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.

you never asked me
two sugars and half and half
that's how I take it

i'd be glad to try to treat you lovely
kiss whatever she's chipped off

all those lonely little pieces
they fell from you with wings as to spread themselves
so you unknowingly see them everywhere she goes
she drops them from her pockets in secret as she walks
so you can't notice your diminishment
and you'll walk by the pieces
and whisper a prayer for the poor soul who lost them

but i will pick them up
and return them to you
kiss all of your limestone
kiss it hard until it's marble

my clammy  hangover hands
have only myself to hold this morning
and i am thankful for that

if you were here
i would apologize for them
and you would laugh and say it's totally okay
i would know you were lying
or at least just wrong

you're heavily sealed
and i have no instruments to carry you from your wrappings
though i **** and lick and rub up against the outside
it never feels quite right

you kissed me from full moon and warm sand
into apple trees and woodsmoke
from sleeping under stars
to turning leaves

but now that the breeze sweeps cold under my soft chin
i am afraid you will not remain to keep me warm or occupied.

tonight i looked in the mirror
and saw the eyes of the fearless woman
i'd always known myself to be
and then
i noticed your toothbrush
left standing straight up in holder next to mine
like a bone

i felt myself crumbling as a wrapped my hands around it
plain- a CVS brand that was good and rough on your teeth-

i was so hesitant to notice it there
drops of you are still falling around in my life
making everything a little soggy and melancholy

i put your toothbrush back in it's place

you came into my life like an anvil
that fell straight from heaven onto my chest
and i adored the asphyxiation
we exploded into a fool's paradise
and there we were
montague and capulet
slow dancing to the edge with misplaced romantic fervor

i'm going to leave your toothbrush in my bathroom for just a little while longer
don't be fooled, my heart is indeed broken

but i would rather the fullness and cleanliness of pain
than the emptiness and disarray of being really
really alone.

i want to cut you up
into little pieces
and sew you back together

i want to know what every square inch of you looks like.

i will do the same to my own body,
throw myself through some city street grates
and split into long strips for you to examine

nobody looks that close anymore

and even if we're both falling apart after we try and put ourselves back together
i think that we will suit each other's points of view

i love the division
i love separating flesh from flesh and
i want reality and
i want to see you
******* close.

your messages
take years to get to me
and by the time they end up in my hands
they have all been eaten by the light


i just wanted to run my hands up your thighs
and i wanted you to look at me
like you used to when you were full

i used to think you'd love me
no matter what
but now that i'm not so ******* lovable

I'M ROCKS IN YOUR SHOES
I'M YOUR SKINNED KNEES
I'M SPIDERS IN YOUR SHEETS
I'M YOUR POUNDING HEADACHE
I'M A FRAYED SHOELACE
A SHARD OF BROKEN GLASS
I'M DISPOSABLE AND THIN
AND YOU

don't love me anymore.

if you'd been killed last night
by a stray bullet from that desperate boy's gun
i would have held the broken pieces of you inside of me
until they returned to dust
and when they returned
i would surrender myself to the emptiness of that space
and throw sunflowers and love notes into it

if you'd been killed last night
every word delivered to my ears would burn
and i would crumple
it would be a nail into every vertebrae down my spine
it would make me close my eyes to never reopen them
i would be desolate

it took the possibility of losing you
to realize i love you more than i thought i did.

the silence of your fingers is infuriating
how they sit there, so collected
while mine flail about, in love with everything

i waited for you to come bang on the window of my car
and motion for me to let you in
kiss me and point and say go
but you didn't come

i played poems for you on every instrument i could find
i played until it sounded beautiful
but the silence inside of you remained still

my body spins,
coils
bounds
and suffers for you
for everything

and you close your eyes and lay back
you say my name
blankly
in a whisper

you only stand up to skewer me with the sharpened end of a flagpole
to claim me as your own
then you sit back down

i was too afraid to join the crowd
so i pulled my skin off
i wanted to be closer to the music

i went around alone last night
i wanted to feel myself moving
i wanted to hear my breath
and swing my arms without fear of gracing anyone else's hands

and i went
without sexuality and without consideration
there was a little fear
but mostly just me and the music

the body i took to bed last night
was so unbelievably my own
the shackles of social constraint were only marks left on my wrists
signs that i'd overcome girls and ***** and cigarettes

all else was faceless
except the music.

listen *****,
i have something to say to you
that i should have said a long time ago
it's been sitting in me like a hot boiled beet
staining my insides with passion

you've earned this title, mom
you deserve every syllable
and you'll hear me out
finally.

you are my best friend

there, i said it

you've shown me love
with every fiber of your construction
and i can only hope you know by now
how much i really *******

love you.

when the cricket sings to the moth
do they consider their fleeting love story?
do they know how sad their music is to me?

she texts me
i check my pack
6 cigarettes left

i count how many i lost to my lungs
8 yesterday
not too bad.

i make my way downstairs and meet her behind our building
she's a quiet girl
thin
makes me feel like an avalanche when I talk
and all we have in common
is our index and *******
clutching softly to yellow filters

i can't hear her
all i can pick up is the sound of the ember engulfing more of the tobacco
the heat crawling closer to my fingers
it's all i can see
or hear
or feel

we burn down to the bone
we remember each other
crush the boagie
beneath shoes freckled with the scars of cigarettes past

our collective head rush too severe to take the stairs
i press the button to call the elevator
and complain about how long it takes