I might have let her touch my face,
sitting and facing each other in the
public bus shelter.
I might have let her have my heart,
when it was still straining for light,
that rainy evening.
I might have been still human like,
in the hope she would choose me,
and me alone.
But the moment passed.
We were both silent.
Then the bus came.
Everyone moves on. Or they should.
1995. Boxful of mixtapes and photos.
Hand scrawled letters, assorted gifts.
A winter, a held hand, a magic first kiss.
But I lost her soon enough, and she sailed.
The stars still glimmer crisply in a winter night.
Put the lid on the box, and put it out of sight.
I don’t want to throw it away, but no point
in rummaging through the ashes of what didn’t burn.
A letter from Lindsey came today, a friend listening.
I’ll read it when I came back inside from drinking coffee,
looking up at the crisply glimmering stars in the winter night.
There is no memory in the light,
and hazy baubles blurred out in
soft focus.
Golden hair spread out, a starburst,
and even this soft haunting is shamed
by desire.
Angel’s, or ghosts, might see the light,
see us without skin and it’s angry hunger;
I cannot.
22 years on, and the nights now are so much colder, less things for us to say.
Heather is not the elven maiden she once was, but still so kind and so sweet,
as a chubby elven mum, who knows the other world, knows the other lights.
Indiana is flat and wide open, and the sun is rising, still dark and cold morning.
A calm mood, eye of a never ending mental storm, I feel content here with her.
I’m passing through, on the road to a place only whispered of in my frantic dreams.
Heather and her son are asleep on the couch, cuddled up close under a blanket.
He may be half Fae, and she may be half angel, brave and full of righteous fire.
They are wonders, and I am lost, and I’ll never have a family, as the end comes.
Last night, I read a story of magic and bravery to her son, as he sat in my lap.
He was enraptured and his mind was full of light, the light that is in the stars.
Heather caught my eye. I looked to her. There was such love in her, I looked away.
They will sleep until the sun is fully in the sky, and I won’t stay to say goodbye.
Moving on, moving north, to the forests and rainy mornings that still remain.
Heading for a place only whispered of in my frantic dreams.
Out in West Texas high desert, maybe he’s at peace.
The stars might still be seen in such a small town.
The war took the moon away from her golden comb.
The city once again fell into the sea, a dream faulted.
A revolutionary war, after a loved drank all life away.
The deserts were filled with hungry coyotes so very bitter.
A mass grave where an owl keeps watch, preying on bodies.
Maybe buried in the sky, bones white, all the venom evaporated.
But I knew a nun, old and tired, that told a tale of your death.
Taken back to Texas, name unknown but a food to the gods.
Calling out to the moon to come back, her to come back,
for the moon to cool your brown and make you drink cold waters.
Midday, in a summer of dry grass and temperamental signs,
you slipped away, no cold waters for your cracked, dry lips.
A misheard name on your stone, a devil in your letters home.
Or more accurately, a Satan, who saw their sins, and your own.
Kiki seems happy, young and free.
Bright eyes. Open heart. So squee!
Kiki seems like a star, on the screen,
and in her bright light so easily seen!
I hear thunder as a Red Dragon awakes!
I know blood and life are the high stakes!
I know stars will be wiped from the sky!
How can I smile when I’m just waiting to die?
Kiki’s videos are so happy and without care.
The pranks, the laughter, every kiss a dare!
Kiki’s videos are from a world far from mine.
She’s beautiful and free and living so very fine!
I hear thunder as a Red Dragon awakes!
I know blood and life are the high stakes!
I know stars will be wiped from the sky!
How can I smile when I’m just waiting to die?
Kiki is an angel and a mischievous young witch.
She can make us love the shadow so she is so rich.
Kiki makes me wonder if youth can always be stars.
Loving every dream and lust, even as our world scars.
I hear thunder as a Red Dragon awakes!
I know blood and life are the high stakes!
I know stars will be wiped from the sky!
How can I smile when I’m just waiting to die?
The weight of the sky, with it’s stars and space,
soothe the ghosts that linger behind, dazed, hungry.
They look up at those stars, vestige of innocence,
and have tears stilled, for a moment, by silvery light.
She lays awake in bed, looking at those stars, so bright.
In a calm moment, she is weightless, high above the city.
All the world of lights, travesties of the heavens above us.
What was humanity, but the crass recreation of God’s grace?
An angel, in navy blue hoodie, hood up, smoking a Dunhill,
watches from the sidewalk in the empty now business district,
as the heaven’s above turn and turn and turn, and wisps of
spiral arms embrace their love, chained to the rocks, colliding.
Emily
blood from pricked finger
love letter in back of drawer
stargazing in the climbing tree
Emily
long hair dark as the earth
chapter and verse on converse
washed out indigo pen
Emily
fireworks made her cry
no quiet at the party tonight
at dawn peace came
I was driving on a country road, late at night, when I came to clearing.
It was between groves of Dogwood trees, a meadow open to the skies.
I stopped and got out. I walked through dew moist grass to look up.
There was no nearby towns, no light pollution, only stars in the void.
I looked up, and felt tiny and vulnerable, a target in the weight of quiet.
The stars were in great white clouds. The stars were as distant as hope.
The beasts that might be among those trees, were at least indifferent.
God, and the aliens who stole our sleep, and the men in the darkness,
they hated you, grew strong from you sorrow and pain. Animals only hunger.
And an alien, I felt his eye, I felt who breathing in the space between spaces.
He would take me up, but not tonight. I could still run away into the dark.
And stars blinked on, tidy and graceful and bright, with peace given in their light.
I just want her to touch me, nothing more.
Kisses are gross. Sex an unfathomable grotesquerie.
Only touch is tenderness and love. Everything else is perversion.
Silence. A grey afternoon, rain threatening on the lakeside park.
We hold hands, sitting side by side on the concrete picnic tables.
A simple touch is a simple prayer. A simple touch is innocent.
Hiding in the doorway of the visitor’s center as the rain finally falls.
We talk. We shiver in the cold. We connect through words to the heart.
My arm around her, my head resting on hers. The rain falling forever.
