I’d be myself
And ask if you want to go with me
You’d say no
I’d rather the cold
To fall asleep in the backseat
Completely lose my time and place
On the drive home

Through wet hands and a wet shirt I weeped that I needed you now,
Even though this heart and chest you’ve battered like a barn dog
And in choosing yourself, again,
My deep trust snapped like a boot through a locked door
Splintered, final and bringing something immediately after
But morbidly musical, individual too
Like breaking a handful of dry pasta in half
Ignorant, but making no difference in the end

Silver metal hummingbird  
Clack, clack, clacks against glass
While the car jostles and I **** myself over needing you
Sometimes the ring is a hum when you are there to sing the harmony,
At other times it is a shotgun blast in an abandoned war tunnel
I am most eloquent and hollow when it’s your nails at my throat
Though I can’t speak,
I sing

And I am number fifty
The drive home cracks at the seams,
Though there are many skylights on the horizon to eat
And I fool myself
I plant, water and let myself down
I memorize this address
Like a back-alley mistress
Or a difference
To how I usually sell
I’ll see you in hell six months from now
In the pillows
Breathless and full of doubt
Like a real dream
Or a kids room full of tokens to keep
Absolutely obscene
How you split through and blood-let me
I’m a master,
And much faster than anything you challenge
Blood-bonded and free

To drink you like a garden martini
Full of crushed blackberries
I’d **** the seeds through my teeth and let it burn
Painter,
Please strip and re-color my tongue

Head in your hands,
I say “you are the most beautiful thing I have ever seen.”
“Do you speak to anyone else like that?”
Since we’ve been here together,
The world has been uninhabited

I heard church bells the day you died
I recognized them as being for a celebration,
Or a holy day
But how little I knew then
There were no angels or God that morning
I saw you again and the trees in your eyes were already stripped
Gray bark, and you could snap off any twisted, shedding branch
Beat someone to death with it