Everyday I bleed on paper,
(It looks prettier that way.)

Here I present to you my blood,
Crimson seeping through sheets,
Spelling out words that stitch themselves into sentences,
That become paragraphs and poems.

cradled in the peak of an eclipse my breath capsizes into
the fray
a shuddering recognition of lost time

we sit back on the river rock letting the waves trickle between our toes
wrinkling our fresh skin into prunes

how did we get here?

The paper is old and wrinkled
Tapered along the edges like a fairy’s carpet
Billowing outward, flowering, creases unfolding in waves.
Rising off the words is the scent of brown sugar, old parchment dancing on the kitchen island.

there is a gentle pulse on the other side of forever
when Mother Nature’s whisper grows hoarse
and our two hands hang limply in the space between us
leaden feathers dragging on the corners of fickle consciousness,
the laughter drying,
morphine for the pre-dead