Each strand of your hair
runs naked. You kiss, though you
won’t ever dare to leave
these shadows inside
this swollen heart, held outside
a rusted chest, grasped inside
stained fingers, from
a streaming night with
your vermillion lips.
A million heartbeats have
slipped, on their tracks
to match tunes, from velvet
sadness, from love’s
hollowing madness.
A thousand letters
written on blankets, hovering
over sheets of immaculate
paper that becomes never
cleaned, never turned
into clear memory.
One more tune to listen for.
Another moment left,
with a sickness to be adored.
Hearing your voice,
beneath soil, under all that
had been raised,
had been flat.
Each strand to tie me
to an image drawn,
in a dried river.
All your sighs
to keep me carried.
All that sails me,
ever onward, always
backwards to your
smile that painted these
currents, these white rapids
for me to get caught
in dark arms that
close around.
Modern Romanticism 