Round harvest-time I slip away to spare them winter's crueler teeth while summer's warmth still gilds their skin— such mercy-lies I whisper sweet

"Last night how you held me..."

Each season brings another garden where lovers press their hopes to void and I, still thinking kindness guides, leave wreckage in my wake

"I love how you run your fingers through my hair. Stay... please just stay."

Beneath spring's heavy-laden boughs each flower plucked before its time leaves gardens barren, seeds unborn Better this than to wither on the vine

"Remember when I showed you those poems I wrote? God, I've never shown anyone those..."

Till clarity cuts cold as frost: I am no savior's gentle hand but something darker, deeper-wrong sightless hunger wearing shepherd's wool

"I told my dad about you yesterday. First time I've ever called someone 'the one.' He laughed about it, the way he is. I told him he was wrong about you."

Better she learn swift loneliness than what my patient poison brings— a wolf would only tear her flesh, I'd make her long for such release

I watched you die once as prey, your new-grown antlers catching sunlight just before they caught the earth.

I was the lioness.

I watched you die once as soldier, your stern mouth softening as the bullet made limbs limp just before the mountain claimed you.

I was the winter wind.

I watched you die once as lover, your hands reaching for a heart that wasn't there just before the asphalt took you. I was the car, the road, the night— everything that kills everything that turns away.

I'll watch you die seven-fold seven more: in every hunt, in every war, in every kiss that tastes of grief— I am the tooth that finds your throat, the stone that splits your skull, the love that bleeds you dry.

Where They, and the whippoorwill, do warble up above

neath waning, turpentine moonshine

those evensongs I long to be a part thereof —to ever trill their twilit shrills of naught but love.

Nighttime madrigals I scrawl, imbibed on mulled wine —honeyed, and berried, my varied arbor drought.

My dripping ink intones hollowed hymns —pantomime. Far from-like the star-bright psalms the storied Songbirds wrought.

Much and more, Their call is all I've sought —berceuses crooned to lull the hart and to Their Will my heart align.

My mind does dance mine eyes do tire

                  yet my limbs heed the chants
            to be amongst that moonlit Choir

neath waxing, turpentine, moonshine.

I'm at His door again. Been thinking about those lab rats. The ones who'd push the button for cocaine over and over even with food right there even with water right there even while dying just pushing and pushing because whatever's in that button feels better than the empty cage

He hasn't killed me yet. Just hurt me.

I've had worse. JayJay used to say I was making investments in my future but all I invested was pieces of myself handed out like business cards in motel rooms and backseats at least He keeps what He takes doesn't pass me around like spare change doesn't make me smile while He does it

On that day I loved, in Those arms— I existed, then, never again.