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 Jan 2015 A Neal
bucky
they trained me to move elegantly before i could even move
so i'm resorting to being a ******* misfit
(maybe if i try hard enough their work
will reverse)
my teenage hipbones are a geometry problem
acute angles jutting from beneath my shirt
my jeans have always hung too low and i'm too poor to buy a good belt.
you tell me, softness in your eyes, softness in your fingertips,
that you love how they sit on my hips.
i was born on a full moon,
howling before i had learned how to speak
your humanity matches my humility
my futility
you were born with the stars in your eyes
and when you touched my shoulder i felt them
a thousand and one galaxies
******* in you
my first word was hatred and yours was adoration
and maybe that's why i can't help
but wish on you.
that which a man does not have attracts him;;
i wonder what attracted you to me
 Jan 2015 A Neal
bucky
ampersand
 Jan 2015 A Neal
bucky
day 1: today i found out about the machines. sometimes i can feel your hand in mine. you used to grab it and pull, like you couldn't go as fast as you wanted to without taking me with you. war is never pretty, but you sure are. were. you were pretty. i still remember the last time i saw you.

day 2: do you remember when our names were joined together? people used to spit them out in one go, 'cause there wasn't a day either of us went somewhere without the other. they don't do that anymore. wish you were here.

day 3: i had a dream about you last night. i still can't feel my left arm. i miss you.

day 4: they're working on building machines that look and act like people. maybe i was a test drive. i still miss you.

day 5: i remembered something today (this is rare for me. if you were here i'd tell you why). you used to curve around your sketchpad, like it was a part of you. one night (june. i don't remember the year) i traced your spine and you shivered. i think about that a lot. i'm not sure why.

day 6: i miss you.

day 7: i love you.

day 8: remember our old bean plant we had growing in the windowsill? you used to fuss over it so much. (i used to fuss over you so much, too, but to be fair you're slightly more important than a bean plant. slightly.) you wasted a summer's worth of water on that **** thing, and never regretted it once.

day 9: we used to fold into each other during brooklyn winters, when the heat cut out and we had nothing but each other. now i just have nothing.

day 10: i can't get drunk now, either.

day 11: i saw my gravestone today. yours is right next to it, did you know that? they're both empty. they never found our bodies.

day 12: monochromia. that's what you had. i wonder if it went away after. you never saw colors and i saw too many.

day 13: i dreamt about you last night again. i've been remembering more. it's slow, but steady. fragments of memories every day. maybe one day i'll remember it all.

day 14: again. i think my subconscious is trying to punish me. i wish i could just forget again. maybe it would make everything easier.

day 15: again.

day 16: i haven't left my bed in twenty-one hours. this is the only way i can see you.

day 17: i wonder if you'd have married her if you hadn't died. a part of me (i'm sorry. all of me. every single ******* atom in my body) hopes you wouldn't have. it also knows that you would have. i miss you.

day 18: it's your birthday.

day 19: anachronism: a thing belonging or appropriate to a period other than that in which it exists, especially a thing that is conspicuously old-fashioned.

day 20: hello again. i missed you.
 Jan 2015 A Neal
bucky
just because it says
"non toxic" does not mean that
it is edible
I ate a lot of things people are not supposed to eat
 Jan 2015 A Neal
bucky
me
 Jan 2015 A Neal
bucky
me
gay gay gay gay gay
gay gay gay gay gay gay gay
gay gay gay gay gay
have a nice gay
 Jan 2015 A Neal
bucky
Show me, you say, *show me the hallway.
                         Show me the bedroom, show me where we used to live. That tree, over there, with the apples.
                                                               You, and then not you.
You, crossed out.
                                                            ­                          You, in the windowsill
                                                   with your hair pulled back.
Take me, I say, take me like we're already dead.
                                                                ­                  You know how this ends.
              My hands, your hands, harmony.
A lit match, maybe. And death itself, there beside us.
                                        **** me, you know how,
              you've done this before, I say, panic and soap that smells a bit too much like your brother's wake.
                                                           ­                     Play me a funeral song. Impress me, and you say,
                                                            ­        what's left to impress?
And maybe I'm not the antichrist, but it's not like you are, either.
           This, our hands, you, the radio stuck on one station, crossed out.
Red pen.
                                                                ­        This isn't a temporary solution.
            You're singing, I say, and you just keep on, say,
                                                     this isn't a funeral,
like it's none of my business.
                                 The radio again, playing the only way it knows how.
The mountains, over there in the distance,
                                                       ­                                               spying on us.
Your hands, my hands, ******* like knots, like
                                       this is the only way we can love. But it’s not, is it,
             don't you remember the treehouse?
Three blocks down the road a man has blood on his hands, and you are the man and you aren't, all at once.
                                                  You, me, clockwork.
A bell, tolling in the distance.
                                                       ­                                                                 ­                                                                                                            Repeat.
i don't know how to write poetry
 Jan 2015 A Neal
bucky
1978
 Jan 2015 A Neal
bucky
in the darkness he whispers your name,
and it's not a prayer, but it's not a goodbye, either.
war war war screaming at you from your sheets,
your pillowcase, that book lying open on the couch.
war war war underneath his fingernails
and all you can do is hold each other
(there's a heavy kind of magic in the air, today)
 Jan 2015 A Neal
bucky
you forged your own steel in the molten lava of my belly, a pennyworth of paradise,
frozen tree branches dripping icicles down my back
this is what it feels like to be an active volcano
anatomy lessons are nothing like the curve of your spine while you're asleep
rising and falling like a familiar chorus
i know this dance well, i've memorized the steps you will take
locked it inside my chest and threw away the key
lake michigan warm underneath the mattress in your room
you, me, and stormdoor-fragile winter nights
you hold whispers in your palms like they're something holy
there's a word buried in your lungs, in the nape of your neck, and you don't quite know how to pronounce it
i can still feel your fingers exploring the dip at the bottom of my spine like there's treasure somewhere
you just haven't found it yet, and
you tell me my house is more like a graveyard, and
remember when we found red underneath our fingernails, and
remember when there was more ash in your hair than in the ground, and
i love you i love you i love you, and so on
this is a stolen book off a stolen shelf and it still says that i love you, and so on
we were never in love with each other, not how we were supposed to
"this will destroy you", but it didnt
you're bleeding on everything and my hands are starting to slip and grab my hand
(and this isn't how it's supposed to go, but i still love you, and so on)
this started out happy i honestly don't know what happened
 Jan 2015 A Neal
bucky
you're screaming at me--"b-b-b-b-b-b-o-n-e-s"
death rattle of the century
now the floor, now the eyes in the window, now the fridge door
swung open
gateway to paradise
b-b-b-b-b-b-o-n-e-s
******* magnum opus
stutter-screech
blood blood blood in the streets
(blood blood blood in your teeth,
in your sheets
"******* christ, i want to **** you")
m-m-m-m-m-m-a-r-t-y-r complex
you're cruel.
now the casket wide open,
now the eyes in the windows,
now the showerhead, now you,
framed portrait, you,
"this isnt over,"
you, buzzing in my skull
(b-b-b-b-b-b-o-n-e-s)
quiet down.
wasp nest lying at your feet
bug, holy thing, germ
("this, this, this")
now the bed, now the covers thrown back,
now an empty casket.
theres no grace in slaughterhouses
no sweetness on the tip of a dead man's tongue--
******* death of princes, i could
devour you whole, i could
eat the oyster-world raw.
b-b-b-b-b-b-o-n-e-s
and a note attached to a javelin.
(and they'll say, "welcome to the end of the world")
all of my poems sound the same
 Jan 2015 A Neal
bucky
ME, SCREAMING ON THE FLOOR THINKING ABOUT RIPPING PEOPLES THROATS OUT I WANT TO ****
I WANT TO **** MYSELF
ME, SCREAMING ON THE FLOOR THINKING ABOUT BLOOD AND GUTS DRIPPING FROM MY MOUTH AND MY HANDS I WANT TO ******* EAT SOMEONE
**** RINSE REPEAT, OR SOMETHING LIKE THAT
ME, SCREAMING ON THE FLOOR TEARING OUT MY HAIR
ME, SCREAMING ON THE FLOOR THINKING ABOUT THE MATHEMATICAL STATISTICS OF SURVIVING A FALL OUT OF MY BEDROOM WINDOW
ME, SCREAMING ON THE FLOOR
ME, SCREAMING
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