mightier than the sword

textureless and cool,
or crushed-tin-jagged. either way,
his attention -
relentless.

wrapped in a shield of glass, 360.
both protected and surrounded by the enemy -
a single crack
would be enough - just a matter of time
splintering.

a slipping verse - slow - motion - lapse -
falling. i watch it
snap in half;
ends clipped shorter,
no longer
fit back together.
the words invert like a mean star's collapse
into its own pull heavy and i drop into its cold
mouth yawning. breathing in never out, ice
inhaling itself, moving the blood from my hands
until winter contracts or expands its domain -
it cannot do both. it does not care
which it does.

i see every word he speaks at
me, written, not typed - child-like
long hand, one at a time, floating just
off the surface of my eyes,
moving with my vision, bloating
then constricted.

the word YOU is in large letters - or other names
he calls me, except my name, which is very small
and very seldom. the words accumulate, take on
the appearance of chain link or netting.
an oily snare: nylon ink sinking its teeth into
the space before my eyes, permanent and worn
across the tender place beneath my breastbone:
my solar panel where i store old summer and
brace for his long winter; cold needle
tattoo inscribed against my will and during paralysis.
i am not paralyzed, though there are places
gone numb, i am not paralyzed
and i do try
to resist,
for a while ...
at least,
at first.

my words: soap bubbles: wet, colors, reflect - there and rising, then
and gone. placed inside them, i might lift off, catch an upslope and go.
i am too light. light is too slow to hold me
and i lose myself - enmeshed
and being trapped becomes
so easy.

bubbles form reform clean
water and air. 'hope,' i want
to tell him, so i dive deep
and i see and i feel
everything.
i speak
quickly and my voice rises, falls in memory, in
tidal premonition - i ride them all. small
and light and desperate - these words
i have caught
one by one,
won by wanting
communion enough to
risk and return.

words kept salted when they could not be found fresh.
words kept honest when they could not be found clean.
words gone deeper, far out of reach.
blood vessels bursting, a clear humming
in my head - striving to strike out of the dumb,
the eloquent.

take these: i will feed them to you, then speak to me
- no talking - loosen your tongue, scarf in the wind.
what beautiful
things we might say
if we were free from
speaking redundant
assumption across
the surface.

there is a moment - a night energy waking
within falling veils of sleep where hurt
is forgotten. i do not remember where
the pain is or why. a second of second
consciousness that is clarity emptied,
that is me without memory or experience.
animal warmth dissolves darkness.
darkness remains, but
altered and bending
toward Being: a stem bowed
with the weight
of stranded
rain that will ultimately give it strength
still yielding.
what can grow, will.
that includes us.

however however however but

the grey city and its heart lost to appetite and history,
it forces its way between vision and seeing - i hear the
roar of resentful energy and the misery under it - it comes
from far away. it saturates everything. the moment i move,
i become just one more noise, each to each locked off from union.

let the sun come, let my heart ache, let my raw sorrow drive me to break
sense into nonsense and swim where there is no surface - deliberate.
i will not come up for air for the air has been poisoned. i will breathe
a new substance.

the shadows of ruined towers fall hard on me - denser and more palpable
than the structures themselves. they swallow me; i am under
construction; a nocturnal anomaly shattering my own instinct
to sculpt an existence in the broad and endless day time, in its
grainy, harsh brightness.

portents from my otherness open in me - delirious, absurd
messages - unreadable - i am too fast, too soon. fissures spread
in the self and beasts climb out. other laws apply which i cannot
obey as i can't understand. i just see them
floating before my eyes
in child-like long hand.