Modern Romanticism

It wasn’t always
that you were adrift,
being lost, in a mother’s womb,
seeking darkness, for your thumb,
desperate for that embrace
where love can boil,
can be foiled,

or can rope you in
with everything to grant you.

Simplistic, within.

To kisses, with sweat
running from half-opened eyes,
while lips trace over
scars, repeated in lines
for signatures, rewritten,

and never erased,
when you see
where the smile drowns you.

A comprehension of falsehood,
abandoned to those floods,

as I pulled you in,
gifting you everything,
from within.

To give sound, to your speechlessness,
to grant expectation, to your surprise
would not, could not
kill, what’s leftover,

from those who claim comparison
to me, always outside of you,
always outside, from me to you.

Retold stories, deeper than
what I could fill, from within me,

for inside, of you.

Another trail
to least follow,
while letters fail to sail
in their mute blankness,
as hands hold air,

burying a seed
to come up, with the mark
of a recollected eternity
deep, in this fairytale.

Drowning. Once, downing
pills, from your bottomless kiss,
bottled into a smile,
remembered at a mirror
that leaves smoke, in your favor,

while I keep crawling up to it,
hoping for another space
to sift, to drift
closer for everything more,
and nothing less.

Choosing to burn.
Cremated, before death,
wrapped in brambles
of your rotten arms,

while wanting no one to find me
losing petals, at that seed
that came up, at the white
spread, of soft snow,

of what will melt
before I see the senselessness
in every instance,
having knelt.

Sufferance. Brought up, on
teardrops to write words –
those too cruel to be rewritten,
though are rewound
in the countdown
of a returned life, to the earth,

while crying to be reborn,
without crying in darkness.

Eyelids cannot cover you,
in withdrawn attention
from scars, raised above
your poisoned flesh,

nor can I,
could I, turn myself away
from these woes, raised above
a meaningless breath
in me.

Like sunlight,
a fever, our union
dresses hearts, in floods,

as I’ll blame these tears
to keep receding us
back, into open ocean.

Standing before, the cover,
the shielding casket lid
of a story’s disappointment,
an ending – a concealment,

and still, I await
what comes next.

Eyes forward,
towards a funeral,
with song, rose, and failure
caretaking what steps
were taken
to recognize familiarity,

without similarity.

A brittle unearthing
of senselessness. I carried the stars,
the infinity of each droplet
to let you, come loose
into solid arms.

You found yourself,
dancing higher,
when those bleak,
vibrant rushes of emptiness,
entangled you
in familiarity.

I pulled open doors
for your feet, to enter through.
I drew you to
see sunlight,

when you were
deep in your fading frame,
letting floods take over.

Were you hearing thunder,
before it struck,
before we were lovestruck,
because you predicted
the exit? Before, the entrance
to a heart, emptied for you?

Emptied, without storms,
with nothing but clarity’s blue?

You brought yourself into black,
to keep familiarity intact.

I always turn
to see you, in mirrors,
drawing smoke from your lungs,
with an aura of bleakness
aboard, in your eyes,

while tears, have left trails
for hollow footprints
to be anything
but a temptation.

It has meaning.
Cremating this heart,
while death still holds
a faint breath
from a tragic smile,

a gleaming lock
of withering hair –
all symbols to release
a sickness you keep,

returning your heart’s contents,
from a speechless throat
into empty hands.

I do love,
though I cannot
offer to bury you, again,

without reliving that sound,
thumping like footsteps,
over wasted earth.

I can, run adrift,
distancing petals with you,
burning hope,
like with that familiar rope
we hold, tighter than hands,

and sometimes,
we did scar our hands,
treating pain as a remedy
when we were somebody.

I can always come back,
opening doors, like they were
of restored fortresses.
I can keep repeating
history’s elements
of limping flesh,

or I can
stall this approach,
raising walls, like they are
waves of an ocean
that separates our pull
through this current,
our current moment.

Are you leaving
tears, as a trail,
for my eyes to follow?

Are you holding back,
waiting for me, to crossover
from idle life
into graceful death?

You are, what regrows
safely – congested, in running ivory
from burning eyes,
those that only once
burned away
any shred of you.

Whenever, you
regrow, from thorns,
from bitterness,
in stale perfume –
to clinging memories,

keep on, move on,
while nothing stops
this heart,
from attacking itself.

Live on, go on
to subside yourself
among desolate substitution.

I’ll repeat, here,
what lingers inside buried cold.
You are a form, awash,
for a formless mass of flesh,
this old.

I am careless.
Surrounding myself
in dusty debris,

reusing sights,
of your face, amidst skies,
leaving light for me,
embracing shadows for you,
while tending to particles of snow
deep below,
in the undertow.

I can run back
your grief, to those letters,
disowning your
needless trials,
empty as all air
you rush,

from your panting lips
straight into me.

You left, your words
like seeds from a grave,
rebirthing a forest
from shade.

To stretch,
even without roots,
to want for meaning
to take place –
for anything would be better
than coldness, while truth
had remained clogged
in your earth,
your bewildering mind,

your eyes, when they
need petals to be
undressed, like bandages.

Though, the venom remains
to reconfirm you
in words, cursed to hollowness,
exiting either from throat
or the tallest trunk
of any sickened tree.

I found out
that words are only markers,
or barricades,
to stall us
on this path to imperfect shelter.
We bring our lights forward,
burning in this rush,

of our faiths, tested at each step,
leaving this ground tremoring.

Our hands, held for needed moments,
to signal a disposition,
to feel this lingering side effect
to a life that only stopped
for the other,

with pauses only at reminders,
at photographs hanging in hallways
of our minds, of our journey
to reprimand any understanding
of previous loneliness.

I came to believe
that heartaches were wanderers,
that teardrops were storms
meant to scatter.

I’ve found
that you’ve come here
to remind me.

You’ve come
with bitterness
to your bite,
with soundlessness
to your heart,

while with a mute pair of lips,
you’ll want for everything
that heartbeats had skipped.

You’ll face that fire,
bringing your veins to a boil,
hearing what little
another offering of words
had promised for you,

while under my wings,
you’ll burn, you’ll crave
to forget what you ignore,

while we are wandering through
with heartache to every smile,

with suns setting,
all the while.

To be buried, safely in your scars,
while coming up, to see
another’s fate that will be believed
as an emptiness, to be achieved.