How would you take the news of my bitter insomnia?
Would you feel conflicted knowing that could I sleep,
I might not still want you? I know that you’re just a heap
Of atoms tied together, cells powered with mitochondria,
And without you I am just succumbing to hypoxia.
You are nothing to the universe, just an ignorant sheep,
And were my head unclouded, no illusions would I keep:
I’d know in lucidity it’s just my acute monophobia.
But you are there still, hiding under my thin skin,
And you’re not going away, and it’s driving me insane.
How could I discount your memory, your incredible smiles,
Your hands rough like heartbeats, your eyes glowing like sin?
You are a heap of molecules, mere bone and membrane:
And your soul is a fire, your ardor drives me for miles.

i haven’t seen you in months
and your memory causes
heartbeats to flood my chest.

who you could be,
who you are, causes
symphonies, causes
thunderstorms in the chambers
that lie under my ribs.

i can imagine growing old
with you, old like oak trees,
stretching and wrinkling
till we touch the sky and fall,

but i would be happy knowing
that you are growing old at all.
i am so in love with you
that your life, happy and long,
with or without me,
is all that i want.

i had a dream once
in which you died
you drowned in the sea,
became one with the tide

i sat on a dock
at the end of the day
staring at the horizon,
my life leaking away

you came to me then
from deep in the blue
you cried and i promised
i won’t forget you

so now i wander the waves
and i wander the kai
praying that i’ll find
where your spirit abides

but if that doesn’t happen,
if i don’t survive
i pray that i drown,
become one with the tide.

She walks in beauty, like the night
     Of cloudless climes and starry skies;
And all that’s best of dark and bright
     Meet in her aspect and her eyes:
Thus mellowed to that tender light
     Which heaven to gaudy day denies.

One shade the more, one ray the less,
     Had half impaired the nameless grace
Which waves in every raven tress,
     Or softly lightens o’er her face;
Where thoughts serenely sweet express
     How pure, how dear their dwelling place.

And on that cheek, and o’er that brow,
     So soft, so calm, yet eloquent,
The smiles that win, the tints that glow,
     But tell of days in goodness spent,
A mind at peace with all below,
     A heart whose love is innocent!

The noon's greygolden meshes make
All night a veil,
The shorelamps in the sleeping lake
Laburnum tendrils trail.

The sly reeds whisper to the night
A name-- her name-
And all my soul is a delight,
A swoon of shame.

I have done it again.
One year in every ten
I manage it----

A sort of walking miracle, my skin
Bright as a **** lampshade,
My right foot

A paperweight,
My face a featureless, fine
Jew linen.

Peel off the napkin
0 my enemy.
Do I terrify?----

The nose, the eye pits, the full set of teeth?
The sour breath
Will vanish in a day.

Soon, soon the flesh
The grave cave ate will be
At home on me

And I a smiling woman.
I am only thirty.
And like the cat I have nine times to die.

This is Number Three.
What a trash
To annihilate each decade.

What a million filaments.
The peanut-crunching crowd
Shoves in to see

Them unwrap me hand and foot
The big strip tease.
Gentlemen, ladies

These are my hands
My knees.
I may be skin and bone,

Nevertheless, I am the same, identical woman.
The first time it happened I was ten.
It was an accident.

The second time I meant
To last it out and not come back at all.
I rocked shut

As a seashell.
They had to call and call
And pick the worms off me like sticky pearls.

Dying
Is an art, like everything else,
I do it exceptionally well.

I do it so it feels like hell.
I do it so it feels real.
I guess you could say I've a call.

It's easy enough to do it in a cell.
It's easy enough to do it and stay put.
It's the theatrical

Comeback in broad day
To the same place, the same face, the same brute
Amused shout:

'A miracle!'
That knocks me out.
There is a charge

For the eyeing of my scars, there is a charge
For the hearing of my heart----
It really goes.

And there is a charge, a very large charge
For a word or a touch
Or a bit of blood

Or a piece of my hair or my clothes.
So, so, Herr Doktor.
So, Herr Enemy.

I am your opus,
I am your valuable,
The pure gold baby

That melts to a shriek.
I turn and burn.
Do not think I underestimate your great concern.

Ash, ash ---
You poke and stir.
Flesh, bone, there is nothing there----

A cake of soap,
A wedding ring,
A gold filling.

Herr God, Herr Lucifer
Beware
Beware.

Out of the ash
I rise with my red hair
And I eat men like air.

i think i always knew that eventually,
i'd write about you.
i dont like to admit that i remember anyone who's gone
or was never here to begin with but
i've dragged five skeletons from my bed so far and
a wound half-clean is a wound infected.
i dont want to admit that your effect on me lasted longer than i'd hoped
despite my stubborn patience,
waiting for the stains to fade on their own.
i like to pretend that if you saw me as i am now
you might
see me the way i pretended you did
and the way i always felt on the verge of swallowing my tongue
would be mutual.
when i think about love i see you laughing, even though i know
that's not what i felt
but it's the closest i've ever been,
and i think that's good enough.
it's been eight months since we've spoken but i still imagine you reading these
alone and quiet,
or maybe in the midst of sound and laughter with my words
as a welcome cage.
but we're strangers now if we weren't already
and even when i saw you every day and
my poems were the only thing anyone
could respect,
i dont think you ever read them. i never asked you to,
it'd be too personal. and besides,
i knew this feeling wouldn't last.
i know this feeling won't last.
i can still see the way you looked at the ground when you smiled.
can you still see the way i tried too hard?
can you still see the way i felt like my bones were ground to dust
with the effort of not drawing your hands on every blank page
of my sketchbook.
this isn't my poem to write, and
yours isn't my name to say, i know.
i don't know if you were perfect or if i just
didn't know you at all.
don't think of me as weak. don't see me as sad.
just see me as a girl who mixed up all her emotions, a girl who
mistook loneliness for love,
and it stuck.
i don't think of you every day anymore,
but when it hits it hurts.
i don't know if i want to run home and rip apart every street to find you
and be honest for the first time
in my sorry life,
or hide in soggy peat until roots grow from my skin.
i know i don't love you but knowledge changes nothing except maybe
adding shame for feeling sick
anyway.
i'd like to see your sketchbook now.
i'd like to see what you draw now, i'd like to know
if you love your art now
the way you didnt when i knew you.
i'd like to know if you're loved where you are,
like you should be,
and if my name is any more
than an unused entry
in a dictionary youve never used.
ive been wearing clothes you'd probably like.
ive been drinking things you'd probably like.
i think i'm becoming more like you
every day
without wanting to, and i don't know if thats something you'd love
or hate.
this is the twentythird condolence letter i've written to you
but never sent,
but now at least its somewhere other than grafted to the roof of my mouth.
i don't know.
the only places i saw you were heat and concrete and dust
and sometimes
rain so heavy it pinned you to the earth, but here
the soil is so rich i feel like i could burst into leaves if i touch it and
like there are death caps beneath my skin,
growing in the damp air, i dont know.
i dont know .
sometimes this place is so pretty it makes me sick.
reminds me of how far-removed i am from anyone who makes me feel
real.
is there another version of me in your mind?
one more similar to the body i left behind,
more similar to the one i pretended to be for you,
do you think of me and panic? do you think of me to feel real?
my fingers have been hooked through your clavicle for the past two hours and i still
can't look your skeleton in the face
without feeling ashamed
for feeling.
you know a language i don't.
tell me the truth in a way i dont understand
so it's not another thing i have to know.
was my act convincing or were you looking at the ground
so the pity didn't show on your face?
was the reason you stopped watching me draw because you were afraid
one day
you'd see yourself on the page?
it hasn't happened yet.
i hope it never does, but sometimes
i can't help picturing you laughing,
looking down like my eyes are too bright
to look directly at.
sometimes i can't help picturing us in the heat back home,
sitting in the grass and
neither of us is crying, but i think
the stains you left on my skin are probably
art enough.
i have polished your bones bright white.
i have stuffed the eye sockets with paper so i can look you in the face.
shame fractures my sternum just from
the line of your jaw,
but the roof of my mouth is clear, and my sketchbook is still someplace where
i havent burned your image.
maybe tonight you won't be in the background of all my dreams. maybe tonight
i'll dream of saying goodbye.

the little games your mind plays, like when daddy screamed about how much he loved the windshield wipers in that old, old car. it is probably a mere scrap of metal now. you spent the afternoon on a bridge, in the forest, now your fingers are slow and a vibrant cold against the warmth of your kitchen. my first memory is a photograph. it gets easier to be alone the longer you are, i have found. we see the same constellation every night, Aryan lined up to greet us as soon as night falls. he takes over her like ivy on trees, wrapping its tendons tight around the skin, suffocating, asphyxiating. they say every person has a mind of their own, the contest between strangers; who can hold the steadier gaze? do your eyes glaze over at the sight of a smile? or do you match it with one of your own? the interaction between strangers is my purest form of socialization, the ease, the comfort.
the little games your mind plays, playing tricks on you all **** day.