Oh, would you look at that;
     the way you break my back
with your tiresome nihilist verse.
The way that you breathe in irregular verbs,
     your eyebrows knitting together
like some fine bridge between two bold constellations.

What do you want, then?

Do you want marvels?
     Do you want comets,
do you want the entire night sky
     pooled in the bow of your collar bones?
Do you want love?
     Do you want heartache,
do you want spring blossoms
     flourishing between the lattice of your entwined fingers?
Do you want hope?
     Do you want burning smiles,
do you want the crushing weight
     of space, plummeting inside your chest?
Do you want pain?
     Do you want the broken places,
do you want the earth falling from its axis
     so you can find your place?

We exist, you and I;
not too much, not quite enough;
but we exist,
just like real people do.

Cold fingers walk
     the ley lines of your veins.
***** dashed across your bedsheets,
     watercolour stains leak in your eyes.
Dead lilies in a cup of coffee,
     your world upside-down in a cracked glasses lens.

Baby lives in memories,
     his smile lives in broken school-yard promises.
Baby lost himself,
     gentle whispering between two boys underage.
Baby cries to sleep at night,
     stealing a Corot off the wall to feed a lie.
Baby still has belt scars,
     baby still knows the Lord's prayer.
Sunflower boy, bird-***** boy
     with ***** knees from church,
patron saint of flush-faced virginity and angel tears.

That leftover warmth on
     disordered bedclothes;
the leftover smell
     of sleep.
Tumbling through
     crushing darkness;
stumbling over silent
     exploding lights.
The reek
     of sterile sunlight;
frosted windows
     so ***** that they're clean.

It's been a thousand Saturdays,
     it's been a hundred harvest moons.
It's been one too many cups
     of coffee in the sun,
it's been a lifetime of blisters
     on the pads of your toes.
It's been more than enough time,
     it's been twenty-thousand stars.