The Borrowed Heart

Gorgeous and beating
full of the darkest red blood,
the borrowed heart 
waits in the shadows like prey.

The borrowed heart gets taken
and used, explored and opened--
discarded and abused,
exploited and damaged,
recycled and and reused.

Always returned and never kept,
the borrowed heart has 
mourned and wept,
loved only in time's temporary,
abandoned in winter's January.

It has been left in the empty space,
it has been held tightly in sensual embrace!
Only to be returned to its place--
for no one ever keeps a borrowed heart.

End of a Silent Day

Days like this remind me that all I'm alone.

I can't complain much about my life.
I sleep until noon or later,
I have a clean and cozy bed,
good dinners worth preparing,
scented laundry and the internet.
Smartphone. Great books.

So up I go, around noon or one,
I check my phone for missed calls and messages,
make my way to the kitchen for breakfast.
Power on the computer,
turn on some music.
Email. Social networks.
News. E-zines and articles of interest.

Enough of that. 

Time for a film.
Or two.
I like the classics:
"It Happened One Night",
I've seen it so many times.
Or it'll be "The Twilight Zone", original series
until I fall asleep for a nap.

Then it's up again for lunch.
(A sandwich before dinner, really.)

I'll pull out a book from the shelf,
sit and read whilst nibbling away
at my sad little sandwich,
and usually continue on with it 
into the kitchen as I start preparing dinner.
I'll read as water boils,
stirring pasta or baking chicken.

Mostly frozen pizza.

Dinner time. Twilight Zone strikes again.
A continuation with my book after I eat.
Wash up after dinner.
Take a shower.
Pajamas.
Book in bed.
Toss and turn.
Regret the past.
Up to write.
Grab a sandwich.
Listen to Roy Orbison.
Get back into bed.

That's when my loneliness hits me.

That's when I realize it:

I have not heard my own voice all day or night.

Riverbank

Sometimes after I've eaten

my late night bowl of cereal,

or my sweet roll with milk,

as I'm listening to Josephine Baker,

I think about you.

You.

You, that I left behind in the desert.

I'll remember that tragic day--

the words we refused to say,

and the sun setting in my rearview mirror

as I escaped on the highway toward Tucson.

Sweden is far colder than Arizona,

the plant life doesn't remind me of the 

cactuses of the Sonoran,

but I take strolls through the cherry blossoms 

here and it makes me smile.

Sometimes at a pub or at a park,

In the morning or in the dark,

I see you--

Your ghost in a cafe window,

or walking alongside the lake.
I wonder if you would fancy it here?

It's funny how years can seem like
only moments ago,
like that moment we sat
on a blanket on a spring day,
down on the Ohio river.
I wore a diamond on my hand
back then, and
you wore a smile,
and our little jack russel terrier
ran merrily all around the riverbank.

Not thinking of cactuses.
Not thinking of cherry blossoms.
Not thinking of Arizona.
Not thinking of Sweden,
or about how eventually the three of us would painfully forever part.

The Wind is a Boy

You come and you go,
like an aggressive wind-
here and gone, here and gone,
and you certainly rattle my windows.

Baby, your storm doesn't scare me,
I simmer in the lava of a lover's fear.
I've seen it, felt it, feared it, dealt it,
and there is nothing left but the core.

I am there.
I am in that core.
And I see you, baby.

I see through your lies,
your insecurities,
your desire to run,
to avoid,
to hide.

I know all those places.
(I used to live there.)

You can lock your doors.
You can close your blinds.
You can silence your phone.
And you can run...

Run that distance, baby...
far away and deep into the
pastel sun-setting horizons-
where the ghosts of yesterday 
await you
at the finish line,
and I will be there to embrace you,
and finally
hold
you 
still.

Blind Incubus

Wounded yet none the wiser,
I watch you spin your seductive silks
around your victims.

You aim to suffocate,
to silence
to still
to steal the life force of your prey.

What does it feel like inside to be you?
I imagine an all encompassing vacuum of
misery and angst,
tempered only by feeble and fleeting
 feelings of power over your timid targets.

Does it quell your rage, baby?
Does it quell your hate?
Does it quiet the noise in your mind?
Does it make you feel safe?

Without conscience you move to injure me,
but I have grown stronger through my suffering,
through your acts of sabotage toward me
I still rise. Rise. Rise.

Rise and shine, baby. Wake up!
It's time to see--
all your antics and carefully executed moves
have no lasting affect on me.

You stay wounded,
yet none the wiser.

History Repeats Itself

She must be rotten to the core.
A poison apple.
Born under a bad sign.
Unlovable.

What is under this scarred flesh of hers?
Where and how is a heart even buried
underneath those veins that run thick with
her mother and father's rage?

Her lungs are filled with gasps of air
heavily polluted by manipulators past and present,
capillaries being constricted by the
anxieties imposed upon her by psychopaths.

She is merely a lonely corpse in the hours
she spends swimming in her own tears,
sinking in the confusion,
swallowed by the isolation and silence.

Thursday Morning

It's only fitting that it is snowing on Thursday morning
even though it is the first of May.

May.

"Mother, may I? Mother, may I take one step forward?" 

  "Yes you may."

But alas, I cannot. It is Thursday morning, after all, and 
I am captive in my bed with a pair of broken legs.

Broken legs, a broken frame, a broken heart.

Thursday morning is the morning after the tears--
Wednesday possessed the whole of that,
and all that is left for today is the burning eyes,
fatigue, resignation, and mighty silence.

Surrounded by these four walls, I can only speculate
what lies outside the windows and doors. 
I do not care.
I prefer to stay here--
in the fire of my eyes,
in the deafening silence,
where everything is still,
and I am shattered.

"Mother? Mother, may I? Mother, may I have my mother?"

Because only a mother can heal these wounds.