grace from the raven

---

He swings across the sky

and rips the stars out with his fingernails. Across the rooftops he runs, stealing away the shadows, the breath of night. Ragged breaths of black.

Rip through and through,

the wind pours over his hair, clings to the crevices of his face and tears. He flies like the raven (thrashing) and does not look back; he does not count the feathers that fall, the one-two-three feathers he has left. He runs past desperation and flings away sanity because he has never known it in the first place. His is an indifferent shoulder who knows none but the

cold.

Here.

Here.

He puffs beneath his lips, his graceful gazelle leaps. The concrete is cold and rough beneath his feet, a pounding sidewalk to never-near.

Here, come.

Slash one arm, block another before the ground comes running up. Metal and grinding, blue and midnight sifted,

gouge out my eyes with your sparking dance!

Grit, teeth, grit—but grit effortlessly!

The grace cannot be forgotten,

Because without the grace, The deadly is

nothing.

The red is not blood

If the death is not grace.

The dreams will not be sweet

If they are bitter;

But if they are bitter,

They are most certainly sweet.

He thinks in rhymes and verses, but his alliteration is off. His poetry is nothing but prose shellacked, and the commas

And periods

And exclamation points

Are all in the wrong places.

-

Owl's wings brush his face and turn quickly

to blades—

cut his face scarlet bloomed

spring of the night

sharpened by knife.

By twilight knife.

-

Jades are cushioned in his feet

Spring him from here

To there

Here

To

H

E

R

E

to the place of graves

and dead dandelion

wishes.

-

In a grove where the weeds

Have grown to a-dult maple trees

And shed sweet leaves of artificial sympathy;

He is too young to partake in

Maturity

But he manages to sneak by, anyways.

Just barely.

-

He swings and he tries to be graceful (he tries so hard, and he tries so hard to make it so that it doesn't show he tries so hard)

He sweats and wills the sweat

To evaporate

Because grace does not sweat

Grace does not cry

Grace does nothing

But be

Grace…

What am I?

, he wonders.

They are coming.

He hears the footsteps rumbling

He thinks to himself:

Do not think.

Be.

He breathes and when he breathes

The breath is just a little too heavy

To really be grace;

The sweat in his armpits

Is a little too heady

To be grace

The way he is smiling when he feels or pants out of breath

Is much too—

Much too—

Not enough grace!

The desire is strong and goes to his head

Syrup and wine

His eyes turn red

For lack of sleep, for lack of self

He cannot be what he wants to be

He cannot be the man

(Dark-sleek-venomous)

He cannot be…

-

He stabs hard the body,

Clenching fist

Gritting teeth

(His teeth don't grit right!)

Spitting cuss

Spitting fury

Spitting lonesome regret

All over, it sprays

Fills the moonlight

With spite

He is not grace.

He is not grace.

-

The raven cries

One lagoon cry

He is alone in the murky river

He has lost all his feathers

He comes plunging down the sky road

The gray blurring road

Into a gray mud embrace

Suffocate me

So that I may not

Think—

---

One strange thing. I couldn't make up my mind whether to make it prose or poetry. So it's a mutant hybrid of both. :3