Suicide Series, Part II

I saw I missed your message

While I was distractedly chatting,

Toasting drinks, enjoying treats.

I’m holding my breath

Hoping yours has not yet gone.

As the bathroom sink holds me,

I search in the mirror to know

I am here where you are not,

Though I don’t yet know why

And no longer know my face

By the sorrow you’ve given.

You tired to tell me you were falling

By saying hello,

But I had society to attend.

I thought our plan to climb

The mountain would be enough

To keep you on the trail,

Even as the sword was hanging over head

Until you were under the rope.

Your blood has come to my eyes,

Too all our eyes, and thus we

Know you have come to be in us,

Especially tonight, my birthday.

The balloons have popped.

Suicide Series, Part I

Scratch your eyes out

To feel alive when the hand knows not its way,

When the shadows of friends keep skipping away

Leaving the tunnel half made,

You will know there’s no getting out

Of this cave without pain.

You will search in vain, following

Freshest air, the inkling of a spark,

The whispers of your prayers,

Only to find fouler darkness

As you fulfill a prophecy you never knew

Opening your irises to find

What tenderness blocks the view

Letting swell bloody tears.

The Vacancy Grows

To a vacuum in the quiet of evenings

Cooking alone recalling

The conversations we used to have,

Like the tasting of the sauce.

A sink devoid of dishes,

A room where all you left

Was 70 cents on the desk.

The tent was folded away,

The counter without crumbs,

Your generic teabags waiting for boiling water

On your return, at tea time.

Dirt Road Series, Part III

You clap

You pant

You raise your voice,

But I will not stop.

We are here to raise you up,

So get up yourself

Down that long gravel road

To town and back again

Hoping the eggs will make it

And you, before dark.

Dirt Road Series, Part II

You stand there begging

Pleading for there to be an easier way,

On the shoulder of the only road.

Your shoes show in layers of red dust

The toil of your walk. Your cry

Will not be assuaged by me.

Pushing against the corner of a fence

With the might of a dung beetle,

Trying without luck to forget about

The bloody wound on its shoulder.

I saw that Kilpspringer once, though,

I feel like I see her everyday.