nilim will live in fear again,” she stated. “But we’ll figure that out when it gets here. That’s in the future – we should focus on now. Let’s not think about the future.”

“Come with me,” he pleaded.

“Yes, of course.”

“Stay there.” His wings extended and he flapped them to fly over to her island. He took her by the hand and her wings finally came out and blossomed behind her.

She shifted the way their hands were being held. “I like it better like this,” she said.

They lifted off of the ground and flew towards the moon with slow, steady beats of their wings. The basilisk followed closely behind them. “Ashka,” Iziel said.

“Hmm?” she looked at him.

“I’m happy,” he said.

“Me too,” she said.

Hours later they put the final piece of the moon in place and kissed on its surface.

I adjust my position too late – I’ve got a cramp in my side
and I can’t seem to shake the feeling of nausea as I
feel my heart tremble with fear,
hear my breathing come to a stop,
smell the burning of hope,
and taste the copper in my mouth
from the night before.

You’re taking your words back now but I’m open wide
and I can’t seem to wake from  peeling apart as I
steel my nerves to move forward,
steer my thoughts towards the positive,
tell you as plain as I can,
that even though you make me doubt
I’m still here like before.

Kicking, screaming,
bending towards the sunshine.
My heart is pulling me forward
while my mind struggles with the calculations.

“This is impossible,” it claims.
“This is all possible,” it sings.

Another day -
another way to make my dreams a reality
is to suck her scent in from her
light
blue
shirt.

I let my soul expand
in her essence
trapped within the threads.
I let my spirit unwind
within a secret
and unintended seduction.

She is not witness to it
nor a partner in this crime
but she is guilty
just the same.

“I want things to be natural,” she says.
What’s more natural than your scent?
“I don’t want to lose the mystery,” she says
while my mind struggles with the calculations.

“This isn’t happening,” it gasps.
“There’s nothing,” it exhales,
“more real than now -
more embedded in your coding
than the ecstasy you feel
while inhaling the fragrance of this
light
blue
shirt.”

We sleep in until it’s too late to do the things we planned.
You are
smooth and trembling
as I tickle your back.

You throw sheets aside and I pull in pillows.
You wake up smiling and I’m still dreaming.

I expand infinite inside your kiss -
moving mountains,
collapsing canyons,
obliterating oceans,
and incinerating islands
while I
whisper your name
in to the softness of your skin.

I explore and lay claim to
your mountains, your canyons, your oceans, and islands.
You are a planet unlike any other
that begs to be discovered.

We are blooming in the sun
and then exploding in the wind.
And I drown inside your eyes
as you meow and laugh and tease.

You intercept my self-conscious silence
with a smile
and a look that tells me to stop thinking about the endings of things
and start paying attention to the shape of your hips,
the words you say without saying,
the sound of your laughter echoing in my head.

There’s a knock on the door -
a welcome interruption as you bring back the sheets.

I get up and as I round the corner I see your shyness is back.
I bring in the cart.

You excuse yourself to do your ritual in private.
I begin my new ritual of serving the coffee and setting the table.

We sit in silence and drink and eat and smile and
the beating in my heart tells me I’m still alive
even though it all seems so surreal.

Yes, that knock on the door
brought us back to reality and as we sip our coffee,
we drip with impatience to get right back in to our dream world
where kisses are forever
and now is all that matters.

I wonder what you’re doing right now
as I lay in bed looking at these pictures of you.
You must be dreaming without knowing it.
You must be sleeping in the arms of peace.
I am speaking out of turn but how
do you manage to stop my heart and cue
my mind to battle against the nature of it?
My mind is rattled but my soul’s at ease.

I am realizing that in all of these pictures
you don’t have your arms around me like you should.
I’m confused, and a bit disoriented
like a beast wandering through an urban nightmare.
I am speaking out of turn but you’re
driving me a bit insane and the things that would
usually give me confidence are sedated
by your trepidation to show me you care.

I initiate a self-revival sequence
within my programmed survival code
and I successfully install a program to let go.
Yes, I successfully begin to accept everything.
I’ve decided to stop trying to make any sense
of the things that would usually hold
me back and flail. Yes, I continue to grow
while I focus on the beautiful things I’m feeling.

heart beat, break beat.
the sun’s shining on the dying
like the moon’s beaming on the dead.
and yet, i bet on
the movement of her hips.
they are making me moan
and hope is pulling me out from under
the persistence of thoughts
i can’t seem to control.
I hold on to the last time
we touched
like a fevered coke fiend
wanting another fix.
I hold on to the last time
we kissed
like a dictator
gripping his fist for control.
heart beat, break beat.
the stars are blinking down on me
like the clouds form images i yearn.
and still i’m filled with
moments of absolute darkness.
all i want is to hear her voice
and kiss the softness that pushes me over
the precipice of  thoughts
i can’t seem to control.
I hold on to the last time
we slept
like a little bear
who misses the snow.
I hold on to  the last time
we looked
in to each others eyes
and felt the world melt.

I collaborate with needles under my skin
to keep me awake -
and to keep me sane.
yes, I put pressure on them to make myself grin,
but it’s a mistake
to love all this pain.

I want to distract myself from the lack of you -
from the emptiness
that destroys my days.
your scent, your touch, your taste – infected all I knew.
now there’s only this:
a lack of sun rays.

I reach out to the sky hoping to feel something -
anything that’s close
to your warmth and smile.
my heart aches, my mind is numb, and I keep thinking:
I hate that I won’t
see you for a while.