Nothing broke the fall like the pavement broke the angel bones, caught by the crater she made.

His **** is too long
but she can't complain.
Not because she is pleased
but because who complains that a **** is too long?
A lot of girls
not out loud

that's who.

She said he had a mathematical elegance. She said he held her bones up. She said in the fall they went a month and half without talking and that was what withdrawal must be like. She said he has an excellent ****. She said he liked music. She said she dreamt about him often. She said he would be this way. She said he had favorites. She said he talked about the government. She said he went on long drives, sometimes with her. She said he was a real man. She said they ****** in a hospital bathroom. She said he would beat people up for her. She said he would chop down trees for her. She said he liked candy. She said he liked to flush condoms down the toilet. She said he makes her laugh.She said she doesn’t know. She said she doesn’t know. She said she dreamt of him often. She said he waltzed the wrecking ball. She said he spoke between mornings to her when she pretended to be asleep and he would kiss the back of her neck afterwards. She said she remembered how he smelled after a day when they didn’t shower. She said she liked it best when her spit smelled like his spit. She said they ****** in his car. She said she saw him but he didn’t see her. She said she wanted to call. She said she watched him with his eyes closed. She said she couldn’t understand what he was saying sometimes, even though he was talking to her face. She said she thought it rained on days when she missed him. She said he must have loved more women than her. She said it was hard. She said it was hard. She said it was hard. She said they ****** in her car. She said they were never thinking of the same song. She said he asked her questions. She said she couldn’t sleep. She said he broke a mans nose in the street. She said they ****** in her bedroom. She said they stared at each other. She said he couldn’t sing. She said he was a car crash. She said she was a car crash. She said she would rather.

“I forbid you”
Which seemed to ask you to find something to do.
Odius,
Huge,
And Terrible.
Aren’t they your duties?

Discovering you talk like a cage.
I pretend like a renegade.
Nobody quite remembered, but that’s the way you wanted it.

In a flare of temper,
In a moment you could trust me with.

Cutting, like rings in a fist-fight.
Jumping, flying, drowning, floating

She said trying to fall asleep was like jumping.

Promises like traps:
with bills
and utilities
and watering bans
and road construction
and mixed district schools
and mall-fires
and field trips
and infomercials
and unaffordable abortions
and MTV
and Show and Tell
and homeless people
and freemason bolo ties.

You’re sick
You’re sick

She said she just wanted to know what it felt like.

as if you never would have found me,
as if you never would have caught me,
as if you never would have kept me
inside
outside
ribcages
veins

*when you find the right person
you just want to destroy them.

In this way you remind me of a dog fight:
Snarling or
shattering my ribs with silence.

Let me drown your panic at the tip of my lips,
I’m insisting this.

People waiting in line for your shotgun shell
and then you got to me like
****, I could get used to those thighs.

I want to fall into your stomach and have a party until you get a hangover from kissing me that way.

I started memorizing your scars and, baby, they make you prom night beautiful.

Twirl for me.

Please slow down.
I'm worried about them.

I see your babies
and I know they'd like you to watch
even though they don't say it.

In the end they'll be okay
but I saw that wreck
the truck
the glass.

I heard it.

Mother's never scream so hard as when blue police officers pry open a car and she's the only one in it
who can scream.

Yes,
I'm the one who gave the sign
that went unseen,
my only job.

If I could only be yellow forever.

And all the others, they stare,
wondering if I'll be taken down because of it.

But I'm not broken,
not yet.

You were still burning when I met you
and nobody blamed me
because I fell in love with a void.

They called you
The Black Hole of Calcutta
because of all the casualties that were mine
on accident.

They thought we were like the fallen street lamps on the interstate
who fell fighting
so everyone was looking at us saying
"maybe it would be better if you leave each other alone."
But you are my heart

I think about you like you were a dog.
The kind that droop, just made out of skin
(the sad kind).

I always wondered if the dogs would start crying in a ball on their bed, wrapped in blankets with their makeup running, trying to be quiet
(so their moms couldn't hear)
if I didn't call them.

But I know that dogs
(no matter how ****** you are to them)
always come back.
Like whatever you did wasn't that bad.

Like it was their fault.

Standing in line waiting to see your aunt
who looks like your grandma
because the last time you saw your grandma she was in a box
like your aunt's.

But the box isn't really your aunt's.

It belongs to everyone in the room.

Yes

Even you.

The white noise in my ears just turned off and it was the first time I looked around for you and you weren't there.

It was the first time I noticed.

I hadn't been able to hear the emptiness in the room, but it's louder than I remember it.
It's going to keep me awake all night.
I'm going to blame you.

I want to be beautiful
the way a car wreck keeps your eyes.

I want to be a detonation.
I want to be what's left after a riot with guns.
I want to be gauze on burn victims.
I want to be blood spatter.
I want to be teeth marks.
I want to be the burn in the retina.

I want to be that beautiful
and terrifying.
So that you'll never forget me.
And even if you do, you won't.

You've got a beautiful soul, you know
but you need more love in your bones.
I can't help but notice, you're starved.
Your mouth waters and your lips crack
in fact, I feel your heart grumble like a stomach.
And it's not my business, but listen,
this kitchen is big enough for a dance.
And I'm not sayin' me,
I'm just sayin'.

Spit me the glitter of the tips of your fingers giving me goosebumps that stick to my insides and lie to me.
Give me a ride, you know I paid for it.
Send the bullet in so I don't duck when the gun goes off, somewhere straight through so it doesn't give me heartburn.
Make me grin my own poison.

Make me eat my words.

Wake me up.

I'm trying to send you letters in the air
the way the pirates did it when they were in love with the sea.

Writing letters to you is like throwing paper on water and hoping the ink doesn't bleed and you see, the sea, she's always in love with somebody else.

But she dances like she's single.

Why do you look at me that way?
Like I'm a bird that turned porcelain and fell out of the sky?

Today,
A woman in Afghanistan walked into her bedroom.
She poured a gallon of gasoline
on herself
and lit a match.
She set herself on fire
and collapsed on the bed
burning her husbands sheets
and melting her skin to the mattress.

She was screaming
and hoping
he would smell her death long after she went up.

What’s that
Professor?
Sorry, I can’t hear you.
I’m wasting my $20,000 education
so I can get drunk
and sleep whenever it’s feasible.

Ooohhh… right, slaves.
Got it.

You are such a beautiful ruin
as if you dropped bombs on yourself.
Ruined like how Atlantis was ruined
and no one saw a difference.

No one bothered to look for a lost thing once so excellent.
Excellent enough to make people say “it was her time to sink.”
We’re a sabotage,
like the song I’m listening to.
Like moths listen slamming their faces against light bulbs.
So dim from standing outside for too long.
Standing and waiting.

Be careful.

Stop
don't move.
Keep away, stay away
keep away.

Be careful.

*"Don't you know
it's dangerous to play with fire?"

"Not for me.
I'm insured."

There's something in a kiss.
I've never been.

The quick cheek
or the lovers racing me to see
how many they can give before I turn green.

And even though I'm not,
I'm always green.

Hands out windows, lips blown.

A soft one,
carried to a small, chocolate-ed mouth
so mom can steer.

On the corner every day, waiting at my red
at 3:30 or 3:35,
not as practiced
but meaning as much as a kiss can mean
at thirteen.

But it must be the hopeful one that gets me most, stuck on an envelope, paused at the box.
No one else waits on toes like she does
or kisses paper
like a person.
Deliberate,
and I can almost see it kiss back.

She lets it go and goes herself
and I wish I was every light
to make sure she was safe.

The girl I talk to in my class

so eager to tell me about her boyfriend.



Is this how girls make friends?
So polite,

most girls don't laugh when they don't know you.

It's unbecoming. 



But when I see the cracks uprooting your eyes

I know there is something there that runs deeper
than your jeans
or your shirt
or your cute purse, 
cute purse, cute purse, 
cute purse.

You are seven years old,
a machine that makes babies,

bought for 21,000 pounds of tobacco.


You live in the 5th line
of the
 75th page
of my 
civic government textbook.


I will never know what is to have

owning hands in my mouth, 

owning hands around my waist, 

owning hands up and down my legs,

to be sold.


You will never know what it is

to sit in the back of a lecture hall

and take your knowledge for granted.



And this is the only moment I will ever clearly see you.

I see it on your tongue, what you taste to say
and it stays there despite my kisses.

You hide it in the fold of your cheek.

It dare not come out,
as if it were like all other said things,
wrapping softly over my face and neck
making my head hot.

The air has heaviness,
fallen questions that wanted to be god.

You were saying something lost in my hair.
Only your jaw clicks.

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.

Me keeping you keeping me keeping you
awake.

I almost fall asleep
I wake up again so I don't miss what's left of you.

I want the yolk of you
to crack you open and sip your soul.

And I don't know how to say this,
but I think you're beautiful on the inside.

I bet your liver has lights
and I can tell

but really I just want to crawl inside you for the pretty things.

And I know you're tired
and I know you need to sleep
but I can't lose you to sleep.

I like you too much.

There's a bug stuck in between the window and the screen
and I think about how he got there
and how ******* ******* he must be,
and if he's even a "he".

But even if he got out,
he wouldn't go anywhere important.

And I wonder if bugs know that glass is glass.

A person once said to me,
"Love guides you."
I don't know about that,
but I know I can't sleep
because the outline of you
is still traced into me.

And every time I try,
my eyes
burn, wet socket fire.
And I drink to sleep a dreamless sleep
because in my dreams
I feel your head in my chest.
My bones are your bones
and we dance.

My face gets close to yours
and I whisper from a movie
and everyone in the theater
cries when we kiss at the end.

You must've been a supernova
because I can't see anything else.
You must've fallen from heaven
and right onto me because I'm paralyzed.
You must be a drug,
because I shake when I take you.

And I can't take you.

Love guides you.

Off a ******* cliff.

Oh… hey.
Fancy seeing you here.

I thought I could tell
by your laugh, but
maybe not.

Sorry about that.

I thought I could tell
by your clothes,
but that's shallow.

And you make me nervous.

I thought it was your taste in movies.
You mentioned one of my favorites.

Sorry I assumed you'd like me because we had all the same interests.

Then I thought
I should talk to you,
but you didn't seem like
the type of person
who was good at talking to strangers.
I'm not that type of person either.

But if I did, I would've asked you everything.

It’s all right, zombie husband.
I didn’t like the dog.
Or the twins.
Seriously, all they did was cry.
It’s like, “shut up, already”,
You know?

Everyone is holding hands,
makes me miss you.
Not because you had hands,
or anything.

This parachute is crushing my ribs so that
my knees buckle when I land.

I feel sick.
I ***** up post-its and
menthol cigarettes
and pages of a movie script.

Inside jokes drip off my chin
when my eyes
roll back inside my head.

There's too much sweat
on my upper lip out,
out without warning doubled over
come collaborated lyrics that ****
sticking to quotes from books that speak to us.

I put a message in a full bottle of
gingerbread schnapps
so you won't know what it says
when you get drunk
and this parachute won't come off.

On sticky wednesday nights I entertain mannequin friends
on a porch with no railing.

Fake rain leaves trees I sip iced tea to the sound of imaginary fighting.  

Breathing comes in heavy gulps
between no conversation.

The next door neighbors leave their blinds half shut
and their tv on
so ghosts dance on the lawn.

This elevator makes me wonder:
Could we be best friends forever?
Cords breaking overhead
knees shaking, breath breathing
Could we be best friends?

The time it takes for a train to derail
is the same amount of time to kiss a stranger
on the mouth.

Toast our ten second anniversary when the plane hits water.

Forever started when this bank robber put a barrel to my temple
and guided me down to you.

Spend the rest of your life holding my hand.

I need someone to see me,
even if it isn't you.
I swallow
and hiccup heartbeats.
This is stuff that I've always wanted to say
but never did.

You have become a song, a dance,
a phrase.
I miss you,
but only what I remember.

I don't have words, just carousel music.
You have become my memory of you
and everything you've ever wanted
wants you, too

I like the way you say my name.
When you call it, I listen.
You say my name like
you know what you're talking about.

My name,
it feels safe in your mouth.
It was born and raised there.
It's whole family is there and
it had block parties
with all seventeen cousins there.

My name spent bathing suit summers
running through sprinklers
just behind your teeth.

It's comfortable there.
I know my name always has a bed
under your tongue.

Even if you couldn't
say my name ever again,
I know I'd still like the way you say my name.

I like the way you say my name.

Sure, I’ve been in love.

I fall in love with people who buy the same drink
and people who sit three seats in front of me
and maybe
even the people who walk next to me for a while.

I fall in love with the boy on the bench outside English
and the boy  who just passed on his bike.

I fall in love with backs of heads
and shoes attached to legs
I’m in love with
voices two flights down and the barking laugh
walking past.

And I’m probably  in love with you
or have been before.
It might have happened twice
and you might have never met me.

Another moment and I won’t remember your face.
But, trust me,
I love you.

Maybe one day you’ll catch my eyes
and fall in love, too.
And then we can spend our entire lives
in love.

And in the mornings
the sun can cascade
onto our blankets
to pry us from our perfect sleep.

It’s always super you
saving every girl
held up at every jewelry store
or thrown off any bridge.
You and your windblown hair
and those beautifully deceiving eyes,
looking down and sparkling darkly
as you smile a kryptonite smile.

But your arms
so strong
could carry me miles
and never feel the heavy that lives in my chest.

Capes do get stuck in jet engines.

Getting pretty for no one.
Standing in
the bathroom mirror
and the clock
ticks backwards.
Mascara smears
on painted hands and
that hair
will never
shine
so bright as it does
as on top of a cold city.

High in a penthouse
but, still
no one
can sing the sky to sleep
the way you
used to.

So,
Let’s continue to pretend
we are people
we are not,
wearing clothes that don’t fit
and tucking our wings
into our suits.

Cash register chimes
same beat
every time
and my hands are full.

I owe ten cents
and the Invisible Creator
calls for a price check.

Out to the car and tonight
where you stand
with many different someones,
but I can taste your stares on my almost empty bottle.

I don’t happen to meet your arms goodbye.