we meet at midnight (or maybe one) and you’re wearing the same
hoodie you’ve been wearing for three years. the wind nudges us
apart but somehow still you’re soft and smiling. i don’t have a
scarf. there’s a snowball down my shirt and then there’s
this noise ripped from me like i’m gasping and
laughing at the same time and it’s the
ugliest noise i’ve ever heard. i try
to chase you but you’re faster
and it’s okay because
you and i both
have such
terrible
aim.

we’re both just glad to be alone.

there
are beds
i’ll never lie in
ever again and that
is for the best. i remember
there was a time i’d wait for you
i’d sit and literally gaze out my window,
see kids on bikes and the sun passing by
but never you till i conned the moon into friendship
and she introduced us. i’d start arguments to hear you talk
but sometimes (and only sometimes) i would breathe and think,
i wanna fall asleep standing on this salted sidewalk and never wanna
wake up. sometimes you look away when my lips move like you can’t
hear. but i follow you. i teach you to paint and you teach me to dance.

it’s always the same. we get inside. you
hand me bread. we sit on the couch.
i skin my knees falling to the ground
just to hear you laugh. you shift and a
part of me wants to know the rhyme or
reason why but you roll your eyes when
i tell you poetry doesn’t need to rhyme
and i am a happy hypocrite. the bottle
is warm where your hand's been killing
it. it’s dead when i hand it back.

when i fall asleep your eyes are with me
and when i wake up you’re holding my
wrists. my skin is petrichor and yours is
smoke. suddenly there’s thunder bridging
the distance between the moon and sun,
matchflame and cumulonimbus clouds
and the carpet flips over as i pitch toward
the kitchen table. you’re photokeratitis
and i go blind. i make snow angels.
i need. i need to close my eyes.

you make me tea. i put my head in my hands.
my hair frizzes under lightning. there are no
blankets and no conversation. i pretend
to sleep on the floor and in two long hours
i’ve made friends with the spiders under
your bed. you haven’t met.

--

the alarm whispers. i pick myself off his floor. i steady myself.
i can’t look at him for too long, can't say goodbye. i glance.
his eyes are closed. there’s no way to wake him without
feeling like a wolf, or maybe a sheep. my wrinkled coat
is tangled in the rug. it's dawn. red eyes. if he was up
he would call me a mess. he's not. the sun drapes
over his sheets. i am freezing. my hand shakes
at the doorknob and i think, wrong, this
is the ugliest noise i have ever heard.
the bottle is on its side next to him.
it says nothing. i never opened
a door more slowly. i run
like there’s something
behind me. i lose a
minute when i sit
on the stairs. my
my eyes bleed. i
laugh. i told him
i hate love songs.
it's not like he
follows my
*******
spotify.

it’s always morning here
and always so quiet;
it doesn't let me say goodbye.
he's asleep but i’m alone and the air
is still. there are no stormclouds,
no suns
or snow or crescent moons.

the sky is
blue

--iii of cups, reversed--


before i fall asleep
i watch you dance on the ceiling

neon blue and purple skies
silhouetting bodies
growing blurry and distorted by bass and
***** waters flowing out
waterfalls through straws flowing out
through me

crashing into the mattress uneven and seeping
a beat i reluctantly match

raising toasts to nothing
to last nights
and all the nights you’ll spend on airplanes and car rides
to states i’ll never travel

i go to sleep
and i watch you dance on the ceiling

***** waterfalls spilling endlessly from upturned glasses
seeping through my blanket


--the tower--


it’s a sigh when lightning strikes
and neon lights go out

it's easy
to light all my candles
and flicker east toward the window
curled and waved and cresting and silent
a thousand miles away from you

drywall graveyards
tacks stabbed through ghosts
buried and legible and moss-bearing

you never leave flowers
but you still remember; will
even with creasing palms of
papercuts and old printer ink

in a lot of ways you're still sliding across main street
graphite-stained and bleary
surrounded by cymbals
and freezing condensation
and pinpricks in your fingers

in a lot of ways you're still feeding her clementines,
her veins bic-blue and eyes alight
near clear with
spirits realer than you

in every way you're crumpled and jagged on the floor
the swaying kitchen table

you're talking to a fragment,
a figment handing you bottles to
burn your tongue and your throat and wait
for what?

for your self-portrait to dry once and for all;
for footsteps echoing down the stairs;
for long-decayed maple helicopters to activate;

for the dears to fall behind your bed and stay there