I Bask In Severed Moonlight

Why is it that our inhibitions fade with the sun?

By night I crave nothing but the perversion of purity

my desires become need, my sins make miracles

I am the smoke in search of fire

each promise immolated by dusk

I am death in search of life

my only salvation destruction

Why do we pretend we are protected by our silence?

I lie in wait of a sea of words to carry me out of myself

in wait of a destiny no one bothered to prophesy

I lie

with our memories on a bed of light

& trace the cracks our bodies left

I lie when I forget them, forget to lie when I remember

how the mask they sculpted became my only face

how the reflection became more real than the reflected

Why do I always mean the opposite

of what I ask from you, an ocean

for a volcano, a lifetime for a moment?

Why do we only ever return to pain

to the ones who hurt us

even as they promise

never to hurt us again?

How many times did they light gas &

pour fire down our throats like medicine?

How many times have we given up

& discarded our own good intentions

stripped the stars from our ceilings

& the spines out of our own backs?

Ask me what I've done to you

& I won't believe you

Ask me who I'm trying to be

& I'll tell you everything I'm not

Ask me when my actions will align with my words &

I'll answer when your heavy heart evolves into forever

When did we devour the light

unfold the throbbing walls &

skim clouds like warm cream

How did the noise become music

& lure us to collective insanity

bodies taking bodies home

Where did the bloodlust trickle out

& settle deep like nuclear mines

Who did you unravel into a river

of cosmos sucking in your soul

Which being, whose cruelty, what hope

taught us beauty, cast the children

in flames until their awestruck faces

peeled away to reveal our own

Within us the answers cast shadows

& loom like breathless sunsets

I buried the light inside the eyes

of those that never truly saw me

the friction of our jagged lives

spit sparks igniting frozen memory

This firelight eats away the pain

until my wounds begin to smolder

leaking smoke the shape of poetry

Who am I to say which light is real

the wick the bush the filament

the moon the sun the battered love

All we knew was how to extinguish

every dream we dared to make real

This is how we bred the darkness

This is how the angels fall

Strike a match against my lips &

I'll show you how to revive it all