Men who look like ferris wheels
every color representing different aspects of their personality

The first three words don't have to be beautiful
they just have to make sense
like connecting dots on paper

men who love with their fists
and hate with their mouths
who once were boys taking things apart
like remote controls their own fathers used to beat     Obedience into their small bodies.  Left them with a fury tattooed across their hearts
Just to give them the challenge of putting themselves back together

They buy their wive's flowers after
a four day bruise isn't so glaringly purple anymore
not so accusing-
kiss her broken ribs
and tell their children midnight stories

children trained as mood detectors
human robots
know when to shutup
speak when you are spoken to*

Men who speak like cutting boards
Every slice of the knives in their toungues leave
hollow aching missing parts
just to teach their children that not all
things can be put together once taken apart

whose daughter glues together the parts of old telephones
to spite the missing pieces
so every welt he beats into her bones
she sings herself unbroken
until she stands robust and imperfect
there are holes in her armour
but she holds it together

with her fathers fists.

death hold no triumphs
absolute and naked
do not promise me forever.

They stuff cotton down your mouth
Because it’s the only thing that doesn't choke you
When they try to muffle your sounds out
But you scream with your eyes better than you
Ever did with words

It’s a sharp sound that hurts to look at
And you knew that contradictions were the best arguments
you said  “Arguments are the best way to show someone
How much you love them because
you are giving them your words
And that is the best thing to give.”  disagreement said “Or you could give em’
Some of your M&M;’s.”

They hung mosaics of your destruction on the walls and called it “Art”
So you punched a hole through your bathroom mirror and called it “Creation”
Spent the fourth day naming your shards “Zues” “Cordelia”. Saved the sharpest one
And called it “Helen”, said “Pain only ever hurts when its beautiful.” Disagreement said
“You’re a ****** up sadomasochistic *****”

On the fifth day you dreamt your father held you
Except it wasn't your father it was a ******* who found you
frozen to a street light
On the sixth day you called me and said: “I have a name for creation;
It’s destruction.”
On the seventh day they found you praying to the  images on a TV screen
Holding onto a mathematical calculation in your hand
Calling it the formula to happiness
The numbers spelled out




D   R  U  G  S

i used to live in boxes,
not just the ones from packing my life
away and expediting it, or where i would
store myself under old refrigerators,
making soft buzzing noises with my tongue

i kept things in them, wings plucked
from butterflies and soaked in the
sickly sweet scent of formaldehyde.
it was satisfying to separate myself
from all the spheres of influence
and drops in the bucket
of my mind.

the past was all accorded for,
the present mattered not. i could get by
on scratching windowpanes for golden flecks
of light. as long as i had the memories of
being too young to understand thoughts,
i was okay, and okay was a word i could say
without regret. it promised nothing.

so what chance did you stand, all silver
and sparkles, speaking backwards and boiling over
with steam? you pretended it was virtue you were
smoking, hand-rolled, on the slowly sinking porch.
i could taste it as hypocrisy, some softest contradiction.

and i wanted to seal you off, garnished in
a soft sort of word salad, and dressed with adjectives
like “lonely” or maybe just a little bored. my way
was too angular for your knees, softly curved as they were,
and supple on my chest. you compartmentalized
so sloppily into a stream-of-consciousness story.

so there is a box for you, sitting somewhere, and i confess
that i always wanted to sleep alone. a can of soda
can be champagne if i’m celebrating something. and so
i think i’ll spend my night sugary and sober, painting
the sky cardboard and faded, like a memory without
a frame to hold it in.

I know someone who finds solace in ballet shoes
                A boy who strums his secrets to guitar strings
Someone that spends his waking moments with glazed red eyes
             As if facing this world cold turkey
                       Isn’t even an option.

For boys whose fingertips shake
                Like the burning end of a cigarette
And girls whose smiles resemble
Car crashes waiting to happen
A cacophony of shattered noises
             And those of us who feel guilty for the
                     mere act
                           Inhaling air
                        And exhaling poison
So we spend lifetimes holding our breaths

   Until we burn our lungs out trying
            To warm our hearts
            With something other than the fire
           That burns out in a smoky haze

Until our eyes become rivers,
flowing oceans
That cry out a thousand melted glaciers

Our tongues speak ruined languages
We read everything backwards
Curse in Latin
Make oaths in Russian
So whatever we say sounds beautiful.

So that our hands wont have to learn permanence,
affection
consolation.

Perhaps not love – at least akin,
this shatterbelt of sheets and limbs.
Our hearts break for the smallest things,

but if we're just two burning bees
in a forest full of cardboard trees,
I wish for drought, dry leaves, a breeze.

there's a reason we don't look back
because we most definitely don't need that
there's a reason we haven't relaxed
under the weight of steel tracks atop an overpass

and we've yet to stop running
and we've yet to stop deconstructing
we've concluded we can conclude nothing
a trick so tragically cunning

we've been tending to processes of the heart
pretending and mending images in your yard
posted up against the brick wall behind K-mart
where graffiti fades from concrete canvased art

there's a reason we don't look back
there's a reason we haven't relaxed

You're a solar system,
and I'm a rogue cosmonaut who
(having fallen in love with you  through a telescope)
has built a ship from the salvage
of lesser explorations;
now I spend my days
(or nights— hard to tell)
looking at you, chin in hand,
waiting for a place to land.