step in for a hug
dissolving like sunburnt fog
a damp fade, disappointment
and there's just shadows
sleep sour across a drunk tongue
cheap building laughter creaking
and then they cut you
like you were the pattern bits
and not the pinned-to fabric
defining edges
from where no edges had been
before hungry scissors snipped
hand-me-down threadbare heirlooms
of common sense and stock phrases
well intentioned tools to short-circuit
critical thoughts
as if we're afraid to be asked or ask
questions we have to think about
too scared to admit we don't know
and that not knowing is default human
but even more afraid to say the clean thing -
not having time to try to find out
is what left us for dead
before we rose, zombie
this is the prize game
played for art as embodied
in the warpaint built from joy
and raw practiced skill
surgery of light and shade
colour as scalpel and graft
decay deep covered
beneath skin so plump and smooth
they hope no one notices
their sweet corruption
and no one does - a fragile
mind fist and language fractured
haunted by almosts
possessed by musts, shoulds, and nots -
has built from kicked-in windows
a rain of keen blades -
all that fertile soil poisoned
to grow lying heavy plants
overripe, slick, bursting
fingers intertwined
a grabbed hold, a salt thirsting
the room half lit by streetlight
focused race towards
somewhere we both have to be
familiar yet new again
your eyes like bruises
injuries you don't recall
which shine angry regardless
glowing like sunsets
supercharged with pollution
gorgeous, but not worth the pain
all the stars were born
to illuminate this night
draw you clean from the darkness
a liberation
amidst the scraps of our world
the light needs to kiss your skin
your skin to my skin
as if closeness is safer
fingertip tracking your buzz
afraid of the shock
even as i ache for it
your sweet blade, your smiling eyes
controlled expression
of uncontrollable loss
we dance mirror-polished floors
shunning eye contact
as if gaze could transmit plague
strong enough to rend facades
folk wisdom decrees
sometimes the key's time passing
claiming prisons decay, but
lock, key, are echoes
of the same half-heard singing
a flipped coin always spinning
choosing abundance
over limits, i locked up,
froze in the face of options
i did not believe
i could possibly deserve
somewhere, though, a drip, a thaw?
certain of himself
beyond any evidence
a trail of heart's blood his wake -
do not say "because"
though - rather say "in spite of
his best efforts, they chose death"
cast clean raw power
through the hammer-blow sixteenths
and change the shape of the world
shift air, charge bodies
feel the room vibrate, translate
stained brick to temple altar
can night forgive you
that slow heave, your drunk chest swell
and ease, more effort than rage
or those swinging fists
applied to every problem
when you lay siege to us all
blue fading to grey
dull sullied metallic sky
tarnished air's holding its breath
something's loitering
heavy, just beyond slow eyes
skin prickle, a charge, building
carved into my bones
inadequacy's tally
scrimshawed flutes to blow the tales
of cold exhaustion
that hard-learned flinch against pain
whether the pain's there or not
come, sail away, love
moon's a coracle tonight
let the solar winds take us
star to star to star
there's light there soft as oceans
fire to swim in and renew
"we unleashed dragons"
spat the little angry man
"now people worry about
being dragon prey
and are scared to leave the house -
so we'll make fear illegal"
if we all must break
we all must break but those who
break in line with tradition
may not feel fractured -
their crevasses streamline flow
while ours, cross cut, inhibit