Our house is a black box.
We drape every window

but one, a pinhole
to capture the sun.

At night our eyes go dark as ink.
Our memories marbleize at
the edge of the bedroom.

Come morning,
we are nothing

but inverted images
fed by shared light.

You tell me to smile
and I braid your hair.

Upstairs, the children
develop like ghosts.

I put on another record
and the dark disc spins,

its needle lulled
into grooves the way
you are lulled into me.

We could almost dance together,
but the couple at the window

will not move until
we come into focus.

We’re back to back and you’re resting against my shoulder blades
or your fingers are digging into my collar bones,
and you’re resting your mouth against my ear to spit in it.
Or I’m standing up and you’re kneeling behind me,
banging your arms on the floor until they break or
maybe you’re at my feet, tearing your face off
or you’re at the station, waiting for the train
so you can jump in front of it.
I’m just trying to have a normal conversation,
trying to smile and be interested and sound normal and good
and calm and happy and all those things that I should be,
and you’re right there, spitting in my ears,
scratching your arms off, breaking your bones,
leaning your head against my arm and murmuring,
I wish I was dead. I know, I say,
I know, I know, I know and then
I manage a nod and smile and a yes,
and you’re back at my ear, banging
your arms against the wall,
carving your chest out and
laying down on the floor
to break your teeth into the carpet.
I wish, you say, I know, I say,
I was, you say, yeah, I say,
dead, you say and I attempt a laugh.

Kiss me asleep
with your obsidian lips.

Protect my ears
from the cacophony nights would bring.

Fill the void
between heartbeats that skip.

Take me into the lull,
and into the siren song that you sing.

a picture is a thousand words
while poetry is a million translations
of feelings said by one
to all

i'm getting tired of it,
waking up once a day,
feeling dead and forever unpleasant.
i love too much,
i'm not much pride to swallow.
let your roots grow into me,
feel yourself waste away.
we wept, sea between beds,
always but a dream never to be seized,
nothing is forever.