Brutish

I am so sorry.

This is unforgivable,

To leave you

Trapped inside the airtight

Box of my smile

Or kindness.

I never asked enough

To know which

It was.

When we parted ways

In the airtight room,

I thought the door was unlocked.

That you needed some

Time to think.

A floor,

Four walls,

The lamp,

And the two parakeets

I reluctantly forked over

For your trouble.

As with a poisoned mine,

The birds were the first to go.

I would have never

Closed the door behind me

If I knew you would

Be trapped.

I do not think.

You can't help

But to imagine

The shape of my stomach

Upon opening that door,

New prospective occupant

Nearly underfoot.

I heard him run

From the sight of it.

The smell.

But never turned my head

To watch the retreat.

Here,

The lamplight still burns.

The floor is caked with tears.

Gritty, gritty tears.

Yours always had a way

Of sticking around.

The walls have started to crumble;

They too have been kept

From breath.

There are footprints on the ceiling.

These sign reluctance.

You fought yourself for survival

In the last moments.

You convinced yourself

That indigence laced with delusion

Would uproot an answer.

You inverted the solution.

The corners were what got me.

Three of them

To be exact.

The other five sheltered cliches:

Your hopes,

A crucified hand,

Another crucified hand,

A yard of moleskin,

And your signature in firefly blood.

The other three really

Caught me by surprise:

Your Past gazed at me from the bottom left.

A child's beg.

It took no shape

But that of two precipice-eyes.

They well

And remind me my shame

In carelessness.

Your Future glared at me from the upper left,

As if to remind me,

"You never carved a spare key."

I take it like a man,

Knowing I had bones to carve:

Bones I chose to keep.

And the bottom right corner

Of this room,

This room which gasps for breath,

Somberly snatched the wind

From my body...

Your Beating Heart

Languid, but stoic,

Had jumped from your chest

And run to you.

Like a half-life miracle disaster,

It had summoned breath

To coat your throat

And beckoned you to safety,

Or something akin.

I had never seen anything like it.

The body broken,

The heart a saviour.

This,

This is truly survival.

With an opened door,

Discovery of this magnitude

Can even become life once more.

I carved this doorstop

From a bone in my wrist.

I wasn't using it.

It is no key,

But it is yours.

Discovery Of The Self's Broken Past

Take two for the pain,

Three more to forget.

Wake yourself

One backside of the knee

To the corner of the mattress

At a time.

Thrust your heels

Into the broken evening

Scattered across the floor.

Walk.

Toe to heel,

Miss that off-kilter floorboard

Lean to the left

To keep this man

Asleep.

Break the banister,

Or trip down the stairs.

Alongside either

Make sure

To grind your headache

And snort it.

Remember your mistakes

As an impartial observer

Of half-truths

And dizzy daydreams

Come to pass:

He tries on a pair of sunglasses

Like the skin of a man;

Simply for the sake of it

With too quick a realization

Of the self.

Specs stolen to a night.

The town.

In the evening,

The clock towers

Lie for miles.

They are moons to be sheltered from,

Omnipotent bastard children

Yearning for hope.

Some for another drink.

None to remember.

If he glances upward,

The two-handed screams

Will blind him.

So he digs his fingers

Into his thighs

And wishes they were holding

February 2009.

He wonders

If that date was right.

He knows it was not.

But I'll be damned

If I don't make

The same mistake

Tomorrow.

"She" always forgets

How to pretend

In her nightgown.

"He"

Has never

Been there.

Lay Thee Down

Hands aching,

Knees locked.

This is your refuge;

A complication.

His mouth is full of years

Your back has retreated.

Without some sort

Of knowing,

You have lost trust

And refuse to see it so.