These Things Which Are Mine to Keep

Love is

a dis-ease

in the blood

lies dormant

incubates & debilitates

the heart, muscle, nerves

(mind)

the dis-ease

it longs to roam

it desires to thrive

no cure

for this can be dispensed

by pharmacists and shrinks

yet the suffering

Increases:

longing,desperation, and thirst

Drink: poison 

from a lover's mouth 

from his lips 

Whispered secrets

 -- gently, gently --

the merest caress 

(lies)

Soft, as a kiss 

Sing, my foolishness

my delusiveness 

my melody of weakness

of heart, of body

that craved & pined

for the poverty of your love, true
(poison)

I was chasing my dragon: 

mainlining you

Antidote Unknown

they say it is Time

the pain lingers, never lessens

throbs & whines 

 to an hysterical beat

late in the night

 in wakefulness and fatigue

pulses and weeps

sighs, begs, calls

"come back to me" 

Missing the pressure

of your love

pressed onto mine

your distance

your absence 

in the night 

my soul calling to yours

with panicked

cries

alleviate this sickness

kiss me again

- as when loved me before

 the way you did back then -

Afterward to your ghost

I plead

Just leave me. 

Please let me rest.

Go away let me

be among the whispers

of the past

no matter

if they be perceptible

 only to me 

Here, amidst my treasures,

that I hold deep inside

where that broken love 

so long bereft

lives on

in spite of your abandonment 

(this, my love, my deepest secret)

These memories are mine:

these secret lover's oaths

(all have been breached)

they are fractured, unhealed

in broken disrepair

yet to memory's senses

fresh, still aware

these, too, are mine 

they belong to me

to have

to hold

to obey

to cherish and keep