Another one gone without a tear,
or even a frown,

What do I keep doing wrong?

"I bet your lips are soft."

Mm.

And there goes everything I've ever known.

Ice tastes better from a glass but you can't bear to part with plastic. I cannot for the life of me understand why you keep your room so cold. The window open, the fan blowing. It's set on high and you sleep undisturbed, unmoved, and unflawed. Splashed across the face of your television is a glossy reality that is anything but. When will you learn that life viewed through rose colored glasses is not a life at all? Worn tight around your finger is that ring you bought at the market eight Sundays ago. Impure metal, as I said, will stain you. But that's you, isn't it? Constantly going for the gold, but getting only green. The barren, glaring space beside you will soon be filled. It's love that you seek, but it's merely warmth that you'll find. Goodbyes were always difficult between us, so I'll say it to your sleeping face. Goodbye. I hope the world is kind to you.

I used to curl my body up small
and write poetry in the kitchen

heartwater cresting in my eyes,
***** smoke crawling upward from between
narrow fingers
and blooming open against the ceiling
like silver flowers,
ashes on the table,
teeth like bone berries in my mouth
red and sour cloaked in cooking wine
heart bleating,

losing heat and composure
in the icy swaddle of
bluewinter afternoon lastlight

continuing the crazed scrawl
onward into the black hours of morning
arched over pages
like a mother or raven or predator or gargoyle
shrouding my prize:    
my vicious poetry      
                                                    ­                  
                                              ­     my hopeless meandering prose

on this cold august morning
i feel melancholy because
i gave  love away to one man while
thinking of another man whose
heart sadly belongs to a kind woman whose bones show
all the way through her skin and whose face always looks
tired and mouth is
creased at the edges
and always billowing earnestly.

i gave love away again
body stained in blueduskhalflight
heart a plump and cold and wild piece
of fruit splitting
and juicing sweetly and silently within me.

i carved a space for myself in the flesh
of a man i barely know but find beautiful.
that is good enough reason for me by now.

i used to wait for the feeling of urgency and
hope one swallows
when beginning what they think will be the end.
the first moment of a body is a holy moment when you
think it will be the last body.

all the soulful forms i once treasured like heirlooms
now lie still
gathering dust in warped memory rooms-
they stay young and foolish and hopelessly recklessly gorgeous
they stay freshly freckled smooth watery eyed and kind hearted,
while i grow wise and brown with years and vicious with years
my collection of ghosts
preserve in their sleepily curling hands
some ****** up perfect version of loveandforever
that i once concocted

not so long ago it seems.

you wore this shirt on the first day of red lipstick
lipstick in general
lipstick that created on your face a new dimension
fire around the mouth, metallic red smear, beckoning light and
darkness to enter at once
to
play in your mouth like foreign tongues.
paint that stained your stories pink.

I wear it now in your absence and there is
no colour on me
only within
the same slippery shade-
it keeps me alive.

the kids
that you didn't know existed
all winter
have been jail-sprung
they litter the sidewalk
like snowdrops
riding miniature bikes
with training wheels
zipping up and down
the street
in their
shirtsleeves
the easter bunny
coaxed them out
into the park
to search for treats
but they decided to stay