i still look at the recipes you wrote about me.
you told me that baking requires trust—
maybe that's why my macarons burnt.

you were the most sobering experience.

pretty white ******* a date
with a lonely man
whose father's funeral
only had three guests:
him, his brother, his uncle.

i can't even pretend
to know how to feel.

Rough love, soft love.
Choke me a bit, are you okay with that?
I guess it's what I'm used to.

Warm skin, heavy blankets.
I pray we don't end up like our parents.

the memory of you is a warm comfort
a sunday morning community chapel
preaching your name so loudly
you'd think i was possessed
the sun sneaks through my windows
i'm alone in bed

love is patient,
love is kind.

thom yorke keeps telling me that true love waits
so why do i feel that waiting has made me weak.
(like i'm letting you get away with something)

i am not patient,
nor kind.
i am envious, and boastful.
i keep a record of how wrong i feel.

i only wish i could esc the thought of you

clean for almost two years now
i stay up reading
a timeline of myself
high on ecstasy

we got along so well but
but this is the final thing we will agree on:

even i am surprised at how
how softly i can let you go

i will be alone now
walking naked from the bush
drunk stumble down quadra st

the *** may have been brief
but the memory of ******* will stay forever
in my wet dreams

God's firmament: only
a child's planetarium projector—
If only I could project my
vows in a sphere of light
with even a handful of batteries, all the
eyes in the world
could see how ******* thin
my gossamer guilt is.

My conscience is silky smooth
like Venus-razored legs.

U n I r love letters—
O, tucked in bottles and
cast out @ c.

i drove a long way for affection
but i didn't mind a meander
into side streets of self exploration

companionship not compatability

and the simple ******* twists i turned
the gentle buses rode

i tire of you

this ship merits no singing of sad songs
cleaned my decks, the salt water is gone.

tired because of the things he does,
always remembering where i was.

these fickle things nostalgia brings,
icicle fingers touching ribs—stings.

i pray to your temples
with every slighted
touch of forehead

"i am the scientist sitting on the pew
holding a textbook bible.
i don't question you."

i have built a
rib cage chapel
out of love and letters.

i consume both love
and liquor in the dark of
Monday's Lucky Bar.

holy ****
holy ****

am i an *******
just an *******


preach love beyond belief
*** and no text, purely grief



say to hold the one you love
hot neck, cold shoulder, lack thereof.

close my eyes.


today, the thesaurus revealed
himself to me as
my enemy. i
do not want any words
to describe this. keep a
perfect sonnet of all
feelings felt until now.
keep everything
under the radical
complex. prescribe me a
boundary condition.


open my eyes.

our transaction history:
pleasure between keyboard strokes,
stolen moments, momentary wave.


the absence of heat and the heat of absence:
hand between thighs, love between sheets,
every day is the first day of my life.

my ***** heart is hungover
overdue for a kickstart
startled and *******
all for you,
all for you.

love a bit
love a bit

you look so good,
look so good,

the eyes relay to the mind

paining, pining
i am refusing to branch
onto your spokes i am vining
touch me soft—***** your hand

was that really me?

i almost regret not introducing you to my friends
memories fall so separate
i squint to see overlap

so many minutes of my life in your apartment
i must not have lived them
if i cannot again relive them

was it really me on spotted counter top
was it really me against white brick
touch my palm to induction stove
hoping to burn but only touching magnetism

i almost regret letting it into my head

Sorry I can't
hear you any
—more.
I think we're

breaking up.


I think we're

breaking down
each other.

THE SEVEN-SECOND GENERATION.

White plastic hanger, previously molten molecules, bleach additions and thermodynamic repercussions. I use the word thermodynamic because "chemical" has a falsely truther connotation to it. It hangs the shirt I choose to wear for tomorrow.
A hanger is a hanger is a grocery bag.

There were actions behind every reason—but not reason behind every action.
And you don't talk about it, but you think about it—because you don't want the whole world to realize that it's loneliness hidden in that shirt. You were only trying to tell yourself that maybe buttons on the other side was for the better.

I forgot which words to capitalize in a title so I took capitol on them all.

There was a world once, out there, somewhere, that cared for more than seven seconds. They hung up the power button, asked the tide to come closer, and walked until their hair was wet.

Kept going until water kissed water within lungs.

i open doors—and walk through walls,
open thoughts—and forget them all.

talk to a bottle—kiss midnight

i do not think i feel alright

what much affection
believe you earned-her.
once loved to learn-her.
help-her, hurt-her,
oh baby, choke-her.

Pop-pop, rattle-bang
Red being the color of the carpet
In hasty prayers, upwards is forgotten
North, East, Smith & Wesson

three circles will linger
in my grave when i die
one ring on my finger
two under my eyes

oh hips, i'd gather all them,
(your spine i deserve).
i'd much rather call them
a coastline than a curve.

i myself
an amalgamate
of little words
long pauses
you are without brackets
we multiply, divide
but never add

canaries, doves, pigeons
in your image they made religions

pigeons, canaries, doves
both in seventeen and in love

doves, pigeons, canaries
scholars devoted to you, libraries.

kissing pinot grigio
holding glass to cheek
refilling bottle, drop by drop
each milligram worth its weight in salt water

whatever omniscient is awake and
watching me join the 2am club
for a fifth night in a row
i hope you know i would love to watch you too

we learn such lessons from the loneliness
and remember nothing in the morning

this pillow talk is lost in translation from night to day

A thousand wind turbines stand like men
on a hill in Texas. Each with a red eye which
blinks in the night. A thousand men stand
like wind turbines on a hill in Texas. Each with
two blue eyes, shut the entire night, the entire
day. There is a chapel on the hill.

Oh, whisky and your hips:
Hard as stone on my fingertips
I would put my lips to them both.

Separate beds and shades
Of reds. Intimacy is
A ****** handprint.

my friends do not believe me
that love can, yes, truly, begin with a black eye.

I sprinkle the salt of sadness over the steak of my life
because salt brings out the flavor
salt brings out the flavor

I drunkenly wingman my dreams to my realities.

german cologne still lingers
on the buttons of my collar.
funny, i don't remember
wearing my shirt when we embraced.

i didn't wash you for
five days. i didn't wash
you for five days.

"everything you are
is a product of all your interactions.
you mirror your friends
or you mirror yourself."

heaven may not be a place on earth
and you may not be oppenheimer,
but now you are become death:
destroyer of worlds around you.

did i pull away or did you?
what i wouldn't do
for one more taste
of that wet embrace.

we find a balance
in the absence.


we find a balance
in the absence.

Everything but the present is a fond memory.

cannot trust a thought.
i know not if i am action, reaction, overreaction.
i reside somewhere between emotion and environment

clothes got soaked in rain.
dont know why i expected
them to smell like salt.

what was i to do
we had some human-sized bumps
and she smelled like campfire

i keep a secret
on the inside of my bit-
ten, ****** cheek. ow.

only write haikus
for lovers. this one is for
me. i ****** myself.

my resolution,
a false dichotomy: brown
eyes, or purple walls.