If I were a penguin
I'd search the lands
And find you the best pebble
I would make you mine

If I were a goose
I'd fly with you for life
We'd fly into the sunset
I would make you mine

If I were a banana
I would peel for you
But I wouldn't split
I would make you mine

I'm none of these things however
I'm just a human
I can still find you a pebble
But I can't fly and I'm not high in potassium

Can I still make you mine?

"For I couldn't write an encyclopedia that would describe you well enough"

I will always think fondly
Of the park bench
Near the sad man’s statue
Whose beard of stone
Was sloppily painted
By a bunch of overenthusiastic pigeons

That silly park bench
Where we first kissed
And had our first public argument
About nothing at all
And at the same time
About everything we thought we had

At first our memories
Turned the grass greener
And the skies bluer
And sometimes it seemed
That sad man smiled
Though it might have been an malevolent grin

But soon it became tainted
A symbol of fleeting love
Of passion’s mortality
Its habit of swiftly disappearing
Like cagey, distrustful pigeons
And illusions fuelled by sentimentality

Now I understand the sad man
And consider his faith to be cruel
To want and crave and hope
Yet to be sentenced
His life writ in stone
Near an empty, broken bench

When I call your name out, it turns to shrapnel in my mouth
and the last time I looked up, the north star was south.

so i get this idea sometimes
that you enjoy being coy
when it comes to me
to conjure momentary spectacle
& make me wonder
if you paint catharsis
on the doors of a home
you've never lived in
as a memory of our first night together
because i do, i remember you
beaming white on blue
speaking softer than any storm
i ever knew, i often think that maybe
you live that night in your mind
when your pillow is cold
& you can't sleep, it makes me wonder
if you do as i do, and rewrite three years fictionally beginning with a kiss somewhere
maybe a balcony or a quiet car
on the sand or in a sunlit grove close to your home but always a familiar scar on the maps we know we know by heart
i wonder if sometimes
the idea of me loving you is too real
and if it teems under your tongue
to stay observant but distantly intrigued
if by this distance you think it safe
to get a dog and pass time
on the couch with a journal & some wine
what i really wanna know is if your fingernails ever wish to have my skin under them
or if they would boast
about winning a war with my headboard
i wonder if you can imagine me
meeting your parents in your apartment & shaking your fathers hand
as a first of many calloused palm readings
and if you know that i trembled before them
how insignificant i had felt
to not know their daughter
in the way i had envisioned
how i picture such poignant moments
so tangibly sharp that sometimes
i replace  my memories with little stories
i tell myself that i can't count on two hands
the number of times i've seen you
& that i don't feel like a crater
when i recollect our collisions
i want to know if you still find madness
in the words that have always been about you
i wanna know if your imagination of me
looks more like an anniversary or an obituary

Chapped lips
and split
knuckles.
Skin renews
itself every
twenty-eight
days.
But it's like
my body knew
I couldn't wait.
Ive always been
impatient.
December winds
have weathered
away my
shiny armor.
I am tired
of tasting my
own blood
in my smile.
I keep telling
myself to Hold On
until the Spring
but my
fingertips are
Fraying
and I scream
until I Wake Up.

i was born with a sickness that dripped from ***** blood bag
she was born with gold ribbons tying her skin together
i wish i could have pulled a little harder
unraveled her from the outside in


she said i was small and insignificant


i told her to water me
give me incisors
sharpen them like the knives in my kitchen drawer
you won't recognize her  


can you drown in the forced love of yourself?

i love me i love me i love me i love me i love me

is that why i can't dig up the old roots that she buried inside my chest?
i am filled to the brim with artificial self love
where does the love for other people fit inside?
im a broken puzzle piece that only fits inside itself
i thought i had found all my pieces but really
it was an ampersand
trying to make a bridge to cross from one life to another
smooth sailing


oh mother

oh father

you created something that looks like how scratches on a chalkboard sound
i am
so
so

sorry

Please don't leave me alone with my thoughts. Not now.