Natural beauty - Photographed by James Houston
You are the one who pushes yourself off the cocaine dusted building ledge
the one who pulls the bar stool out from under your freshly washed feet
the one who meticulously, dotingly places the braided noose around your intrusively warm neck
Years pass and you die a thousand deaths
skin; shedding into dust
dust; swimming in a thin stream of smoke,
floating out the cracked window
Yesterday I was a Stranger
Remember this when the night comes and you wilt, sweet camellia
when you come home to fresh flowers on broken tombstones
watching the airplanes tear into the night sky and fade
into the blanket of stars and christmas lights; blinking away the darkness
Your skin may tighten around you once more
like boys posing as men, hard cider and back porches in autumn
under the full gaze of the moonlight that stared unblinking
as we shook our bloody fists
That was lives ago
and you are a river ever-running onward
this world is nothing and so it is everything
to cease would be to destroy the empire of chaos we have nearly perfected
Do not imagine yourself neatly folded into a car roof,
clutching your grace lazily with long slender fingers
listen to the sound of heavy weight hitting pavement
an unobtrusive stagnant thud, curt and unsuitable
Where went all the breeze in your lungs? all the light in your bones that I saw pulsing under your paper skin?
Force yourself to run closer, look at the spilled insides against the pavement,
not like pigment but like a butcher shop floor
there is no art in the destruction
Do not picture yourself lying sleeping in your small wooden home
do not think of who will come to kiss you goodnight
smell the formaldehyde, cut the stitches from your dead lips
and frown at yourself
Separate beauty from tragedy like it is the bed where your lover lies sleeping
realize you have been born many times, and have died many times
stare into the setting sun dipping into the unreachable horizon
and let it set fire to yesterday
