to be honest i never knew how to write about a boy i'd never met
and i also didn't know how to write about meetings
and i didn't know how to write about boys
but i remember seventeen years ago today, in a past i wasn't a part of and that i could never imagine, a boy I'd never met was born

but he grew up and up and up and his sandpaper heart was replaced by pints of lukewarm whiskey in the red cup left on the steps that morning and his threaded thoughts pieced together not-so-carefully were replaced by cigarette smoke lingering around his mind and out of his nose like smoke creeping through a burning building with no hope of escape for the one that broke in just to leave the gasoline by the furnace and his twisted insides were replaced by infinite spacetime and universes, bending and breaking and breathing stardust and misplaced trust and alcoholic aftertaste and burning paper

to be honest i never knew how to write about a boy who was replaced by cigarettes and whiskey and outer space and music and reasoning and tshirts and sarcasm and modernity  
but i did know how to write about someone who mattered
and i did know how to write about being entirely made of little something elses and being replaced
and he knew how to be the muse

I don't know why I like the floor so much,
Maybe it's because you taught me that
This is where I belonged,
And where I was the most productive,
As though pleasuring you from my knees
Was any indicator of my worth.
But I have discovered many things
From this vantage point.
I have noticed a crack in the floorboard
Beneath which I hid every love letter
You ever tucked into my mailbox,
I have discovered a locked box
Hidden beneath my bed
And I don't know what's inside it
But it shakes and rattles and screams
Every night around two am,
So I'm afraid to open it,
I have found a marble under my dresser,
One of those clear ones
With something colorful inside,
But it looks more like blood and tissue
Than anything, in my opinion,
I have also came upon a spot
In which the floor does not creak,
And it always seems to be cold,
A perfect place to rest my cheek.
But the last thing I uncovered
Was a skeleton in my closet,
Folded and tucked into the corner,
As though it didn't want to be found,
So I found the strength,
To lift myself to my knees
(It was always a powerful position)
And I pulled the skeleton out,
And despite its efforts to clamp its bony fingers
To my wrist and never let me go
I threw it in the dumpster,
And rediscovered home.

don't tell me
you love me
until you have seen me
at 3 AM
crying
screaming
shaking
broken down
holding a knife
and incredibly *lost

We were running together, side by side
Slapped by fat droplets of midnight shower
Which burst upon touching our pale foreheads
And streamed as tears down the sides of our cheeks
We drank in the presence of each other
As the wilted trees around us, the rain
Letting the poison ivy scratch our legs
While we escaped from those in people's words
With all the venom coursing through our veins
You untied your hair; it streaked behind you
Blacker and more beautiful than the night
I still remember - I can still hear it
The way our ragged voices would unite
As we sat upon the wet, shining grass
Tilting our heads back and howled at the moon