keep the fan on all night. if only change were simple. your ******* have grown and keep catching your eye in the mirror, a reflection of a girl you have yet to know. you have a boyfriend in buffalo, but here, there is a different boy with shaggy hair and glasses who drives you home at 1:30 in the morning and sings along with you to the radio. he is careful — even better, he’s convenient, and convenience is everything when being desired is what helps you see that girl in the mirror a little clearer in the morning. the sky is pink and nothing makes sense except how you feel right now, in this moment — like the earth itself is breathing in, swelling with air, reaching up, up, up and lifting you with it.

the boy in buffalo plays you jazz records on vinyl and takes your hand on crowded city streets and writes you love letters, but when you sit next to him in a church pew you can’t even raise your eyes to the crucifix. the clock is ticking, and you’re unsure, you’re scared. you steal away into the passenger seat of the boy with the glasses and make him turn up the radio so loud you forget about your own heartbeat. who do you want between your legs, and who do you want holding your hand? to both of them you could just be a beautiful idea of a girl, a long list of characteristics which they each want you to be but which do not add up to the sum of who you are. still, they both look at you from time to time as if they were hungry for an indescribable something that can only be found in the space behind your eyes.

it’s a summer night, you’ve kept the fan on, and everything is possible. you have rescued yourself enough times to know that you are never unrescuable, even though sometimes just picking your body up from the floor is a herculean feat. the sky is still pink and everything is balancing on the point of a knife but you feel your heart like a fist in your chest and you know that you’re going to keep waking up in the morning and that that alone is enough. the girl in the mirror looks like less of a stranger than ever before, the image sharpening ever so slowly. maybe change is only simple when we stop looking back at the people we used to be.

i'm writing to you because of circumstances beyond our control. the universe just decided to make me scribble down this epistle. my head rains, or perhaps it's hailing. regardless of what it is, it never snows.
i have jumbled, broken, fragmented consciousness, full of drawing advice and some stupid youtube video about a cat playing the keyboard, looped on repeat for eternity.
i was at the arcade the other day when it occurred to me that the world was a blank piece of lined paper and i was the pencil. but have you ever actually had to write from your mind alone? words flee you, coming and going and not sticking to paper.
during that trip i talked to strangers as they crowded around the cabinets, despite my mama's advice to be careful in the world. some looked at me with an awkward smile. maybe there i did write something, the prose of yesterday.
only the rain in my head never becomes a storm, i suppose. just bring an umbrella.

White lines on the kitchen table.
Your head, C10H15N,
Altoids box under the keyboard.
Your heart, C21H23NO5,
Syringes up your sleeve. ***** on your chest.
Your veins, C18H21NO3,
Dropping acid like the Aztecs.
Your tongue, C20H25N3O,
What will it take to strip your blood down
to the salt and the rust?
5 more Klonopin, 5 more Xanax,
you're on the floor,
a boring story,
I've heard it before.
Keep it far from me.
(You're not close enough. Please.)

He walked the streets a begger
they buried him like a king
he played a six string guitar
he wore no golden ring

She had the voice of angels
survived a valley called death
then fearing no evil
she passed every test

They wrote the songs with sunsets
they walked the line together
they stood in a ring of fire
in love they burned forever

I do not believe in
Love at first sight,
I know I have
Seen you before,
And I do not just
Mean in my dreams.
I do not believe in
Love at first sight,
I know I have
Loved you before,
Maybe in some
Long lost past life.

I know I have
Kissed your lips before
And got lost in
The light in your eyes.
I know we have
Danced on a thousand floors
Hopping, skipping, stumbling,
Again and again into each other's lives.

I do not believe in
Love at first sight,
I saw you first
Millennia ago.
I do not believe in
Love at first sight,
I've loved you more times
Than the world can ever know.

we built a house with our bare hands
and you moved out,
then back in and it’s haunted now,
I know you have a hard time sleeping
but I’ve memorized every floorboard
that creaks and it sings me to sleep
every time you try and leave,
I get confused whether it’s the lullaby
of coming or leaving that knocks me out,
this house began to burn and I sat for months
putting it out while you stood
there with cold feet,
and now you’re warm and I’m
stuck peeling the ash off of my skin,
the grass is still green and the
picket fence is freshly painted
but I used the wrong colour,
the door bell is a muttering of
apologies and the doormat is a mirror,
the bed we slept in
hasn’t been made since you left,
I’m stuck sleeping with ghosts
and brushing my teeth beside
no one to tell me that I haven’t
been brushing for long enough,
I’m showering in hot water in the middle
of summer because the steam
pulls the mirror off the wall,
and all I want is for you to come back,
our house is ***** and the callouses on
my hands are starting to become smooth,
my skin is almost clear again,
please come back.

I repaint the Sistine Chapel with only my tongue
just to see your face again.
Oh, your holy chocolate covered soul,
holy bird bone finger tips.
How you snap like a star and then burn again.

The tendrils of your heart
wrap around me like barbed
wire,

puncturing the pale skin
that shields my bones like
a sheet,

some half hearted ghost
that knows the secrets of
near death.

I have been there before,
tangled in tubes, belly full
of Aspirin, blood thinning

in a hospital bed. Shackled
by secrets, a blunt knife
beneath a filthy pillow.

I have looked into the eyes of God
and found them to be merely
mirrors of

my sin

eyeshadow ground into
a finely powdered bath rug
feet stained gold and as
straight as sink ringed coffee

(it's a perfect day
to run away
from all the crew neck
collars choking you)

fall face down into a
cornfield and climb
dead pine trees clear
up to the blackbirds

(i think you were once
upon a time the one who
never spent weekends
home and hurting)

i am not your past
not your mistakes
i am not who you used to be
but won't say it didn't shape me

(clattering red and
white checks skittering
across the floor as
hydrogenated oils)

i know you're
disappointed
sometimes in who
i've turned out to be

but i am also
disappointed
sometimes in who
i've turned out to be

(only ever thinking about
ceiling fans and my latest
mistakes or an odd assortment
of unspoken disagreements)

i can't breathe under
highway overpasses
in parking garages or when
my hands are made of leather.

(suburbia is just a
repainted mid-century
modern way of covering
up dysfunctional families)

here and there
then and again
i remember that you
probably don't love me anymore

i understand that
neglect destroyed you
but you don't understand
that involvement destroyed me.