Gone

you are playing piano,
but you are the violin
picking my heart apart
  and scaring away the fear.

You are how I pick up a sketchbook and do not break
into what is not God. You are how I hold a paintbrush,
you are how I pull a scarf of words out of my throat
to uncover the magic you spoke there. You
are how I measure time, how I measure beauty,
how I measure meaning; you are my subject and risen summer.
You are how there are no dogs-- only wolves with silk coats,
on my side
  instead of attacking my sides -

you are, you are, you are;
and so I am, I am, I am, too.

you are how I can accept mirrors without anger;
because you are in me, and nothing can be ugly.

When you look at me,
I feel every dark chill thing
    in me
break.

Your hands cool the fever mine contract
when not in contact with yours;
you bring me through the storm and we are rain together
in the same long answered prayer. You look at me,
you break the ancient monsters just by being alive.

They wanted to hide in the corners of me,
they make a fuss, they press my chest, like claw ghosts.
But I see you come forward as I start hurting.
I see something glinting against the good blood of your heart,
like a dove, like a silver gold morning.

I see you become the prince you were born as,
I see the beautiful colors of your soul no one can touch except the girl holding them close, in her own soul- yes, that close -

and your eyes narrow, love coming through the
slits, love slamming into me -

you take me close,
you keep me closest,
you whisper, softly, like knowing, There is no room for this.

And they break.


Every scrap metal third degree burn breaks.
into.
nothingness.

Because prince you slaughter toxins

you understand what it is like to begin again,
the pain, the universe re-growing itself -

you know me in dark gardens, even when I do not know myself,
and that is the only true love.

when the sun goes down and water is trickling behind me and I angle myself toward that music, toward the fountain-- and I sit on the edge
of the concrete, fingers gliding across, making ripples, and I am wearing clouds, seeming gone... I look into the reflection
and see only stars; you look at the stars and see only me.

Reality breaks dream:
you breathe on my soul and we connect,
one truth:

Even when I have no eyes,
you are what I see.

So there is no room for doubt,
as I sit here, the ache in my heart like a rip,
missing you -

so there is no room for doubt,
no room for anything except the fact
that no matter where you are,
you are all around me.


there is nothing bigger than this, nothing more engorging,
nothing more delicate. You are how I can't be gone.