My Whole Expanse I Cannot See…

Sometimes all he sees is her, all warm brown eyes, curly brown hair.

She’s behind his eyes when he closes them to fall asleep at night, she’s in his head when he wakes in the morning.

He sees her in little things, beautiful things. She’s sun shining through bright green tree leaves, she’s a pretty teal butterfly fluttering nowhere in particular.

He sees her when the sky shifts from pure blue to black infinity. She’s so right there, in the silvery full moon, in the brightest stars.

This woman, so dear to him, he sees her in raindrops bouncing off a city sidewalk. Drops splitting into drops, splitting into drops, tiny spheres of water with rainbows inside. She’s with him, even when she’s not.

Sometimes all he sees is her.

You are not perfect, you are not pure.

You are full of cracks, cracks too deep to fill with all the liquor, all the morphine in the world.

You are damaged, and fucked up, and worn down.

You’re just pretending to be alive, pretending until you can stop.

You remember before her, before her warm brown eyes, her curly brown hair.

You remember before her touch, and before her kiss, before you ever held her close, told her you love her.

You remember the grey, and the empty, and the weight of lonely.

But when you’re with her, her hand in yours, her lips against yours, you forget the befores. The grey has color, the empty’s all filled up. The lonely isn’t heavy on your chest, doesn’t drag you down.

All those befores, they scare you though, they absolutely fucking scare you. They’re places you don’t miss, don’t care to go again. These places are like ghosts, they haunt you when it’s quiet. They stop by and say hi when you’re alone in the dark.

She keeps it all away, the places you don’t miss, the ghosts that haunt, so you want her to stay. She might not, and you know it. The might nots make you uneasy sometimes, they keep sleep away when you let them in, but they’re worth the risk of happening. Without that risk, all those befores would be so right now.

She could be gone tomorrow, or the next tomorrow, or the next, but maybe she won’t. You want to tell her things with a voice you can’t find. You want to kiss her slow, and be with her as long as tiny gears turning tiny hands allow.

She might go one day, but you don’t want it to be today, not today.

I want to let you in, to hand you the key to me.

I want you to see all my locked rooms, the lonely places people never see. They’re all dark, dusty, full of hidden things. I want to show you the rooms that keep my secrets, my fears, the dreams too stupid to show anyone else.

I’ve locked so many rooms, guided people away from the things I don’t trust to anyone. The things I didn’t trust to anyone, until you showed up one day.

I want you to see everything, to know everything and maybe stay awhile. I want you to stay, though I want most people to go.

I want to let you in, to hand you the key to me. It’s scary wanting something so much, scary to feel so much trust. You might not take the key, you might not like what you find inside. You might say, “Goodbye, nice try.” So much I don’t know, but I want to let you in.

I want zombies, the walking-dead, I want them to pound cold fists against my door, my windows.

I want to hear wood  splinter and glass shatter, living corpses shambling and trampling toward me, to keep my company.

I want them to fall into my bed, onto me, cold fingers caressing, grabbing, pulling.

I want to feel the weight of living-death on my shoulders, on my chest, heavy and so right now.

I want to feel teeth and icy cracked lips on my wrists, my ankles, my neck, lovers who want me so very badly, whether I want them or not.

I want to feel teeth biting, tearing my flesh, skin and muscle separating from bones, pain that means I’m alive, alive until it stops.

I want to feel warm blood running down my arms, my entire body, pooling around me, soaking ruffled sheets.

I want to close my eyes and wake up someone who isn’t me.

Drugs, and liquor, and loneliness, and ghosts.They’ll hold you close and kiss you slow. They’re forever friends, eager lovers.

They’ll hold your hand, they’ll walk you home. Drugs, and liquor, and loneliness, and ghosts. They’ll fling you toward oblivion, and you’ll welcome the push.

Stay with me awhile, your head on my shoulder.

Stay with me awhile, looking at me the way you do.

Stay with me awhile, the two of us in the dark.

Stay in case the zombies come, stay in case tomorrow doesn’t.

Stay because I love you, and because I’m why you look at me the way you do.

Stay with me awhile, let me kiss you slow.

Let me hold you close, let me stay awhile.

To me she’s like sunlight through green leaves. She’s like brandy and opiates.

She’s all bright stars and moonbeams. She’s like all my favorite songs.

To me she’s everything beautiful in the world. She’s everything I don’t deserve.

He came with her tonight, into blissful oblivion.

Her hair tossed back, eyes closed and showing so much. Her face flushed, gorgeous.

His breath hard, fast. Him knowing where they’re going, knowing he can’t stop it.

They’re all sweat, and skin, and exquisite sin.

He came with her into that place of perfect nothingness, white hot decadence.

He came with her tonight, into blissful oblivion.

You were always there, always in his head.

You were a one way conversation, incoming words remembered.

You were I love you, I want you, stay with me, I miss you… leave me…

Your voice, a loop in his head, a circular song leading nowhere.

Lifeless lifeless, going nowhere, but he knew the one thing he could do that’d make a whisper out of you.

A razor down his wrists, bleeding out on paper, liquor and opium to make it all a dream.

He closed his eyes, the world went away, and he made a whisper out of you.