But up close this mirror
Is muddied and scratched
With fingernail marks and
Something closely resembling
My very own brand
Of unsettling bullshit.
My tongue drips sour,
The saliva frothing and bursting
And steadily becoming
More embittered and lonesome.
Suddenly there are things
That I can no longer impart,
Not nearly so readily at least.

These problems course
Through my arteries and veins,
Through the skin on the
Back of my hands,
Along the bloodlines
That feed my brain,
My arrow-filled mind.

They lead me to believe
That some creatures were designed
To break with natures bonds.
And perhaps we will always blame others
For what we refuse to believe
Or hate ourselves,
For what we know to be true.

In the evening the lights you see
From the shore are far off and pale.
They dance to the waves rhythms
And haunt your dreams.
If you close your eyes too
You can hear faint whisperings,
The succinct susurrations
Of children lost to the winds
And the waves’ roar.
Songs of dead sailors
Echoing and ringing
On the zephyr.

The blind see the world but through a veil.
The deaf hear more than they tell.
At night they come down to the sea
To touch fingertips.
They share our secrets with the wind
And their own with the sky.

I think it’s the wind
As it whips the rain against
The window. The howling of it.
It obscures the words that I
Cannot seem to even fit into my
Mouth, let alone push them
Out to you through the cold night air.
The air of a new year
seemingly destined to be
As emotionally dense and
Amorously unfrequented as the last.

The air is soupy with electricity and love.
The sky is milky with it and weeps.

Resolutions are mostly selfish
But this is the most selfish of them all;
To share my heavy heart with you
And hope that you shall not break it.

But I too often stride waste deep,
Or shoulder deep upon occasion,
Through the mists of impatience and lust.
Too often I fall victim to the
Siren’s song, the cuckoo’s call.

Not tonight quietless one.
Tonight I will not be drawn by any tacit cacophony.
Your woe filled lamentings fall upon ears
Deafened by emotion and
Stoppered up by the belief
That good things come to those who wait,
And those who wonder.

I feel like a mouth full of broken glass.
Numbers written all over my hands,
I frantically pass them in front of my face.
This steady rain is treason on my
Shoulders. It is unwelcome flattery
On the back of my neck and down the
Inside of my coat collar.

Through the web of raindrops,
This tapestry of tears,
The lights make the world
Shimmery and effervescent.
Something to be cherished or despaired.

And I find myself down at the shoreline,
The water frothing and churning around
My ankles, lapping up the back of my calves.
The moon sways on the seas surface.
I plunge deep into the saturnine sky.
I am lost.

You
used
to
love
me
well.

Well,
you—
me—
used
love
to…

to…
well…
love.
You
used
me.

Me,
too,
used…
well…
you.
Love,

love
me.
You,
too
well
used,

used
love
well.
Me,
too.
You!

You used
to love
me well.

She is a creature of some
Desperate intrigue.
Dark, sensitive and obvious.
She plays heavy, bass-filled
Music and swings her hair
To the thumping, throbbing beat.
In crowds she drops her eyes,
Fists clenched, and swears
Under her breath. Every move
She makes is a disaster but one
That has already happened.

Thinking about her now his heart
Races and pearly beads of sweat
Pulse on his brow and down his back.
He begins to pick up his pace,
Slowing only momentarily to look
Back down the street. Back at the
Pools of light and the sea of darkness
Stretched out behind him. He seems
distracted and elsewhere. His eyes dart.
He is running from something.

Only the lonely fear love.
It looms in front of their lives
Beautiful and unobtainable.
They have grasped at it.
Reached out for it with their
Fingers and their hearts.
But those who have fallen
Will fear the fall again
And will avoid the leap.
They have grown comfortable
With their own broken thoughts
And pull them up around them.
More like a warming blanket than
Walls but use whatever metaphor
You wish. We are all dead
Until, finally, we live.

The only words that escape
Recount, unerring and emotionless,
A flood in Nepal.
An earthquake in Chile.
Car bombs in Paris and Berlin.
And I can’t open my mouth.
It won’t anymore.

I can no longer talk to people
that I meet at bus stops
or strolling through the park.
I can’t whistle at seabirds
Or whisper to the cat in the shadows
following me home at night.

I have become enveloped in
this great wave of silence.
At first it only lapped around my ankles
And all I was deafened to was
the fall of footsteps on concrete
Or crunching across frozen lawns and flowerbeds.

A bubble has formed around me
Of thick, sickly-sweet air
That only the odd hissing or clicking of a disapproving tongue seeps through.

And the world looks so different now;
More dark and grey and lonelier than before.
It seems that the sun’s rays are
actually more sound than light.
Maybe that’s why the nights were always so noiseless and still.
And maybe why your laughter
Used to seem like warm rays of sunshine
On a summer’s evening.