These sleepy little scars reaching from the back,
where numbness holds a noose, can your *** free this hangman?
I could leave palm prints on your skin,
like  ancient art proto-men left on a wall,
with just as much animal rage,
and just as much desire to create a lasting impression
on the world.

I wrote your name
onto my skin
with the permanent marker
of a razor.

And when you left...

I washed it away
from my body
with the cleansing power
of a blowtorch.

Put me in your pocket,
keep me safe
like the paper fragment
I wrote this on
and never gave to you.

**** the flies
out from my eyes.
As it is,
all I ever see
with them dies.

There's nothing left
of all that could've been
except my empty shudder
inside this chest,
begging to rot
from the outside in
where lust equals death
where death equals trust
where nothing,
(nothing at all)
keeps me alive
for the nothing that's left.

The other day I dove into water...
I swear I heard
your voice
like an echo
stirring in my mind
as I was drowning,

As my heart spent its last breath,
it said your name.

What happened,
to all the missed moments we had put in a box,
tossed away.

Dewey Decimaled
out like library index cards,
I always thought we'd be able find them again.

I never thought that before we'd go searching,
that building would be burned down by you.

"If you love something, let it go.
If it doesn't return, it was never yours,"
they said.

Well it WAS mine.
There are no two ways about it.

What they don't tell you,
is that some things don't return,
not because they weren't yours,
but because they die
without you to hold it.

There were always words I could have said.
I could've danced right off your edge, World.
Instead,
I stared into the Star's direction (hypnotized) for nearly a decade,
and stumbled, blind, off your edge, World.

This aircraft is in flames.
The fuselage, broken.
My fingernails, bent.
My knuckles, white.
My parachute, missing.
My life,
flashing before my blind eyes.

Sunspots and stutters singled out in the paradox of oil,
dripping like *** I do not want.
Curse my name, break me apart
leave me (hear).
*******.

Help me crawl to you,
who are you?
*******.

Drape me in your comfort, fingers in my hair,
my baby screams, hold your hand on my head,
cradle me in your peace,
death.

Wipe the tears from these sun-burnt cheeks.
This ******* temple shattered,
crushed me beneath it,
crippled my ability to breathe.
Pray for me.
*******.

These brittle teeth are covered in germs.
Let me inside you where I turn my sins over to you.
Who are you?
*******.

I would skin my bones,
cover them in tar,
bathe in alcohol,
light me aflame.
Love me. Hate me.
I do.
*******.

There are gentle curses,
simple words that would break you
into those pieces you are,
scattered on the floor,
swept gently into my dustpan of marble,
reassembled from the
broken little statue you are
not so little, are you?

I'd reassemble your last horizons,
raining bleak shores of a suicide walk off of Beachey Head.

Smash,
dissolve into the waters,
and turn the ocean waters
purple.

I bet your strings could be pulled,
Marion...
ette.

Raspy in motion,
the scars you bear could, would,
will show me the path inside you.
Tongue traces,
**** this brittle bone beware the accent marks on my vowels;
they always catch the lips.

If there is a star, and if it has a name,
I would never reveal it.

My Star had a name,
she blew across and away from my world
left everything burned like
Mercury's surface,
too close to what gives life,
to ever live again.

A mascara face print, where those tracks of teared-makeup
once ran across your face,
now dormant upon the bathroom stall wall like the print of a mushroom,
forever etched into that Formica board separating defecators from one another
all day long;
save the absent omnipresent five-minute stands that occur as ours did –
**** ******* against a fragile toilet partition as your recurring image
the face mashed against a solid substance,
standing behind you and convincing you of the ***** ***** that you are;

you already know that...but it feels so good to be persuaded this way.

Within
without
within
nothing like a truck load of pain to ease your reservations.

Oh,
my smashing liquid crystal,
dilating pupils and drawing back the sheer curtains
to let the light in.

Oh,
my terror in the forest,
the light screams away in silence, echoing off the walls
of bark I shake in.

Oh,
my last breath,
bleeding in the tub, blood pours, black ink in water poured
from a shattering glass.

**** me *******,
shallow and cross,
angry and peaceful...
just take me away from the marks she has left here

...just ******* drive.

I deleted your photos
from my ******* facebook
cover album today.

I went to change it and your face,
beautiful,
took me by surprise.

You left is such a hurry,
in such a dark plastic wrap gesture
that I've already started to
forget what you look like.

If only I could cleanse you,
sponge your body away and out into clarity,
find some emptiness to replace you with
the exit you took took the taken moments
further than I'd have liked them to go.

You bled,
I bleed,
help me staunch the bleeding,

and I don't know how to deal with your loneliness.
It's the one thing
you have left behind
with me.

I miss you,
I hope for you
someday to return embraced in my
arms of chicken wire,
brittle in this cool breeze blowing across
cracked earth that surrounds me, grey,
the only precipitant;
drops of suspiration from my eyes.

My world skips to slow motion
as I observe with the eyes
of a million unwoken promises,

and it hits the ground,

each drop splattering like a cloud devoured in a
pool of flies.
My body yearns, it aches for you
like a honey suckle longs to be
plucked,
torn in half
licked clean
by the tongue,
moist with desire,
that makes it home in the preoccupied body that will soon discard it,
barely noticed by the taste buds; it moves on to consume another.

Hope leaves me
as I realize
I miss you, but I don’t know who you are…

I have:
coconut lips
wrist bindings
finger marks
hand prints
tongue on skin
palm on ***
nails on throat
stubble on neck nape
gentle caress
tender heart
shivering words
rough chin on inside of thighs,
soft,
wet.

Do you have:
lip to gently bite
hips to trace with feathers
collar-bone handles
eyes to drown in
body to wrap around
legs to intertwine
voice to whisper
scars to lick
mouth to breathe into
and hair to hold like a leash, until
it becomes release,
collapse,
lost breath,
speechless,
rocked to sleep?

Where are you,
for me to put my arm around from behind,
snake up between your ******* from behind,
my hand lightly holding your throat.
My face covered in your black hair,
scented of you,
my little spoon.

You - taller than me,
but I made you small
you fit so perfectly,
back to my naked chest,
just like I fit so perfectly
into you,
my little spoon.

If I had known all of those moments
seen them coming so slowly
feathers raining from the sky
drop down onto me
embryos, suddenly cut from the umbilical cords,
they fall,
shatter brittle bones on the ground,
and you run back to the safety
of your maiden name.

Go away morning
with your sleepy eyes and sad-dream lies
Disappear my morning Star
and melt into the shadows.

Leave me here, alone in bed
longing for your touch.
But dreams are lies that will not hide
how my heart is crushed.

The sky rains feathers onto your wrists tied down,
your blind eyes nervous,
excitedly worried in the best way.

I am the gentlest man you could know.

I am the roughest man you could know.

In those little contrasts,
wax paper and lace,
milk and alcohol,
cigarettes and oxygen tanks exploding like your body,
when I devour you.

Your wry smile,
smirk the moisture away
on the back of you hand,
drawn across your lips.

Bring me to my knees,
that I may look you eye-to-eye.

I can take you from a minor key,
to a major key.
A bow drawn across your
strings of hair.
The fingers delicately firm, push against me,
that I may push into you.

I wear you like a weapon,
I bring death to every fear inside my gut.

I am a vase,
an Egyptian glass jug that will take every drop I can - careful
for I may overflow,
and we may drown,
smiling shaking *******
squirming stained-glass synchronicity.

I want to hold my breath
like I thought I'd hold you - forever

If I poured myself out onto you
like milk from a glass jug
would the little droplets
sour and stain your love?

All across your body,
lines written in rainbow thread.

A heart is only
so much weight, wait...why?

Would they dust your body
for the remnants?

What they have found,
is it hesitant?

Engorged like a hibiscus pistil,
covered in pollen
dripping with dew.

This is no request, but an order:
Extend your tongue
til it pulls with a bit of pain from behind your lower teeth,
open up,
and
prepare
to
swallow.

There are bits of glass
strewn about
this empty
heart of mine.

Milk white,
pure as unbroken *****,
innocence lain bare.

My touch,
aches, despoils. Alarms,
so soft; a feather’s caress.

Creamy smooth,
lotion filled *****, disarming
with a frown, down-turned; tears.

Teases me, terrifies me in its shroud. Free me, set me loose
from this cage, this frigid incarceration, lay me bare. My *****,
split and opened; exposed. Soft, pink tongue, coated crimson,
makes love to my wounds. My kitten, sweet, laps the saucer.

Abstracted from the fragments, broken in the wind of
your Madonna, holy, sincere. Shadow creases the
wrinkled skin, veins; varicose. Age comes ungracefully,
my beauty, wrapped in plastic.

dark musty I am attracted, opposite poles,
a moth to the absence of light,
my mushroom blooms
the deepest shade of azure
awakening here, molding at the spore,
the leafs and paper and rat droppings
echo down the causeway,
the red rusted gutter escape flows into
nothingness behind me, I hate you; so obese,
rotund like a dimorphism of rubenesquery and retardation,
bent beyond shape,
borrowed against ****,
I’ll collect the interest someday, maybe today,
or perhaps we’ll continue on smiling as we have
knowing that I pulled the last vestiges of your humanity,
shorn and weeping,
from your carcass years ago.

You are mine.

My top and bottom incisors do not meet
the wall of your big toe between them,
my enamel spades crushing against your nail bed so gently,
perforating your toes’ soft bottoms so exquisitely.

My tongue slowly dances with your toes,
the ridges above and the arch below the foot,
you flinch at the tickle.

My mouth dancing like an anemic acrobat,
it finds his way along the high-wire of your fishnet guarded legs,
their pale contrast to the red cloth exciting.

Suddenly, you shudder as the muscle in my mouth finds
your flesh exposed above the stocking line,
I am a conquistador and I have discovered a new land – I will subjugate it,
taking it’s precious jewels and spices,
consuming them and getting fat with the richness that is this New World before me.

I devour you so slowly – is my mouth even moving?
It is leaving a trail,
slightly damp like a dehydrated slug,
a leech ******* each piece
until the bleached skin becomes en-crimsoned by the bruises
my biting and ******* have made.
Will you try to hide them?
I move on to places where this disguising will not be a concern, and you begin to spasm.

I’ve hung myself on these gallows,
and so having to die because of it,
I will relish it;
an abandonment atrocity of aestheticism.

My star went supernova
and burned away all the love from the face of the Earth.

Just like in the movies,
I'm running to her,
just like I had dreamed.

She opens herself once again,
like the light playing through the blinds
yellow fingertips creating shadows,
I enter you.

This reunion...
happily ever after all the things
we have been through,
and I am here again in your body,
the only place I ever felt I honestly
belonged...

But this isn't the movies.
There is no reunion.
There is only a pale black noose
and my life is
on the
edge.

Just a tiny spot that grew
into the crevices of our love,
a mushroom-blue fungus
spreading mycelium tendrils through

It's only been a week
trust me, I know

I've been counting the suffering seconds
while you are away, having your life there with
no responsibilities
no work
no job
no cares
(for me, even?)
no schedules

I count these seconds still as you tell me how tired you are
(doing nothing)
how there's little time to talk
in my spare time from the job I work at seventy-hour weeks,
(the one you said I needed to save our marriage)
and how the frustrations of a bad connection
mean more to you
than I do,
anymore.

So I hope you sleep well,
I hope the fact that you can show no care for
a person who cares for you more than themselves,
doesn't keep you up.

I hope your beautiful head is sleeping soundly
as I am sleepless,
waiting for your answer.

I am waking up in tears every morning
our songs echoing through my head
covered in sweat,
shirt soaked through,
hair on end like I've been swimming in the bath of
warm water and
memories
we drew over nearly a decade.

I'm spinning out of control and
I don't know if I can remember how to be a good husband anymore.

But mostly, I just miss you
like the desert misses the rain,
and just like that metaphor,
I am becoming a ******* cliche.

I'm not asking for much...just a
sliver of something to
hold onto.

I only want someone to love me
when we are old,
for the things they loved me for,
when we were young.

I cycle,
as little as possible
much more than I'd like
thinking of you
feeling you
wrecking myself
wishing this life would end
wishing this feeling would never end
alarming myself
at how fast
I cycle.

I will show you
just how soft
and close
it can
feel
when
it is

engorged in near-violence
shudder your teeth
as your whole body
grinds on its own shaking muscles

inner thighs
*******
neck

and suddenly
you aren't sure anymore
that more love is made
making love
or being
******
and
owned.

I want a black-haired girl,
I want my fingers to be
coiled about by ebony,
pulled so hard it cuts the fingers
like fish line she is caught on,
(the other hand, hooking her mouth
assures she will be helpless)
as my tool opens her insides
spills every drop of oil within her
making my work
faster...

but even more
than my weight pushing her down
into a smashed doe pose,
I simply want
a
friend.

You are out of sight,

from within this
eroding sandstone,
too-high-to-climb-walls,
box canyon you have left me in,

and I am out of my mind.

It's funny how you notice things
at times
that didn't take a space in your
consciousness
until events
dry brown and husk-yellow leaves
float into your life,
and suddenly,
everything is painted in
their colours:
every song on the radio
every empty place you see around town
every good time you try to have
all the little words...

They all fall into place,
and leak their brittle discord into
the cracks of your life.

It must be nice
to be surrounded by green
to be in a safe place
to seek the therapy you need
to break away
to wrap yourself in yourself until yourself emerges again.

It must be nice
to not be left behind.

Search me,
stretch me out over the table of our history together,
with your tongue trace my skin like it's a map,
and find your way back home to us.

I would spread my life wide open
if only you'd come
fill this bed,
my empty head,
and too- full heart,
force me back to
sleeping lengthwise.

It's so much easier
letting go,

Tossing away the life we both wore
like a sleeping bad for two,
and finding your own,
made for one.

It's so much easier
than laying alone
with too much room left over,
your only new companion
the anxious embrace
of insomnia.

If you'd only let me,
I would give you back every moment
of happiness you feel we lost together,
and all the lost potential,
tossed away by the harm
of our addictions.

I would.

Would you give me back
the one and only thing
I would ever say you took from me,
if you could?

All I want is your attention,
Your fingers in my hair,
Your soft voice in my ear,
Your cradle made of arm bone and flesh
to rest
my head in,
Your chest
to rest
my ear on
as your heartbeat murmurs its lullabies
to me.

After everything, how could you walk away?
After everything, how could you let me drift away?
After everything, how could you siphon the years and pack them,
like boxes, in just those short days?
After everything, how could you wrap up our memories like twine slowly frays?
After everything, how could you break every promise to which I pray?

After everything,
how am I feeling sexlessly ******
disarmed destroyed denigrated
left on the roadside dying
to just be with you after everything?



Everything...


...


...




There's so much to be had here.
Come back to me here.
Don't leave us here.
I only want to love you.

Spun out of control,
consummated consumption wrought us together,
but now you need space

but there's no air for me to
breathe in space, where I am
left.
The well of your gravity keeps me close,
insides vacuuming out as I stare
helpless
at your blue white corona holding the one thing that would save me,

(drowning in an inch of water,
oxygen so near but impossibly far...)

if only it would pull me
back in again.

The stars comfort you,
but there are none here visible,
as my eyes shed their blood vessels
to the nothing that coldly cradles me.

I'm dying out here,
baby,
and I don't want to get
lost
in
this
space.

My words,
so full of love and concern
for you

have never felt
so
empty.

I am not the one who will do that to you.
I am not the one who will twist the lines
around your body
until they form a noose around
your neck
until you
choke.

I am not like the others.

I hope you realize that
in
time.