i weep for you/stranger

one week ago, i would have had the chance to forget
but chemicals stopped the passage of time.
horror and vibration have left my veins
and the orbit in my skull has found a rhythm.
there are fibers under fingernails
administering comfort for moments at a time and now
here in this place i am chasing the memories of
someone else's mystery. they say they have heard silence
for several days and i know;
the familiarity strikes me.

now i am searching-
death records and photographs,
well wishes and words that elevate,
perfect teeth and honey comb arms,
and where there are signs of laughter, no sound
escapes. there are feathers and fur
passageways mosaics flashbulbs
and your gorgeous face
vacant after so few years
too soon for me to have loved and forgotten

but i know.

i know the silence and the knots in your throats,
the immediacy of change and the permanence of loss.
i hear the bells of another and bells not
her own ringing these vehicle bodies through their own
journeys to the ends (cliffs and the endless sea)
churning matter from matter until the end of time.

and i will know you then.

four stories blink in rolling fog
something of a mouth and tongue;
dim mornings buried where they cannot be seen
sweep complacently. dust along floorboards is
what the light becomes, particles and mass
losing a framework for existence.
no more fingerprints on a keyboard. clearing caches
find me wrong again and again.
pupils with no trace, beads of liquid stacking along
gossamer filaments webbing among straws.
no cleanliness assumes me here. these boxes are
so small. another evening passes
condensation over rooftops and i am hiding.
collections of metaphors with no home,
memories spreading into ben-day dots are
growing wider, the space between sinks deeper
seeking to dissolve. what has this larynx commanded?
what have these fingers done?
our matter is spreading apart, meditative calm urges
bedroom spaces to reach
expand
backward with no sound.

upon the first experience of silence
it crept;
stifled synapse struggle
bound at the wrists
crying out for the absence of
beautiful words, their
muffled urgency
disregarded (poor circulation).
with struggle and attempt,
denial birthed a dry spell.
spoken word forgeries spew forth
from swollen lips
contrived and childish-
how foolish you thought them
beauty...
turning each simile over on your
tongue, too simple a texture to
caress between teeth.
until the crumbling came, no
syllable had life.
at once rush forth in a mess of
release mistaken for tragedy
letters surge on fingertips
scrambling for a home between tattered
pages, and
breath happened.
several months and seconds passing
casual synap conversation, we are
certain that silence bred
destructive omens in the forms of
muffled voices, and the ability for life in
words becomes our truth.

quiet rings through a series of irrefutable
truths. we find ourselves seeking grace to appease
where we have none and render ourselves lost among
tribes of sound (the only peaceful breath i had
left upon my arrival back home). panting and
colorblind, our long sought after journey
begets intangible thoughts.
it feels like forever to get there.
to discover belongs in safe keeping;
stifled and blank, somewhere the skin was removed from
this body replaced by a bird soaked in mire and gale
force winds called karuna. visibility is low.

slow sunken record of tragedies
too innumerable to
face; we
swallow our heels behind
footsteps that are
no longer ours. i'll know
when i get there
she
said
words splayed about her
mouth.
exposing some long-passed
uncertainty
(passed and
surpassed and
exposed_
from somewhere, a bundle of
nerves tangled
confusing a heartbeat made of sand
(v-tach or
v-fib_
cross-stitch of cells exploding into
interweave of
waterways
blood ways. she
knew when she arrived, it would
be broken hearted and radioactive.
she knew that her arrival
began with "H" and
would watch her wade through
litter and
guilt and
she would be waiting for
eternity
never experiencing return
(not coming or
going_
there are strange
tears,
stench of liquor, and
knowing the
concrete of two
years and improbable
escape.
she struggles through
means;
waiting on eternity for
arrival,
praying for regular heartbeats,
safety in pap, your
words
(soft like
memory_
spread jelly-thin
begging for birds, not fear;
comfort, not home;
not grey.
exodus of sanity
leaving the
body
down the path that your
fingertips left
last time we touched-
and the only way to return is a
vehicle (memory)
makes the means harder
to bear than
eternity in waiting.
she spoke in fractured heartbeats,
a cigarette breathing in left-
i know. i'll never
come
near_

hundreds of cylindrical shadows
take their places in the corners

this room, an
aluminum barrier between
disillusionment and
the moon.

we
revel in blue threads
stricken by curiosity of
what tomorrow tastes like and
the habits of natural
romanticism.

sun baked shadows
trapped inside
corrugated cardboard
boxes
illuminated in red and
basking in the natural oils
our skin creates.

we annunciate life
like lines in the sand;
tracing voluminous, entropic
places
to the ends of the earth.

spoken like gesture, i
swear to all gods_
flying above ancient
craters of the moon

and its rays
become your voice.


there are quarries of ancient
peoples)
electric green lines
shaping her breasts

in this moment, you turn
my thoughts.