Winter sugar falls on my tongue,
White chocolate flecks in the Godiva night.
But I only eat January snowflakes
Because they’re the ripest in the dead
Of winter, when the temperature is just above oblivion.

The frosting you make when you breathe
Disappears inches from my face
And if I open my lips a little bit
It’s bittersweet...
Like the darkness around us.
If you’re not a good little boy this year
Your candy coated shell will crack
Because it’s just too cold to hold our own.

We are like the chocolate chip cookies
Placed on the plastic Santa Clause plate
By the children, who wait for this all year.
They scribble their wishes onto paper
With a cherry-flavored crayon.
Its waxy red slaps me in the face
Because I know (and it breaks my heart).
And although you hold my hand
Much like the dough holds the morsels
We can never really be together,
Because the chocolate never really melts enough.

completion
of the 3 year
bond.

30 miles of roadway.

Going forward
is essential.

December 19th
wet snow
and
church parking lot; let out a
sigh of relief
he prom-
ised 
For days
Behemoth
size
elininating
our concerns
i
would be happy.
still
"experience"
involved *****,
heavy, exhausting, loud
tradesman using
some of us.

together in
unison
pounding
away we filled the church basement
with sound
tempo and
beat.

Then it happened.

The angels were singing just
for us.

“I had to call my husband two days after our wedding
to tell him I’m a lesbian.”

She tells me this
as she ***** on a cigarette,
and I get a vivid image
of something else at her lips.

I must have looked stupid,
like I needed an explanation or something,
gaping at her with my hand
jammed in the belly of my purse,
too shocked to continue my search
for gum.

She takes another drag;
smirks as she exhales through her nostrils.

“Lets just say
what happens in Vegas
doesn’t always stay there.”

you know, the one with the guy
and that girl in the train station bar
where they just keep trying drinks
and looking at things
and making conversation
while avoiding the big issues?

It’s like that

whenever we talk.
Like, there’s something between us,
curled like an unborn fetus
******* the life
right out of the womb.
This thing that makes me want to scream out loud
for you
to pleasepleasepleasepleaseplease
just stop talking

because every time you tell me
you care
the fetus wiggles.
And every time you say
“I still want to be friends”
it latches onto some part of my gut
and begins *******
what little happiness is left in my heart
through my small intestine.

And regardless of how licorice life tastes,
and how many places we visit,
how many drinks we try or times we ****,
there’s always going to be this empty place,
this space where I let you let the air in
even if I didn’t want it.

You promised this would be simple.

other than chocolate, *** and red wine."

That's what she told me while we lay together
in the smell of our own sweat, ******* on lollipops
and deciding whether or not to shower.

There wasn't much left of the morning,
but we bathed in it anyway.

I watched crystalline juice drip
from the corner of her lips
and down her chin,
where I wanted nothing more
than to lick my own finger
and mop up her mess.

She would have told me
not to ******* touch her,
and I never would again.

And so I left my hands right where they were;
scrubbing my own skin
with mid-day sun
and waiting for hot water
to wash last night clean.