a thousand lonely places; the cavity you leave

i used to take pills
a vitamin b12 hoping to calm myself (of you)
a river three years rushing
which was nothing compared to the 15
without

i am out  of pills and vitamins
and maybe hope
for this

i'm recycling daydreams and sexual fantasies
that didn't begin until you were gone
the dream i had the other night
fighting to stay alive
as something
real

but it wasn't

a carcass smeared on road sides
a violent storm that lit up the sky and
finished orgasming colors on dusk
ones i never had seen
but then

when i looked into the stars
and recognized a constellation, wondering
if skies were clear enough where you were
to see it
and i wonder who would hold you if i'm not
the one to do it

(accepting the decison of another
is impossible to do)

this naked tree, these naked limbs
that only want you sitting
in them;

a swing
rocking gently
in the breeze of another
summer.

i close my eyes
recounting the sound of your voice
the pause between words and tears that fell
because of me and instability of circumstance

in the middle of the road
lakes a pond
i watch an ocean of heat release itself
as another mind is altered

i watch the other lovers go
blindly drawn to the bedroom of a motel
filming the sex and placing it online
where we met in a fury of kismet offering
praying answers to questions
and questions

to messy habits

unmasked and marked like ribs
exchanged on christmas for another woman
not me

the man

i succeed in who i am today
due your efforts of my past
relapasing on occasion to that man
who

sat in agony
bleeding

like a tree bleeds color
to wind

and wind to rain
blaming all other deities
for the birth of metaphor in sorrow

and the lack
of our tomorrow

today