I Would If I Could

i held you first when you were just months old a bundle of need with eyes wide as forever since then i’ve been the steady hands behind you your scraped-knee comfort your broken-heart glue and i would if i could

i packed your lunches with tiny love notes inside sat through every band recital with tears in my eyes taught you to drive though my knuckles turned white stood at every turning point like a shadow that remains because i would if i could

you’ve called me by Bayton but meant something more each birthday card signed with quiet affection i hope i was your father in every way but law and i would have given you my name oh God... i would if i could

now you're 23 and still my little girlie i see it when you smile like your first steps never stopped you bring your fears to my door like you always have and though i’ve never said it outright you know i would if i could

then one quiet evening you finally speak it your voice soft as it carries the whole sky you ask if i would have made you mine if things had been different all those years ago yes...of course i would've if i could've

~Kevin Stock

the sky shifts with the wake of morning soft and pale ...a whispered thought new light spills over the quiet earth stirring shadows from their sleep

Funny Thing Was...Judas Was Never Cursed

judas stood in the crossfire between choices thirty silver pieces...cold in his hands the weight of them a whisper a promise a wound he had named his God with lips that never stopped trembling he had kissed salvation...yet called it betrayal the night did not answer the stars did not turn

he walked with the knowledge of a man already gone feet dragging through dust that did not cling his hands, empty now, shaking from something deeper he had given away more than his God he had spent himself for a silence he could not bear even the moon refused to look at him

and the garden... the garden did not beg him to stay no it simply breathed patient waiting for the weight of guilt to take its shape judas was never cursed...he was simply forgotten by his own name

then he was falling not all at once but in pieces first the breath hollow and tight in his chest then the hands clutching gripping failing then the rope steady where he was not the air did not hold him...it only watched him let go

the earth took his weight and did not weep no cries no mercy no open arms just the swinging stretch of shadow against stone just the stillness of a man who had no prayers left he had sold he had broken he had become neither cursed nor blessed

and the temple...doors shut coins scattered stood without him indifferent unmoved no hand reached for his absence nothing called him back not the sky not the dust only silence...the same silence judas had once dared to sell

Funny Thing Was...Icarus Was Not Burned

icarus rose from the storm of the sea skin salted...lips cracked hunger curled in his ribs he did not beg the wind he did not whisper to the sun he tore the sky open with hands that had never held power wax and feather sinew and passion a body stitched from defiance the horizon laughed...the gods did not

the air was a mouth that swallowed him whole teeth of heat breath of silence a tongue of light he climbed the currents...a boy unchained his father’s voice was a shadow beneath his feet too low too distant ...too late he had already unmade gravity

and the sun? the sun did not strike him down...no it simply watched patient waiting for the inevitable unravel the fray of wax and will icarus was never burned he was simply... forgotten by his own body

then he was falling not all at once but in pieces first the feathers twisting curling ...knowing then the skin too soft for the air to hold then the bones...hollow and heavy all at once the wind rushed to catch him, but it only tasted salt on its breath

the sea opened its throat swallowed him whole no screams no prayer no final plea just the rush of water closing over ribs just the weight of sky pressing into depths he had risen...he had fallen he had become neither god nor man

and Daedalus...hands empty voice spent stood on the shore and called a name that had already vanished nothing echoed back not the sky over Samos not the sea only silence...the same silence icarus had once dared to break

in the quiet ...after the storm we find a soft and steady light that holds hidden hopes carrying fragile dreams upward beyond the scars of...dark

i offer my words to hold you in gentle warmth

...until the quiet

then you turned spoke my name the world folded like paper in flame your voice settled inside my chest smoke curling beneath my skin suddenly i knew what it meant to ache ...to want until your breath is gone i wake each day with fingers shaking chasing something

...that never stands still

i rise from the dust of memories in the chill of endless nights the weight of forgotten cities press on my hammered skin each step is a slow reckoning with a hollowness inside a vast plain of lost bones ...fractured dreams stretches before me i collect shards of...loss remnants of voices long silenced a slow march through ruins where flesh and metal merge the air tastes of rust and the ancient echo of sorrow i follow the path of scars etched upon the earth searching for a fragment of life a trace of unyielding fire in the absence of soft light i become a relic in time an archive of hunger of battles fought within...and without i hold the weight of broken legends seeking to mend an infinite rift

i read once that whales sink when they die their bodies too heavy for the tide to carry their bones turned to banquet halls for things with sharper teeth i wonder if they know...in their last breath that they will not rise

somewhere...a man scrapes marrow from the hollow of a femur broils it down to something consumable he calls it survival calls it necessity but i wonder if he tastes the ghosts if his tongue curls around the memory of the sinew pulling itself apart

in another life i am a taxidermist i learn how to stitch the empty back into something whole how to hold a hollow thing and call it alive i perfect the art of pretending of making death sit still ...and smile

but here in this body in this life i wake with the weight of stones in my belly swallowed in sleep too heavy to spit back up i count the ribs that press against my skin trace the map of hunger carved into my bones and wonder what i am still trying to feed

Vanish

a feather drifts sprawling beneath the moon gluttony swells in the belly of night and a silver lake trembles with borrowed light lilies curl in the quiet of dusk one shadow lingers at the door as whispers slip between the cracks and i drink the silence of waiting stars and i forget the weight of my name and i become the hush itself

...vanish

**smittenbypoetrygame** This was a fun one Mark!

you never knew how much i watched ...wanted my thoughts bowed before your smile how i memorized the way your hands carved silence into something holy i called this love ...but it was hunger a wild thing with teeth and claws tearing through every quiet moment until there was nothing left

...but you

when you left i followed...shadows clinging to your echo in empty rooms i swore i could see your footsteps pressed into the floor ...like promises you were never mine but still you lingered a whisp that sharpened my senses once you had lived inside my veins now... you forgot to take your ghost with you

now i wake to empty mornings trace my fingers along cold walls your absence hums inside my bones like a wound that refuses to close i tell myself you were never real but love has a way of haunting even when it was never whole even when it was never ...yours

and still...i carry you like something precious

and cursed a voice in the quiet a weight in my chest you were never mine ...but you still are

before you...there was only hunger a gnawing ache that lived in my ribs like something forgotten yet still alive a voice that murmured from shadowed corners i watched you from a careful distance never close enough to touch or claim just close enough to believe you were mine a ghost i kept breathing into existence

her kisses were hungry and left me emaciated and gaunt my bones brittle the marrow dripping from her lower lip my skin, dry, blew like the powdered foundation she brushed on her pale skin she consumed me  and i...

...i made her more beautiful