sometimes I wonder if I have ever really seen your face
there’s nothing left to explain
to this day I don’t know
if you were ever real (there was
nothing to say
maybe I just don’t remember) sometimes
my hands (my lips) still imagine your skin
the plaster of your ceiling hangs like blood clots
in my veins (the color of the walls mutating
before my closed eyes
I have never felt closer to neverland)
I don’t talk about you
I never did
no one has ever looked at me that way again
(maybe it was something about talking
to the other side of the world
that made me into a moment instead of a past)
maybe the thing I’m most sorry for
is that I will never regret you
(your name still tastes like peppermint) it is summer now
and I still remember your hot phantom hands
on my frozen cheeks
(I remember your voice like dragonfly wings)
maybe that’s why when I remember your eyes
my blood is lighter than it has ever been
I can feel your smile like starlight in mine
you breathed into my lungs once
and you have been there ever since
you were not my north star (though maybe I was yours)
you were my ocean (and
to a child’s eye all the stars look the same anyway)
maybe the thing I’m most sorry for
is that I don’t miss you because
after all these years
your anthracite eyes are steam beneath my fingers
(there’s a kind of purity in dirt and
there’s a kind of innocence in you)
after all these years my footprints dot your foreign soil
(there’s a kind of hope in me)
because after all these years of swimming
of air that tasted different with every breath
of eyes blinking against the epileptic cosmos
(stars lips teeth hips)
after all these years of running
it was not even strange to be in love with you

It's
always
the ones
who've
done
the least
and
sacrificed
nothing,
who
always
seem
to have
the
most to
say.

i.
hearing your name still fills me with a certain intoxicating sweetness.

ii.
i hate you. god, i hate you so much. but i love you. please come back.

iii.
i'm sorry that it had to end up like this. i don't think you care, though.

iv.
it's okay if you've lost your innocence. i've lost mine, too. life will do that to people.

v.
i was often happiest when you said my name like maybe i meant something to you.

vi.
i am stuck between wanting to forget you and wanting to crawl back to you.

vii.
most of my poems are still about you, even now.

viii.
i hope you're doing okay.

ix.
please don't forget me.

x.**
thank you.

There are, endemic intricacies, in these, precinctive dreams, I weave, where perforated seas give way to ever changing islands, that if seen, cease to be, unique.

And there is, this feeling of sadness that gives to it, a meaning, a silence, so subtly fit in, a violence inside it that soothes in the end, as the islands, the islands, they sink, but rise again.

And if, I am to write it, I right it, to ride it, into dust, and these dreams, this sea, may only see it for thine ends, merely to feel it, is to say it, is to share it, beyond the fence.

But I keep what I ****, and silence, my defense,  whispering of islands, then drowning in theirs depths, bringing the light unto darkness, and darkness unto the dust of my breaths.

how can i possibly tell you
*all i need to?

i still feel your fingerprints at my spine, smokestacks
on a clear day,
cigarette dangling from your teeth as you spat tobacco onto my back
like it was your canvas.
the sooty backwash from your coffee in my lungs, and you are a supernova, as always.
i tried to tell you that i was a lit match and you threw me into a gasoline pit anyway
your smile is carved into my lungs i still need your voice to breathe
i'm choking on ******* fumes because you
curled your hand into my throat and ripped out my vocal chords
you told me this was the way you loved
i never know what to do with my hands so i pick at loose threads
it's amazing, you whisper into my lungs,
it's amazing what you see after you've been dead for a while
find a ******* corpse and **** it over again
the spirit never left the body
you can't rebuild a ******* fantasy you can't bring back what was never here in the first place so stop trying
when the knife twists in your abdomen i hope you feel it
you wash me down with whiskey  and smiled as your throat lit itself on fire
you told me that you were like the ******* sun
but i wonder what it felt like for your cigarette ash teeth
and your tar fingertips
when you finally stopped shining

YOU ONLY EVER KISS HIM WITH THE LIGHTS OFF. YOU RUN YOUR HANDS THROUGH YOUR HAIR; IT WAS CUT A FEW DAYS AGO AND YOU'RE NOT SURE IF YOU LIKE IT. YOU FEEL LIKE YOU'RE JUST KEEPING UP THE PRETENSE OF THE PERSON YOU USED TO BE. YOU'RE NOT SURE IF YOU'LL EVER FEEL LIKE HIM AGAIN.

HE, AS USUAL, LOVES YOU AND SOMETIMES YOU WANT TO RIP OFF HIS ******* CLOTHES AND TAKE HIM AND SOMETIMES YOU JUST WANT TO SCREAM AND RUN AWAY AND NEVER LOOK HIM IN THE EYES AGAIN (AND SOMETIMES YOU WANT TO RIP OFF YOUR ******* SKIN AND HOPE YOU NEVER BREATHE AGAIN). YOU NEVER TELL HIM THIS. YOU ADD IT TO THE PILE OF SECRETS. RINSE AND REPEAT;;;

AS THE DAYS GO BY THE BLUE EYES START MIXING WITH THE KIND OF REDNESS YOU CAN'T SCRUB AWAY. YOU TRY TO LAUGH BECAUSE YOU'RE LIKE HIM NOW (RED WHITE AND BLUE YOU'RE A ******* BANNER AND HE'S AN ICON). IT COMES OUT BROKEN. YOU DON'T TELL HIM WHY.

YOU STOP SMILING AND THE CIGARETTES PILE UP AND THE BOTTLES PILE UP AND THE SECRETS PILE UP. HE'S STOPPED LOOKING YOU IN THE EYES AND YOU'VE STOPPED PRETENDING NOT TO NOTICE. HE DRAGS YOU OUT OF BED AT TWO IN THE MORNING TO YELL AT YOU AND IT TAKES ALL THE ENERGY YOU CAN MUSTER TO LOOK AT HIM.

HE STOPS SMILING.

WHEN HE SAYS HE LOVES YOU HE DOESN'T MEAN IT. THIS IS OKAY; YOU HAVEN'T SAID IT BACK SINCE HE SAVED YOU. WHEN YOU SAY IT BACK ANYWAY YOU MEAN IT. HE LAUGHS AT YOU.

YOU TRY TO STOP BREATHING ONETWOTHREEFOUR TIMES. YOU STOP RETURNING HIS PHONE CALLS. YOU DON'T BELONG HERE THIS BODY HASN'T FELT LIKE YOURS IN SEVENTY YEARS BUT YOU STILL WISH YOU COULD CRAWL INSIDE YOUR OWN SKIN.

HE SHOWS UP AT YOUR HOUSE AT TWO IN THE MORNING AND ******* SCREAMS AT YOU. THIS IS THE MOST ALIVE YOU'VE FELT IN AN AGE. YOU TELL HIM THIS AND YOU LOOK AWAY WHEN HIS FACE CRUMPLES.

HE KISSES YOU WITH THE LIGHTS ON.