love was caught napping on the windowsill
with eyes closed on knees begging.
two springs, winters, summers, falls into
angry jaws peeking
through windowsills,
through shades of dew.
love snored awake
fumbling pupils looking upwards
in a blister

so we ride. on the back of things, on the side of the things, on the subway, on the seats with no cushions in your car. that flash flood. thundered silently with no sound. I ride on your back, twisting your spine like a can opener. always on the edge of things, you. you who run round the roads, through forests unpaved. reminds me of that movie: birds cross above your chest as you heave through dead leaves, dying leaves, dying sun, but only for right now. you don’t run anymore,though i wonder the sounds you heard then (other than your heart beating). your heart beats differently now than before, in your temples. you pray in your temples, in your cortex, in your brain sending nerves to your knuckles. chapped lips, chapped words, chapped knuckles. kissed between the mini valleys of your finger’s rooftops. thought the ceiling collapsed from punch, not fruit, but punches on pavement. no skeletons in the closet except for a hole in the wall. we fell into it.

It's a good thing
the natural order of things
knows what it's doing,
'cause we sure as **** don't.

You broke the heart I don't have
you mixed my emotions I don't feel

The heart I don't have is breaking
And
The feelings I don't have aren't showing

She looked at me and said,
"You should **** me
before you love me."
And so I did.

Her hands covered her *******
and she said,
"I want you to guess which breast
my father touched first."
And so I did.

The bones in her hands shifted
as she fixed her hair into a ponytail.
"You're going to promise me that
you're not going to try to fix me.
You're going to promise me, okay?"
And so I did.

Her lips would start bleeding
because when she lied
she chewed her lips.
She said, "I think today
will be the last day I live."
And I asked her for one more.

Dry blood sat on her inner lips
as she kissed me good morning.
Her voice softly cooed,
"I hope that isn't the last time
I kiss you."
And I asked her for one more.

She bled,
"All you write about are girls.
You never write about me.
All you write about are faces
without souls. What about my soul?
Are you going to
******* write about my soul?
Are you going to write another poem?"
And I asked her for one more.

Looking at me,
she ran her fingers
down her hips,
across scars,
and said,
"Too many men look at me
and see what they want to.
They look at me and see
broken picture frames
that they can repair
and put our faces into."

Our hands met
and our fingers grasped
at the pieces of ourselves
that were deeper than faces.
But it was only me
as she whispered,
"Stop,"
licked my cheek
to my ear,
finishing,
"Don't fall in love
with what you
think you see.
Just **** me."

And so I did.
And so I asked her for one more.

T minus 15 years
I am screaming, crying, untimely ripped from the first home I had ever known
Born with eyes open, I fight for my first breath. I know I am supposed to live.
T minus 10 years
I have earned callouses on my little hands, toughened the soles of my feet
And now encounter the lullaby of language, the incredible illusion of image
T minus 5 years
I notice shooting stars, and for the first time, they seem within my reach
If I just turn my palms towards the sky, I'll catch a comet before it hits the earth
Countdown complete
The mountains I've climbed are scratched into my soul, and I trek on
Keeping my eyes open, I fight for my each breath. I know I am supposed to live.

I’m holding my father’s baby teeth in my hands. They’re pressing into my palms the way I wish your nails could. My mother through walls thin as her body is using the bathroom again. My mother has eyes like the antlers of a buck. When it snows my mother is outside with her fingers encircling a purple plant and the plant is now dead. When it snows my mother’s mouth can be seen disappearing into flesh, her face disappearing because it has no flesh. She is standing on the porch again watching you drive. “I Need My Girl” is a loud song and it is playing softly from your speakers.

The last time I held your hand in a car we drove for two hours like Magellan in circles around the outskirts of the town. The river coursing like the chest of a swan just about to take flight. The river coarse as childhood hair, hair without showering. I hadn’t showered in two days. This town would be better with large fields, more cows, some highway and cliffs. As it was: it felt too much like we were driving somewhere; it always does when you are in a small town. We drank from wine bottles shaped like our father’s heads and sat on straw chairs underneath strung-up white lights. The lights were there all year hanging from a tree that in that muddy heat should have been palm.

What it was: this summer your body reminded me of somebody else’s body all lanky, the one difference was that you were there and he wasn’t and now it is winter and neither of you are here and my body is in bed moored by hives the size of your large pale feet.