you take my love
when you take your leave,
leaving it by your doorstep
so you could get yourself in the house
before the weather got fickle,
forgetting it there when
you'd turn in
under warm covers.
it spent so many nights
getting rained on
despite my best advice,
in hopes that you
would find it in the morning,
see it for its sun and flowers,
and want it to be
your daily reminder
of what the rest of your Springs
could feel like.
and I never had it in me
to disappoint my love
by telling it
to just come home,
knowing it would spend
the night fidgeting between
those four chambers
to forget that it was alone.
but that poor thing,
how tired it would get by daybreak,
pulling the petals from its daisies
with eyes swollen with their own rain,
blubbering about how all it wanted
was to tickle the hairs on your chest
until the strange and new
felt warm and safe to you,
and how it wished
trying this much
didn't make it feel so pitiful.
because my love knew
whatever it felt, it shared with me;
and though its judgment was better
than to sleep on wet bricks
until it got itself sick,
it was just hoping to bring me back
something beautiful,
it didn't mean
for me to get hurt.
Mar 23, 2017
Mar 23, 2017 at 1:18 AM UTC
in regards to where we would find
our hands and elbows entwined,
you never did guarantee that
you could answer with certainty.
"Anything could happen
in five years, Vin-
we could be the last two people
on Earth," you told me,
"how's that for an answer?"
well, it's a shame that we weren't.
it's a shame our love had to share
so much in common
with the stars that we swore
were living with us
when we'd ******** in the car,
forgetting how much light years
play tricks on our eyes.
it's a shame that our love
had to be the canary that
never made it out of the coal mine;
though we reassured ourselves
it would come about before night,
the last echoes of those birdsongs
only came from the walls of our minds.
and it's a shame that
when we speak,
it's seldom that we talk,
so I may never know
just what you really wanted to do
with all of this-
whatever it was,
I just hope this wasn't it.
Mar 23, 2017
Mar 23, 2017 at 1:17 AM UTC
so you disappear with the night
without much of a goodbye,
let alone an apology,
before I could speak
whatever magic words
it would have took
for your hand to find mine
for another day.
"I ylno reve detnaw ot
evol uoy reverof,
I ylno reve detnaw uoy ot yats,"
I've run out of tricks,
and you've just ran,
so I guess the vanishing act
is the best that we both got.
Mar 23, 2017
Mar 23, 2017 at 1:11 AM UTC
you came to me
by way of thunder or hurricane
and by the dandelions
you left in your wake, I knew
it was summer when you rained;
so much so, that I am still
wringing you out of my hair
and out of my t-shirt
in yards of November,
my damp sleeves reminding me
I could never entirely whisk you
off of my flesh.
Mar 23, 2017
Mar 23, 2017 at 1:11 AM UTC
you call me your fire,
but, honey, I'm burnt out.
and if I had a mouth of
sawdust and kerosene,
I'd spit on my flesh
to make up for the way
that my flames licked themselves
to ash and ember,
so I wouldn't have to
beg you to bring
your hands
through my hair
and over my chest,
so I could still keep you
warm.
Mar 23, 2017
Mar 23, 2017 at 1:10 AM UTC
the day is going to break upon me
when I'll have to leave behind
the last reminder
of the dedication put into
all the years worth
of skin I've shed,
and I just want it to be remembered
that all I wanted
was to let my heart
find safety with the sun,
and sleep outside my sternum
every morning
without the vultures
coming to claim their feed;
and although existing would
become absolutely unbearable
whenever better seemed to take forever
to do, to love, to find,
I have always tried
so hard
to take it easy on myself.
Mar 23, 2017
Mar 23, 2017 at 1:04 AM UTC
you're Woodside's Arcanine,
and it took me five years and an hour
to finally find you,
and by the time I got to your door,
my skull was already rolling
off my shoulders,
to catch every angle of your rakish design
until my heart burst out from my neck.
and I wish the cold shower
did enough to quiet the fever
and calm the bones,
so I never missed every curveball I threw,
and would be wise enough to tell
when it's time to fold.
Mar 23, 2017
Mar 23, 2017 at 1:04 AM UTC
even the dreamers
need to be called on their bluff;
we talk about endeavors
together
across the states,
and taking a weekend
to go some place
where we could tell a different life
at the parties,
and share the same last name;
I would leave the bedroom door open,
and you wouldn't need to knock
for an invitation to fill my bed
where we could finally leave
our chests most bare,
as we should.
but still, we speak of it
as more of an "if"
rather than a "when,"
and smoke on our ignorance
until we can play like
the "when" is "now".
and silly me,
I get so caught up,
only to be dashed when I see
none of it is happening
as it should.
you see the door ajar,
but you don't cross the threshold,
and it's been for so long,
that I certainly am no longer sure
which of us is the one
standing in the hall,
waiting to be beckoned
to listen to the blood
pumping through the other's chest.
Mar 23, 2017
Mar 23, 2017 at 1:03 AM UTC
he told me,
"the problem with our flesh,
is that it doesn't do so well
as to protect our bones;
you may prefer your heart to be bare
for the sake of calming the wolves
that you let slick your throat
with their rabid tongues,
but I know you know
that it's better to be the iron you taste,
than to be the polish for a man's gums,
and the wax for his teeth."
he painted my forehead
with the vermilion broth
he brewed from the throat of the hare,
and mopped his fingers clean
with my tongue
as we watched the vermin
give one last kick.
"but if you insist,
then I will be your cage
as I am your hunter,
and nothing will chew through
your pretty collarbone
before me."
Mar 23, 2017
Mar 23, 2017 at 12:53 AM UTC
love is taking a walk
through the woods,
and setting off a trap
that swings you
as high as the oaks,
and all you could do
is just admire the view
since you left your pocket knife
at home, and let the blood
rush to your face
as you hang by your ankle
until the rope finally snaps.
Mar 23, 2017
Mar 23, 2017 at 12:53 AM UTC