#07: In My New York Cell

In my cell_ time doesn’t move the same.
You dwell mostly in the past.
Or some far off, seemingly hopeless future.
I try_
And dream of you.
But I cannot.
That is because torments weigh on me and keep me from visions of happier times.
Self-hate over whelms.
You learn to hate your best in a cell.
Too much time to spend of the past_
The future is just a glimmer through a key hole.
I whisper your name to the rats and roaches that are my witnesses. I extol your virtues to a homeless Lune who sought-solace-in-suicide_
Tried it twice and_ will try again upon his release.
Your name has more fulfillment than the rations or the recycled air.
Dasha Andreavna!
I say it aloud and it is like the hurricane outside is a product of our passions, a fitting cap stone to our separation
It bears down on the city and could render my captivity and chemical manacles, tear the whole goddamn place apart.
I fade in and out.
I try and count the kisses I’ve received from you in just the first five weeks of courtship.
They took me just three weeks from our first kiss.
If each kiss was a bullet or hand grenade used against our faceless oppressors
I’m sure I’d be here longer.
I am drunk still on those kisses.
Drunk on the past.
Intoxication is no good substitute for really feeling.
I desire you still.
All about you, every smile, every stolen moment we have left.
Free me from this place Dasha. I cannot be a
Man right now without you holding me upright.
I love you limitlessly.
I wish that I could open myself like a Siberian doll;
Open each part until understanding became possible or at least there might lie hidden a jewel to steal.
But I fear each layer comes with more questions and there is now jewel, only madness and a blood diamond.
Shines with a price.
Unbreakable but such toughness has heightened emotional cost.
Dasha Andreavna!
I am neither a phantasm or a ghoul
Not a demon or an angel either, nor some hybrid like you.
We are unique specimens. And the world has punished me for my loudness and perhaps rewarded you for our beauty only to punish you in other ways.
A lot of worth we are, with a lot of trouble.
I hope my poems survive me.
I hope you are wrong every night you say it is our last night. You’ve been wrong a very good number of times before.
Mostly only about that last.
My art is thriving under your casual supervision. I hope my life these days is a testament to your glory and not self-glory.
I cherish you;
I am a slave to what we might be.
Not what we are.
I would do many tragic things to prove myself a hero.
Again, and again.
I do not have to prove I am brave; only brave enough, well enough to fully love.
Love early, love often, and love with complexity building to completion.
And then you will forget your slavery and your grinding imprisonment.