Boy, do I looove you
And God only knows I can’t be the only one
But if I spit those words into your Happy Meal,
I think you might actually start to cry
(He’s not loving it, in fact,
he never could, for it isn’t in his nature to love

Or at least to love me)

Puny, frail things catch your attention left and right
Like the bright colored toys wrapped in plastic
You rip each one of them open and play your games
Of make believe and pretend
Until the first time it falls off the table,
Or into the mud
And you couldn’t give less of a ****
The toy will shed a tear, and you will say it’s being a *****

But I know your double cheeseburger soul
Craves more than what you physically desire
But the guilt of eating unhealthy food
Has never stopped you before

The temperature in the room is high
Thick, sweaty bodies grind to the rhythm
As music swells like smoke coming
From the joints being passed around
Laughter fills the air as full as the cups
That clutter her bedroom, like the friends
On her bed, sharing the bench in front of the keyboard,
Making out in her closet, and behind her *****
Shower curtain. She’s faded, just like the rest of them,
But through the clouds of smoke and conversation,
The date circled in black on her calendar
Reminds her of the day her mother fell to her knees
In the middle of the grocery store screaming,
Like the ****** girl who hears a funny joke
In the background, after getting a phone call
That would rewrite the date, no longer a stoner’s holiday,
But the same day as seven years before, when her mother,
Once in the car, continued hyperventilating, no passerby
Stopping to help, or to ask the twelve-year-old girl
What was wrong, like her friends who try to do so
Now as she stands and picks a picture off the shelf
Her aunt in it, alive, and kissing her cheek. /Are you okay?/
A hand comforts her shoulder. /I think I’ll smoke a little more./
She loses the staring contest and hands the picture back to the shelf.

-E (c) 2018

We walk out the black back door
With the broken glass window
At the warrant of a smoke
I let you lead me into the dark outside
Through the yard of twisting,
Tall sculptures made of tires,
Bottles, barbed wire, and foam

You grab my hand and fit me
Beside you in the circle consisting
Only of artists, some of whom
Stand, some of whom sit on old
Couch cushions, or lawn chairs
Which have been decaying
Underneath the wet, ***** snow

We, the huddled mass of jean
Jackets, knitted scarves, and nihilism,
Pass around a legal joint and cigarettes
Whose smoke rises into the fog
Of a mid-November midnight
As we freeze, and add laughter
To the hum of cars whizzing past
On the one-way side of 2nd Street

You and I find our place among
The artists, on a chair not once
Built with the intention of sustaining
The weight of two, but you ask
If I’ll sit on your lap anyway
And more than willingly, I oblige

We are now a part of this crowd—
The Burning Man drop-outs,
Too cool for our own selves
We shiver and vibrate in time
To the neon, changing streetlights
And not-too-far-off police sirens
And it is here, in your lap, surrounded
By the rubble of an artist’s junkyard
I look up and mouth /I love you/
And you mouth it silently back

-E (c) 2018

Angel Eyes with the Devil living inside
would you leave me be because I can't sleep
I lie awake at night with you on my mind
replaying the time when you kissed me under the sheets

I can't be anything I thought I'd be
Because I'll **** myself by 23
At least that's what I've said to myself everyday
Since you went away, I lost myself

The view from here is so unclear
I can feel the end is drawing near
And even though I've lost your touch, my dear
Your handprint lives here on my heart

Psychologically, I'm damaged goods
Physically, I am breaking down
I'm a self fulfilling prophecy,
If it's meant to be, it'd start now

But we are all just floating around here
Out in space, we cannot count the hours
There's no time to start anything new,
My dear, we're through, now

Because psychologically, I'm damaged goods
Physically, I am breaking down
I'm a self fulfilling prophecy,
If it was meant to be,
It would have started by now

I'm tired of saying that I'm fine
I'm tired of tallying the tries
And baby you are fading from view,
We are through, but it's gonna be alright

-E (c) 2017

I once stayed up until four in the morning, waiting for my lover, who is in a band, to get done with his set. He said I'd only have to wait until three, but, at 3:50am, sent me a text telling me that these girls had taken him to dinner, and unless I wanted to wait another hour, it wasn't going to happen. When I told him not to worry about it, he said "For sure. Sorry to keep you waiting. I hope these people are worth it, sexually." and he laughed. It's fine, though. I don't love him. Right?

-E (c) 2017