Tristitia Abyssus

Do Not Fall Into Love

08.13.2012

Do not fall into love,

because your eyes are wide closed

and hope—an unbroken flower—

splits amid the savage night.

Do not fall into love

as things escape you, one by one,

and fall into silence,

little by little,

until nothing remains but your heart,

pleading release from its rose jail.

Because the sky that once swam with birds

joins nothing to its sunless arch.

And the fruit that dressed trees in March

meets death early—

its beginning flung into wind,

spat upon the dirt’s winter tomb.

Then twilight removes the stars from its face,

and night drops upon the world with rage,

striking its fist against the spine of your desire—

and nothing stays

but a ghost

and a craving.

Because now, my feet carry a corpse across wastelands—

wherever I’m lost,

passing from day to day without rest.

And wherever my love

tries flying with one broken wing,

it trips instead—

a lame and littered bird,

caught in its own wanting.

As if the whisper of your name

parts from my mouth

and cries back to me—

as if the hope I lost

when my love was an emerald

vanishes in the spume

and buries itself

in the breasts of the sea.

No—

do not fall into love,

eyes of my eyes.

Because steadily now,

I undress myself.

My blouse—

the one that begged for your hands to remove her—

lies crumpled,

lonely,

on the floor.

m.c.f.