any day that i'm without you,
i feel empty and hopeless and lost.
you bring a light to my life that i
forgot could exist.
and without it, i
don't think i can find my way.

i'd do anything for you to hold me together like you did that night.
i need someone to help me in ways i can't articulate.
i want that someone to be you.

but this sticky sickness has me so weighted down
that i don't know what way is up anymore.
it chokes me out until i can't ask for you again.
it leaves me struggling to breathe
in even the smallest of conflicts.
i want it to learn to fear you.

no, they don't speak a word. not here.
lips press to thighs;
tongues, slick with anticipation, know their way around this room.
their language is caught in the throats they bite,
choked back by the hands
that dig their tracks next to the spine.
they're somewhere between a first kiss and a last ****,
suspended but somehow tethered in a web of lust and lies.
their emotional open wounds or their physical caverns,
no one is quite sure what needs to be filled more.
skin is pressed so tightly to skin that the sweat can't drip; they just slide.
'laced fingers and foreheads pressed together,
there's no room for honesty. not here.

he recites the speed of light one saturday morning, when the air between us was too dark. like somehow that would make it better, like that would alleviate whatever tension we were building.

he is someone new, a present with a torn wrapper. that little glance is always the most intriguing.

we're both somewhere we shouldn't be, saying things we shouldn't say and touching what we shouldn't touch. but it isn't stopping anyone.

I want your fingers to sink into me like stones; I want your weight to hold me down like anchors.
I want your breathing hitched like carriages, I want you pulling at my hair like reins.

I want to know what it sounds like for you to say my name with every inflection, in every tone.
I want to know what it looks like when you drift off to sleep.

i think maybe i
brought you into my life to
turn you into words.

you are so ****** in the head.
they say "crazy can't see crazy"
but, baby, i looked you dead in the eyes,
and man, someone stirred your brain with a fork.
cerebellum penetrated by tines.
amygdala spooned into their mouths like lukewarm soup.
sliced a knife straight through your hypothalamus.
left the rest to swirl around in that thick skull of yours.

you're used goods, they told me.
you passed your expiration date.
a little too ripe around the edges.
i could see that.
you asked people to palpate your skin,
like checking cantaloupe.
you spit out your seeds in between
inhaling smoke and ******* down liquor.

she warned me that you were a wild one.
rebellion and fierce independence.
all lions and tigers and bears,
sutured together with wolfish teeth
and hyena laughter.
forever breaking out of cages
and biting the hands that fed you.

now if only you could see it too.
or if only i'd saw it earlier.