School is over.  It is too hot
to walk at ease.  At ease
in light frocks they walk the streets
to while the time away.
They have grown tall.  They hold
pink flames in their right hands.
In white from head to foot,
with sidelong, idle look—
in yellow, floating stuff,
black sash and stockings—
touching their avid mouths
with pink sugar on a stick—
like a carnation each holds in her hand—
they mount the lonely street.

the point
of almost drowning
then doing it

finding air
finding the loophole
luck

they like you
from atop the balcony
your scream, deadly

loved?
are you loved?
love?

shades of gray
shades of some romance
what is this ****?

fourth grade
so strange
first crush

dead in my boots
no
to say no

oh that's where
I'm a big boy now
growing on up

love
it burns my throat
found it in the fridge

I could start fires
with this stuff
I thought

fires that would
burn and burn
into the night

roman candles
that burned out
from the tears

cup it and clasp it
grab and grasp it
firmly, proceed to strike it and stab it
before autumnal flames scatter it like sewer mice
and clouds of thunder become clouds of somber snowy lights
illuminated by the little lamp reflecting off Christmas ornaments
my vacant eyes and their hollow flights
of endless stairs
pitting to a cave of solid ice
i lay in the center
each and every of these numbing nights

Resting in an icicle hammock
Between the only two trees on a tundra of thick tears
The world remain an uncolored book
Neutral sheets of parchment paper, it usually looks
Yet, visible remains the vermillion that dribbles from my dry nose
The only shade around, which resembles petals of rose
Tissues soak up ruby rain that drips and drips
Streams of scarlet sorrows and crestfallen crimson collect as they cascade in the crevice of lust lips
The warmth of it all still cannot melt the frozen bars of this cell
But I must enjoy the only tint that reveals itself
Even if it's lava tone resembles the terrain of desolate Mars or the sinful flames of hell
Soon these cherry rivers will make way for a new pigment
A hue I will soon be wrapped in
When too much of this spills, and strings of a flowing red licorice yield to simple black
~~~~~~~~~~~
*And in a faint yelp, he knew there was no turning back

My mind keeps pictures of you up on its walls
                            again
                         ­         and again
I find my thoughts drifting down that river of memory
orbiting around you, like forces of gravity drawn
to the idea of us (if there even is an us)

If I could then I’d lock you outside my brain, leave you out there to rot
in the abyss, where your words couldn't penetrate me
and your lips that work like anesthesia forbidden to numb me again

I won't do you the injustice of romanticizing your imperfections
You're no nebular, you're a black hole, a gaping flaw in creation
Your eyes that held millenniums of history, now hold me no future

You made me forget what it feels to have stability
To not walk out of a room and forget why I left
You make me want to shred the skin you touched
Like a reptile, to become reborn, purified from my past.

There never were any butterflies in your stomach, only parasites
but you fed them to me readily like a disease

So no, I won’t dedicate you another love poem
                 no I want (deserve) better
This isn't what love should be
I’ll write you a poem where the words convulse on the page
and you’ll forget to read it (you always do)