library poem 01: cz

so where are you now?

red curtains, exit stage left,
sunlight patiently waiting for its cue
that bleary reaching up-and-out
to cast it streaming brilliant across checkered soft
and blue embraced in blood.

where am i now?

blinking like an airplane in the stellated night,
lost amongst the diamond-shatter dust of heaven
its only identity that flickering ruby
held at its very heart.

silence.

there are cars outside, and birds,
neighbors laughing two stories down
and church bells in the air.

all i can hear is your voice.

the tide has rolled out though.
i'm standing where there was an ocean moments before
but as the golden chords of arlecchino burst forth from my phone
they only highlight the starkly burnished land beneath my feet
and the only memory of water here
is in the snow caught fragile in my hair
the aching blood singing seashells in my ears

and your voice,
a million miles away.

library poem 02: xl

I remember the instant that I found you.

The house was silent-- peculiarly and hauntingly so,
that dearth of noise that only occurs between the lightning-bolt and the voice of God.
that unspoken caution:
there's still time.

but the sun was silver through the lace-veiled screens.
the delicate iron grates to the backyard.
there wasn't a thought of weeping in that sky.
it was too quiet. too calm. too normal.

where was the thunder?

was it only this crashing hurricane in blue?
this secret wealth of garnet agony buried beneath silken scars?
(the moths will eat you alive, boy, remember you are dust)

lunatic. trembling hands. seeing what isn't seen.
there was something in the sink

(it's time)

CRASH goes my everything at once
pewter faucet-head stricken sonogram
rusty red splashed across ceramic green
sunlight but the doors are closed
(the doors are open, thrown open, the locks have been removed)

I can see you there.

reality inside of reality
reaching down with bandaged fingers to touch what was(n't) there

you were a dead fish in my hands, you realize
fragile and fading and falling to pieces
but alive.
alive alive alive
daring death to relocate
leave this depth, this cradle, this cenotaph of room
redefine what it means to seek ablution, to become the heavy rains,
to hold existence against all odds

and in one moment, one impossible solitary moment,

i found everything i had lost.

library poem 03: ie

how does one begin to understand color,
when the paper-tone itself has changed?
how am i to recognize the written word,
when the voice of ink is no longer gorgeous dark?

there's something wrong with the sky tonight

your constellations are overturned
jumbled, jangled, scratching at the walls,
turned from luminary to lunacy
as the eclipse cheshire smile sets in.

I can't look at you like this

all i have are paper cut-out teeth burning crescent aches in my shirtsleeves
the scent of ichor clove and smoke heavy as blood in my throat
and that terrible, beautiful, impossible hum in my ribcage when you laugh through my evershut eyes.

someone dropped a bomb on our cathedral.
did you pull the pin? did you hear the sirens screaming from the curtained porch?
what did the sunrise look like when you sold your soul, O fractured seraph?
could you taste the purple axe-blade as it split your cyclops skull?

when you awoke among the lilies,
(O beloved broken cherub)

my poor symbiote. my darling mirror-geist,
O you who forever inhabits the pause within the pulse

what color had you become?
did your heart still burn white-shimmer glass, porcelain juggernaut geode of a thing?
were your eyes still open-shut-mouths, horror-wonder hymning every iridescent gaze?
you used to tiptoe gravity with pindrop precise grace

my crumbled trembling wreck of a doppelganger love.

wake up, come closer, let me speak through me through you
cover my bones in calligraphic shade rhapsody once more
let me be the paper to your black.

022223

Ash Wednesday
All purple!
Sang HOSEA
SMN gave me a booklet in person
SNOW!!!!
Pharmacy walk

Put myrrh everywhere in the apartment
Changed clocks to purple too
Maybe buy purple lights for the tree

2pm bk

JESUS!
Acting like Laurie when I asked if He was mad at me "No?? Do you think I want to see you suffering from this? Because I don't. I'm angry that you keep having to go through this. But I want you to be healed."
Said I need to be considerate, kind, respectful, etc. BUT not just to others-- also to myself
"When I give you a virtue to practice, they don't just exist in 'social mode.' In fact I'd say that for you it's ironically the opposite-- you can't truly show them outside if you don’t have them inside first. Virtues aren't supposed to be playacts or performances. They have to spring from the heart and they have to start within yourself."
"I'm not Jewel" = " Yes you are, you're just rough and uncut right now. Your 'alters' are protecting it, which is what I created them to do. But the truth is way down deep, and it's raw. You just need to be put into the hands of a lapidary to find yourself again. And look what I have! A two-edged sword, sharp enough to even divide the bones from the marrow. I'll cut you down to size. You might lose a lot of excess mass but don't worry. In the end, look at how much light you will be able to hold within you!"