Burnt bones in the

prairie heat,

my skin regrew

rippled with scars from

all your best smiles.

The nights ride,

and they move,

and then they die.

They die the cold death of lost dreams,

and my mouth tastes of the loss and grief

and memories of pain I never knew.

My burnt tongue licks static air,

searching for you and all of your

sweet

being.

Never to be found,

again,

but never is a long time to

live with it.

One bad decision,

made in good faith,

can destroy very good things,

and many good decisions sometimes

fail

to stop bad things.

I am not the agent of my being with you,

and I am a lighter person when I’m in your glow,

but it isn’t a night for heroes or saints,

and thank God, for I am neither.

I beg for some lightness of being,

or some holiness to bless me and my heretical, atheistic sin.

You speak in tongues, sometimes directly into my weary heart,

and you’ve got the voice of an angel, sweetest when signing for me.

And yet, your song betrays you,

For it gives all of your secrets to me,

and even when you try at goodbyes your eyes and lips would never comply.

I see it through you,

The salvation of all humankind,

and yet it is guarded for very few of us,

who would never hurt you,

and yet I destroy you with clumsy hands, dangerous words, and my reckless heart.

Maybe it isn’t a time for the song of angels,

the redemption of broken sinners,

or the love of two people of the flame.

Maybe all we do is burn people,

even when we don’t mean to.

And would you want to live less hot?

No.

And neither would I.

So let’s burn, until we can’t,

and love until we die.

Your loving knife finds

a soft opening in me

even through the fog that we

always thrived in.

I know you don’t mean it,

and I’ll hold you and your

ghosts

forever.

You want a new life,

– and don’t we all? –

and I’m too broken

and unclean

and damaged to keep pace.

I’m a deranged machine of a man,

always trying to rivet my skin back

together

to stop all this pain from leaking out of me,

and hurting others.

But I can’t.

And I keep the rivets and nails coming,

they stab, pathetically, into my piecemeal skin,

sometime finding new, pink pieces to cut,

and not the old, tired and scarred areas you know.

So cut me another bandage,

on your way out,

so I can roll on home.

The moments won’t last and the

love always does.

Memories shape the broken pieces of me

as a vase shapes the water,

but the frost is coming and

everything breaks with the cold.

I hold your body’s sweet memories for their

fading

warmth and hope to life,

but for what?

Life is a series of overdramatic events

played by unbelievable actors.

The hero dies before the end,

the damsel rescues herself,

and nobody gets who they want.

You pull your trigger to kill me and

I get back up,

somehow,

every time.

Until you get tired

of pulling my wings off

just to watch them regrow.

I dont melt when I fly at your sun,

you just dim until I don’t know

where to go.

I get lost and far and confused

because it’s so cold up here,

and then your house lights come on

because

it’s time to go and you want my warmth

for the night or for the dark wood

you’re stuck in.

The nights are cold after you’re gone and

I make believe that I kept some part of your hot heart,

some corner of your gorgeous smile,

or some slice of your playful, fun, accents.

But nothing lasts.

The skies falls onto

the beautiful forests we walked

and the dance floors we moved on,

until we face eternity

alone.

The heart wants but

the mind wanders

with chasing you,

and chasing us.

Your faith in us was like

concrete,

castle walls,

and they weathered my storms.

I broke apart on the walls of you

and puddled at your feet,

making a lovely,

lonely

moat.

I hope you will

still

drink me.

Life has winners and losers,

and sometimes the losing kills.

The loss stays while the girl’s gone

and you suffer the minutes.

Every minute.

Every breeze that touches your phone

shakes your serotonin and you grab,

a junkie with a needle,

just to find no sniff of the drug.

I want you to hurt and bleed and beg,

but you never will,

not for me.

So I wait by the phone

and no one calls.

The cold winds of the past beat

you

down,

and you watch the man you wanted to be fall apart

in a series of broken dreams

and bent promises.

Time claws away the old skin

and

no

new

skin

grows,

and I walk and push

and I stomp to hold my ground

against the endless,

endless,

endless.

The whiskey hits me in the mouth

and down long arms

into my fingers,

pushing sad sad sad, tired feelings

and thoughts into my stomach.

I’m swimming in it.

Frozen tips on

thunder

birds’ wings

touch my spine.

So soft,

with wings of pain and hurt and damage,

but brushing gently-

a dog’s tail on a baby’s face.

You’re not here to drink it and

maybe you won’t drink it again,

but I am here.

This whiskey rides the lightning

and my soul feels

good.

The years pile on and

I break,

slowly.

The tragedy of the leaves,

or of my youth,

leaving.

The bones are still good,

but I need a full reno,

no lipstick pig makeover.

I’m weaker –

I break easy,

and into soft

parts –

I’m stupid and

rotten and

failing.

The once-sharp mind,

now an old worn-down baseball bat

of smoothed, bleached wood.

I’m too old for this shit

and too young to be feeling

this

dead.