Creaking floorboards

Creaking floorboards

beneath the broken splatter of thunder claps
which fills my head, please promise
to take my ache instead,and
hold me tight against your chest, so
I can feel the love which
creaks like the floorboards leading
to my room, when I
had a room, then I
carried you,
light as a
memory, no, that's
only how I remember but you
must have weighed something, perhaps
as much as a hope, or a dream, or a vision,
or maybe I was wrong, maybe
you were heavy, like a promise,
as much as a word, or a kiss, or a held hand,
and maybe I was
always meant to lead you
to my room, when
I had a room, before I
carried you,
or at least,
what's left of you,
in remembering,
what's left of you,
when I hear the broken splatter of thunder claps,
when I think of you holding me tight against your chest,
when I hear the floorboards creaking.

A Parisian tomb

There is a tomb for a girl whose name I do not know, and whose face I have never seen, except for in dreams, and once in Paris, I saw her tomb and it was raining and it was cold, but her grave seemed bright, because someone had erected a statue of a girl, a golden girl, and the rain formed rivulets as it rode down her luster and collected in the flooded soil below.

Beneath this chapped memory which is dry beyond belief, there is a place where I will go to hide the fact that I no longer remember, that so much of what I have done seems as if it was seen from a stranger’s eyes, and that wherever I should go, it will be another’s footsteps imprinted  behind, like mirrors which show the effects of age, which we cannot see within the mind’s eye.

It is on nights such as this, my eyes blurred and wearied by the careless window of a search engine, that I feel the tips of my fingers – still soft, still whole – and wonder why I have spent less time bleeding, less time rubbing my palms raw, less time pounding away at keyboards in time with the rhythm of my off-beat heart, as I do now.

There is nothing I can imagine more from a misspent life, than this, and there are other thoughts left to say, tonight even, but I am unable to express them in words so I will retire my fading lips and tired tongue and close my eyes and think of sleep.

Atrophy

I'm listening.

it's not there, it
should be, does
it make a
sound,

should it?

I know I can feel it
if I just reach
beneath this
shirt, skin
to skin,
feel

blood pumping,

breathe me life, it
should be here.

I'm too selfish, I'm always
starting my poems with me, with
I, I am, I can, I will, I will be,
I'm so obsessed with my pronouns which
I will never escape, if I

look in the mirror and say

that I love your sadness

would you hate me? not
to cause, but rather, to know
how eyes can shine so full and wide like
the dying sky, can seek to
understand, yet never
believe their
own worth.

you always see the good in others,
but never in yourself,
you always see the bad in others,
but never past your own,
you always seek to understand,
but never to move on,

and because I am selfish, and
am always thinking of myself,
what does that say of me,
to want that?

returning to you on a
cloud that is about to burst, you
hold your hands out as if to catch my rain,
but I fall through you and disappear,
as quickly as I came.

you don't think you deserve happiness,

you don't deserve happiness.