My eyes are beautiful, she says.
She must dig the haunted, empty look.

My smile is gorgeous, she says.
My tongue has felt those chips and nicks far too often to agree.

My arms look strong, she says.
I am surprised—she’s seen the scars.

My hands stir her, she says.
There is nothing elegant about them.

She loves me too, she says.
Even as we recall all the times I traumatized her.

She will never leave me, she says.
Dear God—that’s what I was afraid of.

She’d never do better than me, she says.
At that, I bite my tongue.

She doesn’t know what I see in her, she says.
And this, I think, is why we keep each other around.

Light travels at
Three hundred million meters per second.
If I turned into a photon tonight
And flew away for nine or ten years,
I might escape the memories of you.

Hearken ye and listen to the call of the

drums, two hearts pounding in unison as if

joined at the hips, and the lips, while the hormones

pump you through the processing station of

life, and love, and a white picket fence, and a house like a

dream, which is what this has been from the start:

One drum, beating

alone.

Car que c'est impossible à vous simplifier aux mots scientifiques.

I'm trying
for your sake
to not fall in love with you

But isn't it better
to ask forgiveness than permission?

Because it is impossible to reduce you to scientific words.

You broke my little heart, yes,
But like a spoon cracking open crème brûlée
You exposed something beautiful

There is a sixteen year old drowning in my gut
I am holding his head down under water
He is me

It’s a sad fact that if you want to improve
You have to die
You have to **** yourself

He struggles mightily, though
And on days like this
He claws his way to the surface of my skin

All the old scars of the last five years
His mocking reminders that I am not free
Stand out in the cold winter air

So if teary eye or frowning mouth you see
I’m busy drowning my old self
Or is he drowning me?

Like watching spring's first bloom open,

You were something to behold.

I was visiting the Windy City;

You kept me from being cold.

Soon enough, I will forget your name;

Your rosebud lips, nonetheless,

And your swaying-boughs voice,

Will yet make my passions bold.


For you have melted through my indifference,

You have thawed the permafrost of my soul.

Though you likely will never settle its valley,

My heart yields to you a tribute of its firstfruits.

With your quiet warmth, you have loosed winter's grip

--you have set me free.

There is no difference
Between two years ago
Etching deep tracks in my skin
With a blade solid to the touch
Smelling of bitter metal
Joined soon with the similar reek
Of the most ancient of sacrifices
Welling from my split skin
And me tonight—as I pound out these words
On a battered laptop
It smells of nothing so much as dust and heated plastic
Yet it is the same

We all come to the point of letting go
Yet in our naivety we hold on
And in this battle with ourselves
Wounds are inflicted
Whether the choking upsurge of our bellies
Or the stinging springs hiding in the corners of our eyes
Or an oft-used blade tearing flesh
Worst of all—the wreckage of a soul
The battering of all things held dear
And yet we fight too much
Not to force the pain out
But to embrace it closer

There is nothing natural in this quest
To sink the talons of agony
Ever deeper in our hearts
Shake a burr loose
Yes then burn it to ash
But cling tight to smothering misery
The truth is that we’d hold to anything
Rather than face the storm outside
And see the past washed away
Yet while the storm may have no mercy
It has no malice
Nature is ever washed clean by the downpour

So we grow up and let go
And we see that emptiness
Isn’t always so bad

You left long ago
But your footprints still mar the
Dark trails of my heart

Is never returned
And I
I forgot your address
And what I should have written
Got lost in the mail
It's too late now
But I should like to give you
One last letter
Sealed with a kiss