Will you kiss my scars?
Will you love my rot and decay too?
Crystallize me in all that’s unnatural and unpleasant.
Frame me in my ugly.
Be there when I see no light but only beckoning hands into the darkness.
Cut me your hand to hold instead of trimming the edges of my sanity.
Starve yourself with me. Starve yourself of me.
Taste me when I’m solely iron in your body,
trickling down your nose to remind you I'm there.
Feed me sugar cubes to keep the flies warm.
Wean me off the good stuff until I shame you for sharing.
Won’t you keep me sated?
Won’t you blanket your daisies in my mouth?
But what about the moths?
What about the maggots and, oh, what about the monkeys that tease you to let me go?
Let the dead go. Let her go, they say.
You won’t kiss my scars again if you knew I was dead.
Decaying won and I still love you!
I still love you.
I still love you.
How can’t I?
You loved me enough to care for the rot.

the best time to realize
when
what
causes one to experience
the meaning of to be
deathly afraid
is
exactly
when
you are not


joy purifying
enfolds you, envelops, indeed,
you
are subsumed, a sense of being
secondary
to the unusual flooding of the
dry riverbed in your head that’s
been dry since you can’t remember

when

when you understand
that one cannot truly
write only love poetry
to precise excess
unless
admittedly you love
to excess,
otherwise
you are incapable of making
good
love poems

when

you are not
within that
rare off the beaten yes trackless meniscus curve,
in
country
of first love
  of
only
true love

be the vines,
exist slowly. cautiously.

crawl up, looking for any
footholds to expand your reach.

exist violently.
tear down the bricks of
the building you conquered

and above all else—

rise to the top of what you hate the most.

all we feel is pain
from a society that has torn us apart.
our words ignite thunder,
and our actions burn scars.
our views have altered because of
dreams crushed by stars.
our reality has deadened,
like our once-beautiful hearts.

he strung pearls round my neck
and I strung him from a tree
as he choked his final breath
I crooned, “save a spot in hell for me”

a kiss of red upon his cheek
the ghost of lust haunting his lips
as imprinted on his memory
as the bruising fingers on my hips

he thought me as a canvas
he could paint to be refined
pretty to be looked at
touched with detachment of the mind

the fool should have kept his pearls
and found another portrait to admire
for if you give me a golden candle
I’ll set your world on fire