Take My Wings

Butterfly fragile,

my wings new grown.

I flew. I dreamed,

and I flew

right into your net.

Coaxed by a breath of words

fluttered into my susceptible ears,

Entrapped by my own desire.

to believe

that the intensity in your eyes

was more than the clinical interest

of a magnifying glass.

Pin my wings,

taking out your heart

even as I strip bare.

Mount me.

I helped you weave the net

so much thicker, so much tighter,

with my own indiscretions.

Bind me, wrapping me fast

into my cocoon.

Turn me back

from newly metamorphed butterfly

to graceless worm.

I let you experiment,

your gaze scientist cold,

forgetting I once knew

how to fly.

Find it here.

Loving Edgar Allan Poe

Edgar, leading your flock 
of raven hounds,
could you smell it on me: 
despair and weakness
with a whiff of amontillado?

Do you possess a sixth sense?
Am I the low hanging body 
on your corpse tree?

Would you love me, 
then leave me, bury me,
mourning me with a proper lament?

Brick me in with your own hands,
whisper sweet nevermore in my ear.

Could we role play in a sepulcher?
Let me call you cousin.

Rise and fall for me, Edgar.
Swing your pendulum round and round.

Feel the tell tale beat of my heart,
served just the way you like it:
cold and seasoned with despair.

Find it here.

Dance with Death

The ground is softest behind the pond.

Ankles lost in the mud.

The shovel grows weary.

Your neat package of tape and plastic

is fraying around the edges.

I reveled in the calm.

I never had to answer questions 

that were never asked.

The loneliness ghosted my nights

until you oozed your way 

into my every crevice.

I waited and waded through calls

and messages of self doubt and uncertainty.

Scheduling became my master.

I longed for the lost quiet 

even as I enjoyed the rush of being

pinioned and over powered;

the gravity and the thrust,

the taking of flight.

I forgot my way,

and crossed the streams.

The cost-benefit ratio weighed

against you.

I chose the silence.

The neighbor has a new dog.

I need to dig the hole a little deeper.

Find it here.

Demon Lover

I knew you, but briefly.
Your words a flutter on my lips.
You boarded your airship to anywhere,
leaving me, altered and alone.

I peeled your skin
to make my own suit.
Curled your mustache.
Flowered your beard.
Bow tie or cravat?
Both suited you.

We waltzed in dazzling splendor,
strolled in the depths of the catacombs,
Our conversation balloons
followed in slow triumph.

Your phantom weight strained
even as your incubi fingers
found all my secrets.

Until, fleshed, you returned,
breathing in my castle.
Your weight collapsed 
all my architecture,
ephemerally perfect.

My demon lover imploded,
Xanadu, revisited.
The goo will leave a stain.

Captain, board your ship.
My port has closed.

Find it here.

Put away Childish Things

My malfunctioning tabula rasa, 

ready to be filled with editorial notes.

Some children are born to disappoint,

but a daily meal of criticism

filled even my thick skull 

until self hatred spilled out my blue orbs.

No more would fit.

My playmates and classmates were showered

with love for simply being.

I mirrored them, echoing,

but every action, backward, distorted

and wrong.  Or, so you told me.

Ten is too old for playthings.

My untouched dolls, eyes glassy with judgement,

lined dusty shelves.  Playtime was over.

My only escape from you, closed to me.

You locked the gate, sealing out the light.

Hoarding your miserly draconic love.

My inner drummer marched me cliff ward.

I learned to always choose the men

who loved by dismantling.

They knew all the songs

you ever sang to me.

I followed the piper. I danced, 

always getting the steps wrong.

I can never quiet your voice,

the siren in my ear,

the storm of your indifference

forever eroding the sand foundation

of my mirage of self.

Winged Alice and the Keyblade of Doom

Your cigarette blown words
lodge firmly in my back.

Losing a toe or three 
keeps me swaying on the beam.

My fluted mouth stiffens.
I drop more than my shirt 
in the parading maze of dazed revelers
sweating in the Carnival swelter.

Twinned but not;
best friend for never.
Dissected from skin to bone.
The stripes on my pants are all wrong.

The paper mache grizzly,
the Army green ginger,
neither fits.
Your German blonde elevates you
to the balcony scene.

Keeping my mask carefully blank,
I fall into beta position.

In the garbage piled streets,
no one wants to vomit alone.