you smell the same way i always remembered you


like a sweet musk musty with sweat and heartache
every crinkle on your face
every single pore

was almost forgotten


but honey,
i will keep your lips from getting chapped ever again

just wait wait wait.
wait just a little longer

i know it's hard

but when we wrap ourselves in each other

and the skin of my hands
is your skin on your face
and the freckles on my knees
are your freckles on your shoulders

and the light that shines in my eyes is a greyblueblack

happiness
will evade us
we won't apologize to anyone

for the grains of sand under our fingernails

i will sigh every winter
deep, just like you

and we will breathe the same air

like we share the same lungs
same heart
same eyes
same face


same hands

Turn off the lamp,
Switch off the fan.
Quiet these voices
Inside my head.
Don’t you lay here with me,
Don’t you tell me your lies.
Just let me sleep,
Alone tonight.
Don’t sympathize with me.
Because you can’t make me love you
If I don’t.
I can't force my heart to feel
Something it won’t.
It is dark in this room,
I can hear your words.
You make your case to me,
In this final hour.
But I don’t, no I don’t.
Because you can’t make me love you
If I don’t.
I’ll try to sleep,
Your face I don’t see.
It’s your body I fear,
When you’re close to me.
Sunrise will come,
And you’ll hold me tight.
Just give me some time,
To distinguish wrong from right.
And you can’t make me love you,
If I don’t.
Don’t you make my heart change
What it’s already been told.
In this dark room,
Your lasting words,
Begging for mercy
In this final hour.
But I don’t, no I don’t.
You can’t make me love you if I don’t.

Forgive me for my lack of articulation
I don’t speak as retardedly prophetic as I used to
Or welcome death because no one knows it
When the fear of leaving
Is hell enough to stay
And the finish line is miles away

We will all meet it
At exactly the right time

We’ll both come in first
I promise

And

You

Well mouthed
Keeper of my darkness
Forgive me if I war trench your back at night
I’ve just never really known safety

Surprised at the size a man can be
When pressed to someone’s back
As the night covers all fronts

I know
I got love’s lashings scarring up my liver
When I drink myself to sleep at night

This morning
I awoke shortly after midnight from a text message
That took me an hour to respond to

Forgive me
I was thinking in dreams again
You were there
Watching me steal a pineapple popsicle and a Dr Pepper
From a vending machine

We then hopped in an airborne submarine
Only it was really a long broomstick between my legs
And your legs
And the legs of two others I’ve never met before
And we weren't ever really airborne

Even the figments of my imagination have to humor me
At times

And my ghosts are kind enough to leave before I awake
Playing poker over my body as I sleep
As I dream
As I startle
***** Drunken Poorly Invented Modern Sanskrit
Into the thick air

So cold I have to chisel the sweat away

I don’t sleep as soundly as I used to
Or speak as well
Or think as thoroughly
I just know what feels good when I don’t want it to

And I don’t know any other way to tell you
To slow down and wait for me
Because I am sure that
We’ll get where we’re supposed to be going
Exactly when we’re supposed to

I feel you like
                        slamming
                                doors.
I see you in
                    the same
                                shifting focus as
when I take off my glasses
                  too quick.
I hold you like I make
fifty                               dollars
                  a week.
                                                          "I miss you"
I scream into my pillow.
                                            "I miss you too" you whisper back
        in prayers
in dreams
                   in your arms wrapped around me
as I cry into your neck.

I want you here: you
                            tell me: I'm beautiful.
these slow steps that I'm taking (toward you)
(away from you) I'm learning your name
easier than cleaning a fish bowl
harder than saying it out loud
easier than writing it down
harder than taking birth control
or wanting to,
because I'm not interested in ***
at this age:
in this age I'm younger than those actions
older than those thoughts,
lost in a limbo, found swinging from a bar,
skipping down a street, turning down what I can't see
"no thank you"

I can hear you.
                              "I'm listening"
     I can't hear you.
"you're screaming"

your face,
                 in the mirror: "you're beautiful"
your face,
                    in the street: "I'm disgusting"

sincerely,
                because I know you're quiet when you're unhappy
because you're trying to tie knots with broken fingers
          because your eyes reflect blue in the shadows of your smile
because you're more than any fabric, soaked in any chemical thought
                                                                                                                    (or feeling)
because the islands of you create an escape better than the moon.

Sincerely, because you're you.