And staring into the heat of 

Flames I created

Camping

I forget with who or 

Exactly when

I got too close and

Didn’t realize

Until much later

My eyelashes singed 

Short, like the bristles of

A beard

They grew back

My brief concern,

like all my mother’s warnings,

Unfounded in reality 

So now

Every time I lean in close to

The heat 

I can’t help 

Running my fingertip along

My lashes

To make sure

I’m still all there

And my mother isn’t

Which makes the sweat pooling on his brow
and the distant look in his eye
all that more terrifying and impossible to understand. 

When you came out of the operating room, I was so glad you were alive, I say. 

That was selfish, he says.

He’s right. I’ve never known this pain 

and I’ve never been good 

at putting away

my own.

Have anxiety?

Maybe they do

Built up, bubbling, pressure

Moments from explosion

The density 

Of responsibility

And thermonuclear fusion

Creates mass 

Carried effortlessly 

By nothing and everything 

The tipping point between 

A black hole 

And everything we know

that captivate an essence.

They erupt forth from their massive centers,

branches hurtling for the sky,

touching it and falling short all at once.

Dark white bark envelopes this creature

like pale, leathery skin; joyously aged.

Your cacophony of limbs wraps around me,

oh living thing,

like the warm heartbeat of a friend.

Painted on its tips, a thousand small (green) fragments;

infinitely different shades of one sweet voice.

Oh hot breeze, you stir me forth

from this forgotten forest.

It is the bat, in a resounding hit, connection –

the wind a supple amplification.

The earth below me slowly shifts,

as the snakes grow from tree bottoms,

bringing life to the towers,

yet dying, to escape.

Their heads break surface

and mirror the netted canopy above.

The trees surround and smother,

as I suffocate on oxygen – and –

the horrifying, miraculous

unknown of life.

Tense, I cannot move, for fear of proving

I am not as important as they.

Smells of pine a-mist frozen rivers.
Dark blue nights wrapped up silent shivers.

Times forgotten shine like stars
above a crystal white blanket, spread far.

Inside, the color red spills into wooden creaks
casting tasty ribbons across pink cheeks.

Candies and sweet drinks and itchy warmth
fill up small bellies beside simple hearths.

While those at the table have mingled thoughts
of goals forgotten and memories lost

hit me like syllables

clipping in drama

and sadness.

We sit waiting

for something to change

the unwavering stench that is loss.

We will never be as close

as we want to be

nor as far apart.

click-click, hum-hum

the metered sounds of fantasy

we don’t know what we want

or where we want it

I love you – in a morbid

kind of way.

Like as though, or as if,

we have to be out of place

to be alive.

Like an apple in the middle of summer

a little too soon

or maybe far, far too late.

You start the engine without looking at me

and I get out.  

Remind me why we’re horribly perfect for each other
In your arcane drawl

Tell me why we’re perfect

Or at least why I’m not all wrong