Un-love

‘I love you – have always loved

you,’ he whispered softly into my

ear, his breath against my neck

hot and sticky, like his words, while unseen

hands like razors clawed at me,

caught at my clothes, severing

seams and slicing through layers

of fabric to slide smoothly into

my skin.  ‘I love you – can’t you see?’ he

asked as fingers curled around cut and

bloody flesh to tear strips of me

from me.  He stripped me bare, cut away

all that protected me, and took what he

saw and shattered it with vitriol.

‘This thing we have is good, so good,’

he chanted while my blood ran down

his clutching claws, pooling and

clotting in the divots in my rent

flesh.  ‘So good,’ he panted as he sucked

my essence out through my mouth, opened

in a silent scream; ‘So good,’ he breathed

as I curled in on myself, trying just

to disappear; ‘So good,’ he moaned as I lay

limp and lifeless.  He did not see the husk

he left behind, but keeps returning to it

and sees only the vibrant thing it once

was – the thing destroyed by his love.

And he wonders, How can I still not

love him back?

10/01/2011

The price of broken promises

‘I love you – have always loved

          you,’ he said, whispering, whispering

     into the soft pink shell of my ear.

But as the words touched the delicate drum

               they shattered into a thousand tiny

          fragments of glass and tickled and cut

     at the soft flesh against which they rubbed.

So I tilted my head, questioningly

               at him.  And as my head tilted

         broken promises came tumbling

     out of my ear, silvery and shining

red with blood.

10/01/2011

A Miscalculated Risk

Walking among the dead in the rain
With you was the first time I had walked
Those paths in years.  I had forgotten how
Serenely the dead sleep
Below the sodden soil.

Walking with space between us
Felt easy and natural--there was nothing
Drawing us together but the air
Of familiar unfamiliarity: our generation
drawn together by lines on screens.

I watched you that night in the mist,
Your glasses splattered with rain--the same rain
running down my neck.  I had peeled
My layers off and dripping stood
Under the falling sky in an undershirt.

You watched the clouds roiling
And retching their innards.  You looked
Everywhere but the twelve short inches
Down to meet my eyes.  But you smiled
Brilliantly, blue eyes shining black.

You were a Known-Unknown, and I was compelled
By your energy, like iron to a lodestone
Leading to my leaning forward, chin up
Lips parted, head tilted.  And I took
A miscalculated risk.

The sums didn't match.

06/01/2011