authoring destruction

The weight of the glass in my hand.
The heat of the fire in my throat.
The ring in the sound of my voice.
The loose ground upon which we stand.
The hollow words of the old toast.
The feeling of losing a choice.

The hand that I grasp in the dark.
The desperate gasping for air.
The taste of the wine on your lips.
The searching in vain for a spark.
The lie that no one can compare.
The things I don't think I can fix.

The sad morning ache in my bones.
The dishes that wait in the sink.
The hesitant close of the day.
The message that you won't be home.
The wandering eye that I blink.
The telling myself you won't stray.

The more time we're spending apart.
The realizing that I can breathe.
The things that we once thought were true.
The still-dimming ache in my heart.
The old, broken things that I leave.
The things that remind me of you.

.

Can I?
Read the searing word out of your head
Plucked as if, as easily, from
The pages of a book... held
In lives lead in neat, parallel safety.

Before, we were crossed
Wires, the accidental connection
The break, in a telephone line
That shatters out a few words
Breaking open the heat of
Someone else's secret;
Peaking into the interior of the Earth.

Is it like this because:
There are things in this world,
You cannot un-know?
A print made on my mind's dark eye.
Burn a gaze on my retinas.
Ghost shape of the voice,
Retreating laughter,
Sympathy-ache:
My throat closes, too,
Around a tangled wish.

My heart is a bramble,
Wild as sunlit summer,
As dappled black with shadow.

I walk these paths until
They come familiar,
Nothing but veins to my feet.
The names of my companions
Do not matter.

Whether it is you, or it is you
Time will be no different, and
In time the sand forgets
It does not name the footprints.

In my silent life,
That quells my soul in secret
I am at peace with
This: that how I want to understand
Is cheek to cheek, is
Mouth to mouth.


[When I am with you, I pretend to be content with my life. When I am alone, I pretend to be content with myself.]