i    am
  a     mausoleum.
these bones are where
the dead sleep.
i    am
  a     graveyard.
this skin is rotting
and dirt fills my mouth.
i    am
  a     casket.
oak trees and velvet
house lifeless figures.
i    am
  a     funeral.
there is no mourning here
because everyone else is gone.

*(a.m.c.)

i equated you with love
monstrous, monstrous love.
you were calloused hands
and beating hearts,
teardrop stains
and broken words.
i made you into gold
you were metal
and calcium
and tornado,
screaming into my ear
howling my name
and whistling into nothing.

will you laugh into my mouth?
my throat is too red for laughter

will you drink me up until there's nothing left?
you are too much ocean to swallow

i asked you too many questions
until i myself
was a question mark,
punctuation that cut me open.
where are my answers?
where are my answers?
where are my answers?

*(a.m.c.)

i said,
"do i disgust you or am i
the reason you wake up
in the morning?"
with raincloud eyes
and bony,
   bony fists
you said,
"i want to circle the bruises
around your eyes and patch you up
in a styrofoam box
and lay you out to dry"
because you dream of me
building sandcastles on
the beaches of your heart and
making my home in the palms
   of your hands

"i want to sit on the sun but oh! it'll
burn me up."

*(a.m.c.)

would it be cliche of me
to say your smile reminds me
of warm summer nights sitting on
the hood of my grandpa's pickup
truck looking at the constellations
in skies far away?

the wavelengths that your fingertips
cause on my skin are too much
for me to bear and the frequencies in
my mind are enough to cause
an early heart attack

would it be ridiculous of me
to tell you that your eyes are
music to my ears with symphonies
of string instruments and mozart's
sonatas playing constantly echoing
off of granite counter tops?

i photographed the way the veins
in your neck look like pine trees and
your cracked lips are rocky shores
where the ocean thunders into a storm.

*(a.m.c.)

do not call me a liar
when you're sailing your boat
into vinegar seas
because my knobby knees
crushed you with ease
and you cried "don't hurt me,
please, please, please."

i wanted you dead
for all the wrong reasons
i killed you with time
through the four seasons
there isn't anything more pleasing
than your cotton mouth teasing
my long hair breezing
and you were sick with the flu,
always sneezing, sneezing, sneezing.

*(a.m.c.)

sadness makes poetry bleed out
from under your bitten-down fingernails
every single time

the bitterness you taste in your coffee
reminds you of past mistakes
and bruises that you caused

fragments of vocabulary
start spilling out of your mouth
like caustic bottles in a nuclear plant

and windblown smiles tug at your hair,
making it hard to open your tired eyes
at the arsenic whiteness of fakeness
and casualties of war

the nation you grew up in
broke into pieces
and you shredded your memories into fine slivers

because each one is a detonator
under pressure in your lungs
and each breath is a death wish
choking your windpipe with salty kisses.

*(a.m.c.)

I have never been soft because shells are much more impressive and bulletproof vests aren't supposed to crack

I have never been soft because the Sahara desert can withstand any temperature but Antarctica will melt as the sun comes closer

I have never been soft because the moon isn't made out of paper and the sun isn't flaking like my old paintings

I have never been soft but right now I feel like a crumpled up piece of paper

I have never been soft but my knees are covered in dirt and flowers won't grow correctly out of my skin

*(a.m.c.)