goofball since i could first strike a one-liner
destined to be the fat, funny kid from the age of ten.

and that's great
i can float wherever i want
popular kids laugh just as hard as the weird ones
but try and tell people the terrible
unspeakable things that happened to you
and they laugh all the same
fine-tuned to only hear jokes leaving your garish mouth.

i have to turn **** and divorce and abandonment and growing up too fast and taking care of everyone when all i want to do is come home and sit on a nice couch with christmas lights while my mother makes christmas cookies and gives me robes and socks and hugs and perfume for no ******* reason

i want that so ******* bad
but all i can do
is make a joke about it
because that's all you want to hear from me
the fat, funny kid
who lives to make everyone smile
so i can
for a little while
but there are ugly, sad things inside of me
that rip through my quiet moments
when i'm not making a joke about **** -
a real story masked with comedic error -
the ugly parts
sit on my chest
and breathe into me
while you like my posts on facebook
and laugh at my silly snapchats.

open a problem i can solve on my computer screen
bury myself in the pixels:
a comforting ignorance
comforting silence
in the dark, humming room;
mouses clicking quietly.

i'm not destroyed.
i'm a little sad to lose my pivotal focus
but glad that i was able to be distracted
from a two week old heartbreak
by a smiling, goofy boy.

i will be quiet,
and i will learn
and everyone
will get shut off
for a little while
while i sleep
between these textured layers

gently

heartsick.

heartsick because i want those brown eyes
only ever to look at me
that huge smile
only ever to be mine
i want your lips and your arms and your chest
with me
around me
laughing and holding and exclaiming.

you make me
heartsick
in the most thrilling
gut-wrenching
tension-inducing manner

those other boys?
lust.

you?

heaven.

he said

there's something haunting about your scent

it clings to my clothes and my sheets and my neck
my hand
that rested gently on your hip...
it echoes the retreating ghost of you
and i catch a note of it
when i try to sleep at night
my eyes closed
remembering my face in your hair.

and now there's not a silence that fills enough of me to push you out
you stand in the middle and reverberate through it
no quiet moment able to dissipate your form.

you crash through the boxed up rooms in my head and rearrange
******* those sentient summer memories that i can't shake
pouring them into hourglasses that replay
replay
replay.

find your hair on the seat of my car and
your mascara on my pillow and
your shoes under my dresser and
the love you imprinted resting under my collarbone,
seared into my flesh.

and i wanted to say
although i feel nothing
i know i should feel
sorry.

there are a lot of boys in the world.
and some of them wear your work shirts
and some of them wear his cologne
and some of them laugh like you
or peer through your eyes
at my drunk,
sliding lips.

there are a lot of boys in this world
who have your hands -
maybe gentler,
but same intention
running down my back
and under my jeans.

there are a lot of boys -
and some variety,
but all factory built
with the same core.

drunken night with a stranger,
oddly tender.
soft touches
cupping my face
kissing me
for hours
entangled in a bed
with other drunk ghosts.

feel the heat off his cheeks like a love poem
brown eyes beating down
sinking into mine with a definitive
bite.

he smiles while he interrupts our game
and i stare up, hands arranging tiles
astounded by the sheer kindness
of every tiny, comedic, unabashed piece of him.

he looks at me so much
laughs so much
yells my name
as i walk by, hands full.

i want to sit down and read those cheeks
like a book
my lips scanning every crest
kissing eyelids that bless me with that
brown, soft look
across a table.

he is so perfect
so similar to me
i can hardly believe
i get to look at him
hardly believe
i get to smile at him
in those other-world moments
between just he and i
so quietly
while everything else
rages
by.