our first kiss was 3 days before we first got our periods together
and one day before you got a new haircut
and a month before your mom's birthday

the next time we got our periods, i was swimming through my sleepover bag, fishing for tampons
the next time you got a haircut, you got a dog the same day that still remembers my voice
and the next time your mom's birthday rolled around, i had a drawer, a toothbrush, and a seemingly permanent spot in your bed

things seemed to happen consecutively
that reminded us of time, and called for our love to consider itself.
i still loved you
at every checkpoint.

bleed your colors into my cloth

i'm sick of the way i am

i want you to push your fabric over mine

so i can dye you, so you can dye me.

i want you and i sewn into the same garment

and worn by all the eyes who see us.

and when we kiss, we'll smile through our thimble teeth

and my needles will pierce you, and yours will pierce me

i'll write haikus about you like

:

My woman of twine

I'm thankful your threads were spun

I want to wear you

:

and when our fibers become loose

and our seems have come to splitting

i hope we fall into the same heap

and i can die with you, and you can die with me

and we can bleed our strings back into the Earth

we're uninterested in humbling experiences
we want to smoke our cigarettes
and participate in this endless rotation

my friends and i fall all around each other
**** plastic conversation
spray us with water and it will all bead up and drip off

your hand around my neck
feels okay
my boy

i know you'd never hurt me
and i know it's your way of crying
whereas you've shed too many tears from those heavy eyes this week

i tried to tackle you down
but you told me that you were stronger than me
and you knew i was trying to help but i wasn't helping

and sometimes i'd cradle your head
and sometimes you would tell me to stop touching you

you knew i'd do anything
and be anyone for you

there is
sloppy bright blood
pouring-
gushing
and
i need some tissues
or a ******* roll of paper towels

it tastes like iron but it isn't hard
it's warm and it's heavy
but no, never hard

anyway
it's spilling
from the spot
where i
cut you
out.

when i'm afraid
everything feels different
breeze feels like waves
and this shredded fleshy spot
short of stitches or band-aids


feels like
stepping out of the shower in the winter with the window open
feels like
pins and needles and
falling onto your chest and having no more air

i've never felt more new
or more unconditionally
irrationally and
remarkably afraid

you were always heavier in my bed
then you were in my heart

the open window and the rain
have soaked all your frames
and the faces in the pictures have morphed into people you don't recognize
but you see them blurry anyway

i wanted to tell you what i thought about it all
but when i opened my mouth to speak
my throat refrained
and whimpered
screaming and crying into the carpet
asking pointless questions to nobody in particular
all that melodrama in my mind's a wicked lover
a misplaced romanticism in promises that were jest

but i am not a fool
though maybe once
there was a time
a moment
where i was foolish

i can't look into your alabaster eyes
and not see that girl who soaked my soul in espresso and cigarettes
but whether or not she's really there-
well, other people would probably set me straight

but i sigh,
spinning myself around a plastic idea of you-
silken and careful

and i do not think we'll repair
what i know is much too shattered
but i'd like to hold the pieces of you
if not for one last time

maybe the last 4 months
have gone straight up your nose
and i know i can't cradle you anymore
but i'll exist in this love-struck fantasy  until it fades completely
and with it, i may very well go.