Bluster

I.

It is windy and wet. The temperature is falling. I went and stood in the middle of the street.

No one drove by, the birds are tucked away for the night. Even the ghosts have crept back to their crypts.

My hair, a sodden tangle, hangs around me, wishing to be fastened into a noose.

For my neck only.

Such a personal thing that should not ever be transferred, unlike a candle flame.

II.

I nod and tell others I am well. My laughter cuts my mouth as I expel it, sharp slivers of gaiety that have no meaning.

No truth.

I look for that elusive truth. In the deep soulful eyes of that one, in the strong supple hands of the other one- his black painted fingernails gleaming like a beetle’s carapace.  It is not in the puffed lips of him or in the riotous long hair of him either.

Nor is it find with the tender yearning of this one, the harsh promises of that one. Not even the turgid cock of the favored one, dripping cum like a faucet in the barn, holds it.

III.

Offers of flesh, fidelity, debauchery, submission, cruelty, gentleness, lust, desire. All the same: Nothing.

Syllables that can be arranged in any and all ways but equal a simple word: non.

IV.

To touch someone, is to caress warmth frozen by my breath and reduced to stone and watch it crumble with each stroke of my fingers. Wind and time converge and condense, wearing them all away in the twinkling of an eye. They receive the rapture at my cold hands. Could we have known?

V.

I am trapped, struggling to break through this looking glass that has been ground for me. My mouth belches out words in water-that same water falling from the skies that I stood in. My eyes are fixed upon the moving forms that cannot see me. Nor do they wish to do so, for who among them is strong enough to gaze into nothing?

VI.

My heart is ashes, pumping dust through the thin plaster shell of my body.  My eyes leak trails of sand, such tiny grains of silica, down my carefully composed cheeks.

I wait for the wind, that pushes the rain, which will one day disassemble me and blow me back to you.

Here

“Let’s go for a ride,’ he said softly, as he pulled me out the door.

It was cold; big fluffy flakes like dreams falling thickly.

Driving, he barely spoke, did not even turn the radio on. I reached for it but he pushed my hand away.

We stopped at the side entrance of the oldest graveyard in town. I thought we were going somewhere. I had strolled around that place for years.

Arm in arm, we walked down the freshly shoveled paths. I heard the soft muffle of our footsteps. Not a bird was chirping, no movement but the dancing snow.

Veering left, he led me across the frozen grass to the old Knopf family crypt. It was still in good shape, unlike the Phillips across from it and the other crumbling angels monuments of years gone by. Not anyone left on those ancient trees to tend to the upkeep.

Suddenly, he turned, grabbed me, kissed me. His lips were chilled and his breath was hard. Not soft, as he normally was when he opened his mouth to me.

Placing his right hand on top of my head, he pushed, and began to sink, so I followed him. To my knees, then onto my back.

He did not speak, he just stared. Long moments without a blink. Only partially supported on his elbows, his weight pressing me down.

The cold seeped into my coat, my skin. I felt it easing into my muscles, wrapping lovingly around my joints.
I began to shiver.

His lifted his hips, making room for his hands, that slid up my skirt. A fresh blast of wind hit my always cold thighs.

Teeth chattering a tear seeping form the corner of my eye, I stared back, confused. Then defiant.

Then, a warm coal. Heat, pushing into me.

Dazed from the snow falling onto me, I hung onto it, welcomed it.

I turned my head and took at the ruined, worn tombstone to the right of me. And felt that I was next.

“Where are you? “he asked.

“Home,” I replied.

“Are you afraid? When you are in the ground, I cannot warm you this way.”

I paused.

And truthfully told hm ‘no.’

There he took me. His eyes radiating an acceptance of death, his body cushioned from the hard cold  ground by my softness.

Offering me his tongue, I tasted ice.

Looking up at the sky, blinded by the snow, I felt the stone angels, blinded by time, sigh softly, gently  for me.