She lets him piece her back together

with ugly, clumsy hands.

My pretty thing,

seeking peerage in the rabble-

Tossing pearls to swine.

Her bones still humming hymns

of grip and teeth and need,

of breaking just to feel.

He offers her a safer cage:

like children playing house,

and something in me wants to laugh-

As if pillow-walls and tencel sheets

could keep the monsters out.

She used to count ...

Round harvest-time I slip away

to spare them winter's crueler teeth

while summer's warmth still gilds their skin—

such mercy-lies I whisper sweet

"Last night how you held me..."

Each season brings another garden

where lovers press their hopes to void

and I, still thinking kindness guides,

leave wreckage in my wake

"I love how you run your fingers through my hair. Stay... please just stay."

Ben...

I watched you die

once as prey, your new-grown antlers

catching sunlight just before they caught

the earth.

I was the lioness.

I watched you die

once as soldier, your stern mouth softening

as the bullet made limbs limp just before the mountain claimed you.

I was the winter wind.

I watched you die

once as lover, your hands reaching for a heart that wasn't there just before the asphalt took you...

Where They,

and the whippoorwill,

do warble up above

neath waning, turpentine moonshine

those evensongs

I long to be a part thereof

—to ever trill their twilit shrills

of naught but love.

Nighttime madrigals I scrawl,

imbibed on mulled wine

—honeyed, and berried,

my varied arbor drought.

My dripping ink intones

hollowed hymns

—pantomime.

Far from-like the star-...

I'm at His door again.

Been thinking about those lab rats.

The ones who'd push the button for cocaine

over and over

even with food right there

even with water right there

even while dying

just pushing and pushing

because whatever's in that button

feels better than the empty cage

He hasn't killed me yet. Just hurt me.

I've had worse.

JayJay used to say I was making investments

in my future

but a...

On that day I loved,

in Those arms— I existed,

then, never again....