The candle stores
can't candle
fabric softener on your clothes
or the bit of alcohol
on your sleepy breath
or your chest after a shower.

I checked.

Your mustard gas lungs would
fill up this room.

There is only good
on top and around you,
ointment that is not yours
that you do not appreciate
that keeps  
your tar stomach from
eating your shell.

I don't look at your teeth when you talk.

You are guilty
and you will never be better.
You can fall
to not climb back up,
comforting that
you don't have the tendons in you.

There must be
a flame somewhere
to solve this.

I finally knew what you meant
when she said she wanted to keep your eyes.

I want your eyes back,
I want your hands back.

I wonder if you knew that being in the same room would cause us to gravitate and dance together even if we weren't allowed.

Before you die, promise you won't warn me.

When you die, just die.
to take everyone with you
or quietly
but do it.
Later
but not before.

If you tell me,
I'll know if we die together.
It won't be any fun if you tell me
before the building catches on fire
or even before I give up smoking or
even before I realize I'm not looking at the road.

I want to remember your face the way it looks on my wall.

Someone put a filter on the world

Drive into the inky oblivion and I think we're going to die today.
The oil spill breaks in clouds.

This is a painting of hell.

We're standing in the middle of what the sky should look like
and what it looks like.

The air is impossibly clear.

I imagine if I were a little boy, I'd get a little boy ******* by watching teenage girls buy underwear.

And if I were a little boy, I'd punch my brother so hard he'd start to cry
And I'd die laughing at him,
take back my nerf gun, just for fun in the sun
and I don't get burned
because I haven't had a girlfriend yet.

I think little boys ******* the wrong way for a while
but still smile
because they're *******.

Still keeping it secret from mom,
nothing's really wrong, it's the bomb,
but turn up this song

It'd be weird if mom heard all the pokemon names I keep saying to stay hard.

If I were a little boy, I'd be mean to the little girls I like.
Push them off their bikes and get into fist fights
with other boys over toys that aren't even mine.

And I'd keep all my promises by the pinky,
and if we got married under the oak tree
in my backyard, I'd keep you forever
and we could watch goosebumps every night together.

The little boy version of me doesn't get heartbroken
and isn't smokin' anything.

He doesn't get wasted and tasteless,
grab ***** and faces,
screaming about cheating and beating up some guy just to prove he's alive.

His shoes light up
not the headlights of the car that peels out of the bar
angry
not thinking straight, into the house, irate,
to deliver hate, and take out any sons ready to stand up to him.

He doesn't sell drugs,
he gives hugs at thanksgiving
and isn't too strung out to watch an entire disney movie
and would never be caught dead on the streets
shakin' a can for money because his habit's are debilitating and killing him.

He sleeps with one girl, her name is Daisy.
She's a lazy cocker spaniel
and loves him more than you ever will.

He likes cartoons and afternoons playing tag in all front yards
throwing snowballs at cars, going to mars on a swingset
because he's not grown up yet,
and the world hasn't told him what it really thinks about him.

I don't buy underwear in front of little boys.
And it's nothing against them or their little boy friends,
I just don't want me to be another key in the inevitable end
when they try to get into girls *******
instead of heads.

Then you felt so small
even though you were bigger than me
and always would be bigger than me,

I held you like you weren't and I was more scared than you'll know.