To be read in one breath.

I can fall in love so easy like a
baby falls asleep so easy quick and

Nod your heads, boys, when I say to you:
A behemoth swiped your breath last week, and
The confidence can't win for you.
Can you see the armies coming for you,
Hear their feet in the mud like mad horses'?

Our conversations were mostly breaths,
impatient ones that feared the other’s
voice would ever split the tethers that
bound us in nervous, melting hope.

Boy, you say, “For
ever is a long time.”
Longer than one
thousand longing
stares at you.

It’s trading in the polka dots it’s
the new black fabric shower curtain it’s
the money orders on the end table it’s
a lot to do with money and it’s

Paper trophy—that
cuts that cuts that
cuts that cuts

that brands my XP

The greased shorts hanging over the footboard
are stained with the smell of a medium rare chuck.
The used bath towels in the corner
bleed dog piss through the air.

Your tongue forged acoustic sugar,
and it’s still singing in my naive brain.
Your song’s been dead for hours,
and I’m belly-up on the dance floor,
rewinding, then pausing when I spot

You were a jump rope that I
whipped ‘round myself and skipped over, and
every time you beat the ground,
your stripes were scuffed with
watermud from last Tuesday’s

.     why                     did
  canal soot         leech onto
a mix CD scratched by fear’s
   unclipped fingernails if
    a faulty bloodpumper