I want to shave you
'as iron unto iron.'

Let'***** each other
just enough
to scrape new skin,
get real sharp.

In tiny sips,
you make me
bubble
burn
and lick my teeth.

They will tell you that they're happier
than you.
This will be true.

They'll confuse your courage
and limp all your lyrics.

They'll beg you to borrow,
curse the curbs,
gently grief you
to suit yourself,
to buy better guts.

They'll set you up
with the shiny sons
of their duller deeds.

When they ask you
your curfew,
promise you peace,
they will make many
many good points,
and they may very well
be very right.

Don't ******* do it.

A four word risk
has ached at me for months,
stripped wire,
a fraying rope of
half a try.

God save the paper hearts
that smudge so sorry,
that follow on faith
the reckless breezes,
that soak up our histories,
and rip when wet.

Lizards, snails, birds, and *****,
tobacco plants,
thornapples, obscure types of
buttercup.
Pinecones, arrowroot,
the more striking moments
of fossil remains,
foreign fish and normal bugs,
a terracotta monkey.

We took the things that matter,
gilded them in squares,
glassed them astride.
We enshrined your lazy gardens
in a temple on the cheap,
reminded you to
visit,
to look up
at the world around
above.

At any given time,
I wish I didn't have
about ten percent
of my too many books.

My country is coughing,
my neighbors number.

I search for pictures
of places
I used to live,
find landmarks
I remember
in lesser light,
scroll to the bottom
of local news,
where lonely hearts
notice me missing.

Remember when you coughed here?
Saved money to leave?

It's collected some dust,
but we saved you your spot.