Rust

At times I do not recognize

the steel that slinks under my skin.

My extremities grow lax;

my teeth gnash and dull;

and I cannot find anywhere the monster

that lurks caged within my heart.

All I am softens beneath her.

I bleed fabric to embrace her skin to mine;

my dreams, already, render themselves

dosed in her summer coloured eyes.

But the world does not dye itself with her seasons,

does not cradle me like her gaze.

For these days I do not mesmerize

For these mornings

Rust creeps from my fingernails.

Window

Somehow you have gotten in the habit of watching him,

twisting and heaving in the sun.

Your hands always feel a little colourless when his

burn bright with sweat, moisture dripping down

his skinny arms, making trails in the dust.

His eyes, when you can see them gazing mournfully

at the sky, glint of fatigue

but in what quantity you can never put in words.

Your office manager has never known moderation;

your pale skin ripples with goose bumps

in the unnatural air, blowing from the walls.

You try to hide your sniffles whenever

she walks past.

Your own eyes you do not know;

the streetlamps always muddy your reflection

in the window, in the heavy, warm nights you leave

for home in.

Some nights, thinking idly of the afternoon heat,

you wonder if the windowsill you sit on is not the

edge peering into happiness, and if it is you

that is waiting, looking in.

Flex

When I was young

I would flex my heart.

We would compete, match the depth and

range of the emotions we contain,

our grand capacities to live and love

and live again.

With age, the muscle has waned,

grown all out of shape.

In my atrophy,

every small affection

finds me aching the following day.

I enclose now little but taciturn distance,

and though these pains never

even break through the skin,

I am left racing,

gasping for air.

Speak

I wish I could speak with my hands

And have you touch this life I have wrapped in my feeling.

Meaning, always, seems like a struggle with my tongue;

my sincerity all gets lost in that distance

lingering between my mind and my voice.

Somewhere along this heartache of life,

somewhere between all the pointless signs,

this sadness and the next—

there was someone I wanted,

lost by the wayside.

And to her,

There is so much I would have said.

I wanted to say

There is no winter that dampens life

as when something covers your smile.

There is no mountain that carries its burdens

the way you lift your world.

I wanted you to know

that there is no space so vast

to be wider than the expanse you opened in my heart

for you.

And when I look at my hands, shy and unspeaking,

and I think about all the people who

I never reach and have forgotten,

I worry that one day

after all these words my mouth could not create

I might forget you as well.

Morning Sun

Yes, yes, it’s morning, you know;

the curtained sunlight glares behind your eyelids

and you know well the sound

of your coming alarm.

It was too real a dream to be so;

This is too tiring a reality to be real.

The pain in your chest, you want to decide,

aches too heavy to move.

The night was long, you will tell them,

you couldn’t sleep.

At times your heart feels like a broken clock

beating after some lost time;

but on a morning like this, you cannot tell

if it leads you right even once a day.

Little thing, you must learn to believe,

That even through the stray ray of sun that wakes you,

grazing on your skin,

even through your rushed shower,

running warm water against your red eyes,

through your mussed hair, your missed breakfast,

and that moment

where you forget if you brushed your teeth—

Kindness

Kindness will discover you.

Believe

things will come with time.

Know in your veins

how your broken heart still pumps

blue blood to red.

Know in your lungs;

the power of your own voice.

Know, however you have lost yourself

in that vacuous space that is your loneliness

The morning sun will still find you

and lay its hand upon your cheek.