Sweet yesterdays
Of childhood.
The withered leaves
Of brown and red.
The morning fog
And buff wet grass.
Wake up, my love.
Let’s run away.
Remember,
How we used to do?
In white long gowns
We ran and ran
Across the fields
To misty shore.
The lake was cold
And so were we.
Approaching winter
In the air.
Your breath so soft
Against my cheek.
The wind so strong,
So loud and wild…
And you, my love…
So small and warm.
Your hand held mine.
We walked along.
Our early days
Seem like eternal
Autumn.

The falling snow
stings.
Mist hangs
over the river.
Moon
Like a yellow eye –
the only thing
you see
through
darkest veil
of the night.
Snow
like a fallen angel
embraces me
when I decide
to fall as well.
The gentle
freezing touch
reminds me
of your hands.
The falling snow
stings,
like the words
you spoke to me
before you left.
I cannot feel my hands.
The moon
grows big.
Where are you?

Inside of me
A fourth dimension.
That is the only way
So many things
Can fit at once.
Expanding always,
Never stopping
A hole so black
There is no light.
Consuming me,
It feels like cosmos.
So filled, so empty
Both at once.
I do not look inside
For fear of heights
Will have me.

Leafless branches
Of lifeless trees –
Arteries of my sadness
In the ashen sky,
nourishing these clouds
with inky fears.
Am I the cause of winter?

So many things that I don’t want
To deal with
Are piled up in the garbage dump
Just beyond high fences
of my consciousness.
Mountains of discarded memories almost eclipse my sun.
It all precariously balances
In impossible structures.
A single smell, a single shiver –
Then avalanche of debris.
In the aftermath it is often easier
To move the fence, make the yard smaller,
Then to sift through the washed-up leftovers of my life.
Will my continents
Ever stop moving?
Or will I run out of yard first?

Below
There is nothing but pain.
Pain, pain – pain.
Pain
Pain
Pain
Pain
Pain
Pain
Pain
Pain
Pain
Pain
Pain
Pain
Pain
Pain
Pain
Pain
Pain
Pain
Pain
There. I taught you to ignore pain.

I’m free
of cradling my past.
I conceived it
in the bed I’ve made.
Pregnant, I carried it
until I grasped
what monster would be born.
I made sure I miscarried
and the remains I’ve burned.

The ghostly shriveled hands
still reach me
from beyond the grave –
less human by the year,
less shape, more mist and smoke.
The faces fading and forgotten,
names erased,
dates never recorded.
The wheel of forgetting turned.

I can no longer choose
what to remember.
No solid ground, nothing’s ever solid now,
and the nostalgic smell of burning
reminds me it’s too late
to shape the apparitions
into the people they once were,
the only ones who truly know
why I hurt today.

In a silken moment of clarity
See –
Everyone is you.
You are the only soul
One by one
Playing through all the roles.
Hear,
You are the choral –
that gay boy next door
is you, that black woman on the street
is you, you are the aborted baby,
the aborting mother,
a transgender girl, too,
and her bully,
you are murdered, you are
Hitler; you will be Jesus, too.
Feel –
There is no one to hurt
But yourself.
No one to love
But yourself. No one else to meet.
You are a god in the womb,
Learning to inhabit
Your own body
Atom by atom,
Human by human,
Ever so slowly acquiring consciousness.
Here is its sudden flash:
Feel
The cosmic web of your own being –
The sadness, the shame, the pain
Of each cell,
But above all
FEEL THE LOVE
Beating in hundreds of billions
Of your hearts.

I never believed I would be able to touch
A body that is dead.
But caressing your corpse I can’t imagine
Not caressing it.
In desperate last hope I hold your corpse,
                              rocking gently,
Although we’ve both gone beyond hope now,
Beyond light, life, happiness and naiveté.
I hold your corpse,
Attached so to your flesh,
                              sown to it,
With pulmonary arteries. I hold your corpse,
Praying your essence does not leave me
But you are no longer there
To hear my pleas
And in my arms I hold a piece of meat
Soon to be cooked
On fires of uncaring machines,
Passing through hands of stones
Which have not heard your last infuriated cry,
Which have not felt your fear and anger leaving,
Which have not ordered your execution,
Or known you at all.
No hollowed shell remained of you –
That is a lie invented by fainthearted poets.
The meat remains. The meat that’s heavier
In spite of losing
The part that made it you.
It is not hollow.
It bleeds, it’s warm and it gets colder
In my embrace as I erupt.
I gush with guilt, I gush with dread,
I howl with an understanding of your finish
                              and my sin of playing God.
I howl not interested in how I look,
Or who might hear. I howl
To stay alive because I cannot follow
                              yet.
I howl because I killed you,
Now and long ago
When I first saw you,
When I decided I must have you like a pretty thing
                                                            without expiration date,
When lazily I loved you,
When I was born a human,
                              too selfish,
Unable to take care of you, unable
To enjoy being a perfect robot,
                                                                                          or to be strong enough not to enjoy it but still be,
Unable to see the outside of life,
Incapable of knowing
What ‘mortal’ means
Or saving you.
I am consumed
By final horrors of your life –
The scared time alone and then a death
Composed by your most trusted –
An ultimate betrayal you will never grasp.
As I accept your ash and bones,
                                                                                          stored in a plastic bag, gruesomely heavy,
I know
Angelically achromic scraps of your subastral form,
Your tiny bones,
                                                            my love, my guilt, my pain
Can’t fill the yawning void
Left
By your missing soul.

The school is out and my home
Is just a sour echo.
In-between
The charming smile and cruel jokes
Of red-haired boy
Are solely mine.
No chamomiles in winter.
Nothing to divine on
Whether he loves me.
We stop at crossroads
Where the lantern fights
The early darkness
For the fence.
The contrast shadow bars
Paint him
As a prisoner of beauty.
Snow glistens
Like the silver fairy dust,
The fresh new blanket still unsoiled
By feet and sin of day.
I tear
The hot cocoon of bonnet off,
My hair undone and caught
Between his fingers.
“Your hair is lovely.”
The burning brand of lips
Right on my freezing cheek.
And knotted in that single touch
The missing puzzle piece.
The form is right
But it’s not big enough
To fill the gaping hole
Of broken image.

When you turn away
There is nothing left.
No sunshine and no spirit,
No clouds, no air to stand on,
No water, no food, no hot summer days,
No long winter nights, no smiles or tears,
No colors, no tones, no shades,
No moonlight, no sound,
No taste, no tea, no legs,
No hands, no mouth, no words,
No time, no darkness and no light,
No heartache, no emotions,
No joy, no miracles or wonders,
No meaning. Just a blank,
Faceless creature that doesn’t exist
While it’s not watched,
Amorphous bulb of emptiness,
A hole in fabric of the world.
Ashamed to be looked at,
It hides, waiting for you to seek,
Waiting for you to recoil.
You try so hard to focus your gaze,
To see form where there is none.
You glimpse the monstrosity,
You shudder and withdraw.
You look away, searching
For something easier to behold.
And the hole grows bigger,
Hides deeper, waits longer,
Gets thinner, more exhausted and bare,
Less alive, less conscious,
Choking on nothing that wants to be said so badly.
I pray for the time the lonesome miscreation
Will perish and finally no one
Will have to pretend it’s gone.

Peeking between the heavy drapes,
Watching me through the window
Is a haunting sinister Thing.

It watches me as I talk to my neighbor.
Muttering, muttering, it lets the drapes drop
When I turn and stare into its darkness, angry.

But it does not leave, its engulfing shape
So easy to guess behind the fabric,
Its muttering a constant grating song.

It gets closer when my anger fades,
And when I weaken it rides on my shoulders,
Like a stalker finally strangling its prey.

The more I listen to it the more it grows,
The heavier gets, more solidly separating me
From the warmth of the world, from my neighbor.

“Betrayal, psychopath, rape, death,”
The Thing mutters into my ear.
I hug it close, smile politely and leave.

On my porch I find a tiny stray kitten.
“Bite, rabies, death,” – the Thing mutters
And unclasps my powerless hands.

Home, the door locked, the drapes drawn,
I unpack the gift of my neighbor –
A piece of welcome, a sweet lovely pie.

“Poison, pain, death,” the mutter echoes.
I cry. The Thing licks my tears and grows
Ever bigger and more unsatisfied.

And as I rock in my chair, too tired,
The Thing settles against my stomach.
I stroke its overweight body and think –

It could have been beautiful, once,
This Thing. It could have been a gentle mother
Dancing me softly around dangers,

But harsh times called for a harsh parent,
Such who does not care how hollow
Is the existence that’s preserved.

Now, afraid that I would die from living,
This Thing just suffocates me slowly
In advance.