buckycb

The Starving Part

It aches, the starving part. Spurns the practised gossamer curled gentle onto balanced bone. It’s a swollen, mottled curse —broad and malignant— slipping sweetly in vein. The arrhythmia of nearly but never not quite, still too round-thick, spilling everywhere. Feed it, the starving. Stuff it to bursting with scales and counting, fuller and fuller until…

A Sickness

It’s in the way we bloomed togetherand in the way that we fell apart:Wound tightly and scraping against the softest parts as we’d claw and lick and sting to soothe. All that’s left now are the ugliest parts. The looming shadow of two naked vultures circling each other in anticipation, plucking out feathers to keep…

Lady in the Blues

This town is a song about you. A melody of dead-end streets and off-step beats that my feet have all but memorized alongside all your tone-deaf lies. The quickstep notes of drawn-out nights and cymbal clang of booming fights set off by your much-too-short fuse and painting me in shades of blues. Lyrics lurk in worn-out…

for love of butterflies

In order to loveI havesurrendered the part of myselfwith the softest and most delicateskin. A simple touch will bruise andif the nails are sharp they cancomfortablytear it apart. Mine is a prayerwhispered quietly intomirrored hands. Yours isan explosivebursting with the potential toscatter me.

Lamb to Slaughter

I set my heart between your teethto fulfill Delphic prophecy;slit my throat and slowly bledwhile chanting prayers in my head. Gouged out my offending eyesto strip off pretense and disguise,set them at your burning alter—these first sins of Adam’s daughter. When was it that I misspoke?What ancient rite did you invoketo carve me up as…

Stranger, Stranger

In truth, it starts to ache at times— The wear and tear of all these years stripped and laid bare eventually. Anchored at first by steady hands, rough sand smoothed into fragile gems that stem and then flower beautifully. Was it then that we first learned to lie? Blinding words of trust and submission as…

The Minotaur and I

There is a rope around my neck and it is pulling tighter and tighter until I can finally breathe past the stones that have rolled up from my belly and coated the surface of my tongue with something that resembles fear. I am running, further and further away from a sun that would cast light…

Reason to Stay

because I am born and I die in the open and close of your eyes — in that dream there is hope for a love more beautiful than this

The River

There is a river beside the trees that flows around the broken glass and hurries through the trays of ash that choke the birds and fumble words and smother all the roses. It winds around the crumbling brick, surging past half-painted walls and echoing through empty halls to wane and crash break back and splash…

Howl

A hundred thousand years ago before the first man’s rise, I chanced upon a trickster fox that promised me the nighttime skies. It led me to an empty field With its tail wound ‘round my wrist, “A simple trade” it said to me, “None but the foolish would resist.” “Look up,” whispered the fox to…