does he know

i wonder
if you think about me.

i wonder if they're right
& you marked me the day we first met.

i wonder if you knew
that i would try to destroy your world
in hopes of getting mine back.

i remember
when i thought that you were the wounds you claimed
& that maybe i could save you.

i remember thinking
that i was fire & i'd burn you first.

but that night came.
& you tore my soul from body.

remember what you said to me?
you told me to give myself
you told me to love you.

instead, you took, &
you decided my bones were love enough.
you didn't look satisfied after you were through.

maybe that's why my veins run dry &
days like today, i'm still your shell.

& when the after came
you chattered those sorry words, & said that you were broken too,
& that i mattered.

but you forgot to mention it was
only to the point that my tongue controlled your fate.

now you're buried in concrete
& somehow i'm the evil & you
befell my victim.

tonight i wonder
if you think about me in your shackles.

was it worth it?

"biophily"

end is dead,
and that's what we loathed.
the shift & the fluid feels so
sandy &
unsafe.

but then the concrete & its rough
feels so ragged
& makes our art bleed.
why are eyes so lopsided
& we miss it?

i guess free means shift
& it gets locked when we
love solid.
i need to toe dip
& lose myself in the float.

nights.

i shattered them.

all the ones with the crooked brows

& their brothers too.

their shards feel good in my mouth.

& the ones left,

they mean love. even when they leave,

i know they'll be back.

& my hand will be held once adventure

ends in home.

the magnificent might be shinier

but it doesn't always know unconditional.

blood & glass & those warm hands

keep my grin upright.

pure

that word again.
the one that's haunted me since
little hands barren of any
horrid
when they were soft
and potential steeped.

that word boxed how to wonder
and told face how to be mirrored
and settled clothes on frame
and kept laces tied.
it was my map & bible & sun.

but then those soft hands met
seared
and that brain met tree-snake
and that face heard evil
and the clothes became misshaped
and laces began trip.

that's when the dark took hold
& brain became enemy, blooming with hate lures
& face shamed mirror for fear of storm
& clothes didn't hide what i'd hoped
& knees stayed locked to ground...
it seemed safer to drown than plunge surface.

but then he said it.
"pure"
& i think he was looking at me.
& he might have meant it.

dust.

it's the slack lies.
that i am not any
one.
and i'm not.

it's the rabbit hole that takes me
the one that taught me to
swallow
all the sludge they burned me with
or at least what i thought they scorned
when my stumbles got stuck in lamp light.

my black seems worse on the pavement.

odd how the snares linger and
make for more black.

how the black made for the creation of
shadow
& self i never meant.
but the bless is that shadows
are less than dust.

maybe the shadow dust can be taken
& my marbled me return.

only.

i'm not sure i'd missed it, but looking into chest, i noticed.
my hearts' ears are under water.
i wondered vaguely when they took the plunge.
i didn't hear their breath buried somehow.

they choose when to hear, and these days aren't them.
if only they'd have less auditory charge.
it would make my head clear,
and we'd all accept it.
the close & the tear.
it'd be fire proof & hard,
not just bubbles that we don't understand.

sea water let's us believe what we dream.

but those bubbles aren't filled for a reason.
the sounds they make are inked & final.
even upon deaf ears, true is true.

i wish those bubbles didn't make my deaf heart break.
if only.