the melody of a falling snowflake

"like a phantasma or a hideous dream"

i don't know if i love you for television ad breaks,
or for the screenplay.
maybe i stay for the poetic polarids,
like sitting close as rain fell from soggy wooden roofs,
or songs we could each play on guitar echoing on the ice rink.
(i gripped your hand,
i feel safe)

i have never been swimming in search of this tender warmth.
i tell myself i have been reeled in like a fish,
when really
i had chosen
to wade in murky waters.

i ponder
when the strands of your hair between my fingers
will fade into mere recollection,
and whether i will regret
staying (as my blood pumps)
or leaving (when i finally exhale).

its all the same anyway.
the drought will come.
the rain will no longer have its path to the sea.

petrichor

nobody tells me
i am lucky to be yours.
i guess it's unlucky
you think in waterfalls
rather than rain droplets.

i want to believe
the threads woven from my heart and mind
are really true,
or
"correct",
as they say.
but you never step foot on steep, snowy dunes
with blood in the snow.

you tell me
how you like watching the clouds slowly drift out the window.
i laugh internally,
at the pure lyricality,
pure narrativity of it all.
i muse to you how
you can't see clouds move unless you're
still.
-and you pull me into your arms
so i can watch them.

i cannot shake this
familiarity of your comfort.
the truth is that i hate change,
i love rainfall,
how it kisses my skin
like it will always return.

maybe the rush of water
has washed away my senses.
maybe i have cascaded down
like the slipping falls,
and one day i will drain away.

senseless

i am

senseless.
maybe.

my gaze does not cradle you
like hammocks under fairy-lighted tree branches.
a candied fog descends over my vision,
lightening dark hues,
creating neglect of the shifting shadowy shapes.
my lids widen in fear,
contract in surrender,
like the moon waxing and waning
on its repetitive cycle,
seeing nothing new.

and i do not take in plumes of scent
like gust of air,
like a cloud of scent
bursting into invisible color.
it is black and white,
what i inhale
is for the lungs, and not the mind.
i resent putridity,
smelling nothing new.

every frequency
is but another waved line,
graphed in my mind sinusoidally,
i take in what i want,
echo it like
a thousand windchimes,
in a cascading sandstorm,
clanking noise into oblivion.
hearing nothing new.

each petal beneath my fingertips
flutters delicately, identically,
and every pillow sinks the same,
all enough to cushion my rigid ribs.
each nail
pierces like a biting cold,
searing through the skin,
feeling nothing new.

and taste lays onto my tongue,
like a blanket of bleak snow settling.
no matter the sweetness
that flurries down from the sky,
the same taste
returns
and returns
and returns like the blooming spring returns
the soil lays down once more,
tasting nothing new.

and so.
i do not know
which part of me
can take in the earth
unfiltered,
and in a composting
of the recycled material.
so perhaps i do
live through this
like the unalive forces of energy,
heat, electricity, gravity,
all the movement,
and i am

senseless.

when left unquenched

i am a drinker of pity.
i pour salty streams,
draining liquid
from my vats of pretend.
show me you can
dissolve them,
i'll forgive you always.
you'll be sorry for
nothing of real apology.

so i will sponge
the aqueous words.
so hasty, they wash away
fault.
although i know i am
the fault,
you think you are the sword.
i am the one blowing the waves
until they are chopping.


the way a shell carries a snail

to hold is to protect,
shield like green-stained roofs and gutters,
or weather-battered ship hulls,
as if the storm is
an unnatural thing
to fear,
to break you.
do you feel strong enough
to hold me away?

to hold is to cherish,
savor like sweet milk,
slow-settling honey.
drink, soak like sponge,
taste like sugar.
love not always.
do you long enough
to hold me close?

to hold is to mourn,
(or remember, if the sun is up)
as if we know what kind of pain
holds the sharpest blade.
reminiscent like a stream of rainwater,
cold like the ocean to which it returns.
and everything feels dead,
except the warmth in your arms.
do you grieve enough
to hold me for eternity?