My thoughts are crabbed and sallow,
My tears like vinegar,
Or the bitter blinking yellow
Of an acetic star.

Tonight the caustic wind, love,
Gossips late and soon,
And I wear the wry-faced pucker of
The sour lemon moon.

While like an early summer plum,
Puny, green, and ****,
Droops upon its wizened stem
My lean, unripened heart.

"I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead;
I lift my lids and all is born again.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)

The stars go waltzing out in blue and red,
And arbitrary blackness gallops in:
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.

I dreamed that you bewitched me into bed
And sung me moon-struck, kissed me quite insane.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)

God topples from the sky, hell's fires fade:
Exit seraphim and Satan's men:
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.

I fancied you'd return the way you said,
But I grow old and I forget your name.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)

I should have loved a thunderbird instead;
At least when spring comes they roar back again.
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)"

i'll lead you in, we're hand in hand.
it's morning, dust floating in the sun beams
(it's chasing who had just passed before us).
on the floor, newspapers scattered,
guitar picks laden on coasters freeze;
rough pillows will idle limply in the folds of a green couch.
a symphony of coffee and fresh dew
will linger, harmonizing with
the sighs from the kitchen.
i'll tell you
this is where i grew
to know how to lose who i love;
this is why i kiss lips that aren't mine;
this, my place; my haven; my arch enemy;
my taste of freedom and a pang of resentment;
a series of dissonances and a collection of complements,
hangs freely in a void of the past

love is sweet when we're up,
bitter when i let you down,
crowned with bliss
'cause i know
that what happens next only God knows;
letting go
lets us know that the universe has integrity.
back to uppers, down to bed;
sink my teeth in the sheets,
my cup filled,
i taste a fresh world.

you touched me.
we came from tupperware and 2 to 3 sets of silverware.
with it i gave worms a home and with you i made fig jam and we put it in a mason jar.
i stared at my milk at your dinner table the way one stares at a speck in the gravel when one tries to balance on one foot,
to help from embarrassing myself in front of your older brother.
i loved him like my own; i loved you like any soul-searching, trampoline-jumping munchkin loves their best friend-
you touched me
as if i could just list off memories and believe that it compensates for our loss
and now i can't do anything more than to brush it off like life,
but that in and of itself makes me want to *****.
from tupperware, from textbooks...
to an eternity of unknown nothings and everythings,
you touched me and though i want to believe i've been through it,
though i say i've been through the dinner party irony of havoc, through the tupperware dilemma of sorts,
what faults in this life have i missed,
to help me understand what brought you to jump,
my trampoline companion with a curiosity and endless potential,
with textbooks and tupperware in hand?

tonight,
you emerge from tinged strings;
my heart aches

my eyes,
leaden from lost hours,
sing along

your hands-
'maginary brushes,
paint tears, smiles

i've counted the times
i've lied, i've lied and been caught;
i've given black eyes and blue bruises, received red watercolor kisses on my neck and purple ones between my thighs;
i've given a cold shoulder, a warm embrace;
i've tasted the hot tears of my own perpetration on another face,
and i've stifled my own to keep a family strong;
i've "I love you"ed
through gritted teeth,
as i throw a punch,
as my face is at her belt;
now, i count the footsteps in our favorite walk,
and the days until when at six a.m.
i will be studying the line between your brow,
framing your irises fixed on mine,
trembling as a blue lipped child out of water;
but if the future is now, and if now is then,
i will taste
the lies, lips, tears, and tricks
as fresh flowers on the crispness of this morning to come