Theater of Sorrows

“And did you get what you wanted from this life, even so? I did. And what did you want? To call myself beloved, to feel myself beloved on the earth.”

— Raymond Carver (Late Fragment)

On the verge
Coming through the black into the grey
Where the shadows place your memory among the tombstones –
Now I catch the severed Mourning
Rest it on my knees in wistful sweetness
Simmering in my veins, a longing that chokes my breath
Purging what almost was and what never will be
Demons roam through my sorrow, rampant with flowers of the dead
They litter my burdened mind with loves carcass
Bent and rusted, it stands on this sacred ground of all that’s lost
Torn from anguished blood-soaked fingers that wrote their adoration on your body
Tracing lines and curves, heat turning to fire that lit that midnight room
A spongy, torrid womb, overflowing with unapologetic, visceral, lustic desire
Birthing letters and verse into writings that welcomed the moon –
Stained it with affection that made eyes blush
My body exhausted from hemorrhaging words late into the lonely hours
That deliciously ruined the innocent – though they were warned not to sip –
The ravishment of eroticism provoked
Infested and drunken, their maddened pupils flaring with transformation – They hate what they seek
Haunted now, as I
Pores seeping distressed, melancholic rage, manifested from stolen devotion –
Since you ran into the shadows, turned left toward the dead
The wind swallowing my voice, begging for a rewrite of your torment
But sliding from your smudged pages in primitive, violent anguish… Sentiments
Were pointless in their disordered chaos, striped of their poetic allegories
And you were more concerned in communing with the dead… Intoxicated
With their cryptic allure, and their skulking, chalky bones –
They were biting off chunks of time, stealing my image, eating the truth of us
They wrapped you in their bony cages
Became your circle of infinity
As the trees rained blood, drowning my visions, decimating dreams – Ruining madness!…
Spitting our perfume on the slippery, blood-soaked ground
No good goodbye under this mortal moon
Kisses falling through the heavy air to land beneath the weeds
Crushed by the footfall of howling specters as they tore you from my eyes
Ripped me from your soul –
Broke their wings, before the crows could scavenge any pain
Discontent the only arms waiting for my miseries
I hide in this midnight room, seeking our smoky aroma between sheets, and in corners
Exorcising letters and verse in an attempt to kill the pain in my love
Penning anguished sufferings in an effort to lure the demons –
Come, take these bitter renderings so I can weep
Come, take this vile torment so I can sleep
The murder of my soul lends a madness to my words that would amuse you
But this solitary languishing is brutally unfair Leave me to nothingness, ashes or dust, not… this…
When your shadow is cast upon these walls
There is no comfort here, no small joy in your apparition
Only a wincing ache, deep within my breast as I try to peel you from my skin
A savage bondage…
My eternal consuming burden