Now that we've learned
to love each other
so freely,
we make private fun
of everyone else.

We barter our secrets
for slices of carrots
or getting the door.

We negotiate our names,
swap stories for stories,
sell future favors
for the *** we just made.

At night we lock the door
and smoke each other
like cigars.

We scatter our profits,
roll around our wealth.

We soar like stocks.

I gently **** your snakebites
to taste as brave as
you.

I don't think I've
ever been in love
with someone
who wasn't a
friend.

I don't think I've
ever had a friend
who I wasn't
a bit
in love with.

Drops drop in, out,
around,
the whole shape of me,
tracing my creases and
loving my lines.
That, and nothing more.

I soap myself silent
and refuse to be jealous
of how well water
knows me.

I've grown less fond
of grubby dreaming,
have had enough of hope.

I distrust bright colors
and new mirrors.

I need layers of dust
to recognize
my lived-in eyes.

I know every inch
of this, my hell,
and I've never seen
you before.

The lines of your body
swerve and sway,
but I have found my faith,
and all roads lead home.

Every time I boil water
my mind bubbles elsewhere
hotter hating those long
dead half men
who braided you
painful patterns
caulked you into their
weedy concrete
buried you in their cheeks
to hide their untimely clenching
and us younger uncles
pure and weak
left with nothing else
but to sigh
and scorch pots.

Your pain is a false debt
I want to forgive.

On the best back way to the park
I met an old well-meant friend,
gave him greetings, condolences,
and directions,
everything I'd found since.

Let me leave you gently
to come back content.

If I were you,
I'd wear my armor
on the outside
too.

Every time you fall asleep,
something
nearby
awakes.

The weeds that find
the cracks
in your concrete
have begun
to peek through
me.

I kept asking you questions
about yourself,
but you only shrugged and
smiled,
until at last,
you invited me in,
saying, "I have more sheets
than I need."

And there,
stenciled on the walls,
were all my answers.

I've started to wonder
how much *** you had
in that salty
Subaru summer
you won't shut up about.

I was just about to admit
that nothing ever changes.
Then, you had to go and get beautiful.

In the church of strong spirits,
we carry our own crosses,
slouching towards morning,
for some sour barley god.

Why are you trying to get me to hate someone right now?
The world's not ****** enough,
you gotta spread the news?

I walked down
every single aisle,
couldn't find anything
I needed.

People can't stop praising
your laugh and your wit.
They tell me every day
about your very long legs.

But me,
I love your deep cuts,
your cultic elbows,
your hidden hairs.

I've been keeping track
of each shudder and smirk,
making field notes
of your apologies
and your
demands for apologies,
quick sketches
of your grace.

One day you won't surprise me.
Then I'll put you in order.

Like two friends
on either side
of a swaying drunk,
birds and leaves
are always ready
to catch me.

I shove the noon backward
and never choose to sleep.

I slink heel to toe
on each terracotta day.

I am never so sure
than when I steal
avocadoes
from beneath
your swinging
knife.

When I watched you through the window
dodge rain to get mail,
I was spiked with the need
to shock you
with words.

But David and Solomon,
our mothers and Coke,
those selfish *******
invented every beautiful thing,
repeated them over,
and left no good word
I could say to you first.

My shuffles echo
in half-built homes,
I vault muddy wadis
and stomp in circles
like a baby elephant
throwing a fit,
until the too-slept dawn
makes me see me
too much,
so I
track dirt back
to my
safer nest.

Some souls ferment,
become bearded and bent,
don't miss their legs,
have something quiet to say.

Two paths diverged
in a yellow wood,
and wishing to travel
both,
I looked,
saw trees,
sat down,
instead.

That thing you said
made home inside me,
sweats through my feet,
seethes my ******* teeth.

Making lists
of things I like
to buy on tees
one day.

Hell is a dry place
with coffee stains and fruit flies,
with lesser vowels.

sleep
comedy
love,
is mostly
timing.

too early
or late,
you're tired
alone
unfunny.

My ears pop
as I climb your stairs,
steal breath
with a cat
halfway home,
get dizzy
and skeletal,
queasy hungry,
reminding myself
to not look up
or down,
count the steps,
breathe the breaths,
hypnotic hope,
tendons tending
over thresholds
to temples,
hands to heads,
to take trash
and bills
back down,
heels and rails,
bend my
spine,
stoop
again to earth.

i was never half so naked
as you torturing your genius.

when you put me into poses,
made me lines and blue,
drew me over death,
sketched me skewed
atop your live-in girlfriend.

when you found your lost
love
and painted,

and when you found it less impressive,
you and that child,
sealed your cold, careless
portrait of me
behind ugly bricks,

made art of your apology,
and grace of your grace.

I found you on the front steps,
fed you food and lies,
made noises til you laughed.
I stitched you over,
wished you well.

In grayer skies,
I squint less,
dress warmer,
laugh more.

Wrote a million words,
deleted all but these.

lost half my hearing
to drown out my droning
some newfound finding
and a longlost uncle.

The mountain
gets bigger
as you draw
closer,
is at its tallest
just before
you begin.

I found the pearls I bought you
in a dusty dresser,
next to letters,
pulled them out
and showed you,
was surprised
how well that worked.

i sharp my teeth at angles,
i throw my hair at people,
i grape the day electric,
and bite my thumb at evil.

All your heavy, gray
groaning
accumulates
like nickels.

What am I supposed to do
with all these nickels?

Nettles on your legs,
sawgrass in you speaks,
can't you see
for all your weeding,
your garden overgrows?

Building
marble men
to admire
or hate.

We should
tear them all
down,
and climb up
ourselves.

There is
a crooked path
of wine bottles
from me
back to Adam.

Wooden,
stone,
or concrete,
now when I
see steps,
I want to
sit on them
with you.

Cover your nose.
There are new
bad things
that want to be
inside you.

Cover your mouth
and learn to
smile
with your eyes.

We love when children
say words wrong,
and hate
when we do
the same.

With a candle
we shuffle,
against
a Roman wind,
when it goes out,
we return to the fire
to start
to shuffle
again.