M4W - Seeking young **** 17 year old to objectify and kick out of high school prom - must have womanly figure but only be a teenager - fingertip length dresses are OK - must be a child but still able to make me envision having *** with you - will be on the balcony ogling my daughter's friends and high-fiving other dads with my ****.

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?

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.

To save time
we made our phones into computers
and send notes into space to tell people we care

even though time never asked to be saved
and probably doesn't give a **** anyway.

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.

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.

Learn to love the fall,
to disappear like a radical ghost
shaking chains as a forgotten name.

Make your nests in piles of broken mirror glass,
court heartbreak like a 19th century candlelit lover.

Smile at the No,
bring it into your chest,
breathe it in warm.

Collapse the roof,
blow out the window,
cradle your shattered legs and kiss them like sleeping children
when they try to drag your broken body from the burning building.

And get your blood all over everything.

Gravity pulls water onto the floor
to trace my skin like a lover.

The steamed mirror can be anyone
if you’re not a biased audience
and I paste faces on bodies for spare minutes.

My hands are loaded guns
you have to get comfortable with
on parade day.

This is not a love story
it is a witch hunt
and Gravity has been the only thing that has ever caught me.

You had me at
"Lock the door."

I paused the movie to hear the couple fighting outside.
She said "You haven't talked to me at all tonight!"
and he said "What?"

But I know what they really meant to say was "I get stupid when I see you and I don't know what to do about it."
Then she slapped him and ran back inside crying.
It was an awkward moment for me in someone else's life.

It made me think about the video on how penguins mate forever.
And about how we're not penguins and how monogamy makes promises like traps
And how the only thing we have in common with penguins
is that we give each other rocks
and that means I love you until the sun explodes.

And how?

How come penguins can get it more right than us?
They can't even fly.

And when I watched this kid clutch his face as he wondered what he did wrong,
I can't help but ******* hate
all the happy penguins for him.

You stupid penguins,
you all look like you're going to a fancy party all the time
you stupid penguins
you run like your pants are down
you stupid penguins
you're gonna have someone to sit on the couch with forever
and you can't even fly!

What happens when you realize your penguin lover is immature
and he overeats the fish
and he's always late to things?

What happens when you realize your she-penguin has really bad penguin depression and you don't know how to deal with it?

What happens when you realize you both met too early and now you're different penguins?

I'll tell you what happens.
They stay together.
You know why?
Because he gave her a ROCK.
That's why.
Because, to penguins
rocks mean more than mortgages
and wanting to go to Hawaii
and step children
and sprinklers
and school districts.
They can keep a marriage alive with some instincts
and a ******* egg to sit on.
PENGUINS
Stay together longer than 50% of any couple you've ever met

And they can't even fly!

But maybe a bird
that knows how to fall in love better than us
doesn't need to know how to do that.

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.

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.

When I was 18 I learned a lesson in jewelry:
A pocketwatch that taught about loss
that was never mine to lose.

I borrowed the euros I paid for it.

Most loss is something felt by ranchers
and bankers
and stock brokers.
Because they own the things they have.

You are not mine and so I cannot lose you.

That's free sadness
and free happiness, too.

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.

The wall of the supermarket entryway
tells the story of how a housewife got a part-time job
 to save up enough money to run away.

She needs an accomplice 
watching her kids
from eight a.m. to three p.m. 
every day
besides Sunday.

Little bombs go off in the background while

patriotic cupcakes
make their escape
past the stories with 
tabs torn off.

No cars turn left 

when the memories of our forefathers 
light up the sky.



We can smell independence a day after.

I was born in soft chaos
with the mystery womanhood clean on my lips.

I am
just like every other girl

and even if you can’t understand it
you can’t take it away from us.

You are right to be afraid.

Talk to me like
Minimum wage.
Three kids in different grades
happy to get sneakers on Christmas.
Two to a bed until puberty
hoping bus fare doesn’t go up.

Talk to me like
I’m sorry I can’t hear you
I’m scared that I’m pregnant and what my boyfriend will do
because I don’t want to marry him
but if you’re pregnant you keep it and you marry him.

Talk to me like
Can I help you?
I’ll trade you for some tuition money.

Talk to me like
Let me go check in the back
My brother’s in jail again
because he broke into our house to steal money
and he’s high again and it’s his fault
but it’s Dad’s fault for leaving.

Talk to me like
I’m sorry
I apologize
What can I do
Here’s a discount
Like she cheated
Like he’s dead
Like I’m you
in my shoes.

I want to go home but I don't have a home.

I live in the middle space between where you're driving from
and where you're driving to.
I live on backseats and inside large purses.

I live in vending machines
and beds you used to sleep in all the time
but don't sleep in anymore
because you moved away.

I live on driveways that got redone while you were gone,
and new haircuts you couldn't see because you weren't there.

I live on promises that we'll do something.

I live in those cool new sunglasses you got,
but they broke,
and I never got to see your wear them.

I live in the little space between you and your lover,
the one that feels like "I love you"
but really means
"I love you, but I'm not in love with you."

I live on unsatisfactory naps
and the island your friends put you on when you finally said what you'd been wanting to say.

I live under the rug when you complain about people behind their backs
because no one really knows how to tell someone they don't like them
for who they are...
as a person.

I live in every spare shoebox that isn't filled with notes
and gets jealous of the other shoeboxes that are filled with notes.

I live on the top bunk
and I've never fallen off

but I'm still kind of scared that I will one day.

I live on the laugh that lets me know you're still listening.  

I live where I never wanted to live,
but I live here,
because I choose to live here.
And you live there because you choose to live there,
even if it doesn't seem that way.

I'm here and you're there.
I'm here for you and you're there for me,
even if it doesn't seem that way.

This is where I live.
You should send me a letter some time.

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.

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.

Some days we are passive,
but nighttime must be filled with kinetic terror.

Given or gotten,
like a rash.

It is how we sleep
or don't.

I like to watch Letterman.
Not that **** Leno *******.
And so what if I have a gin and tonic?
I'm 67 for Christsakes.
So what if I have a cigarette?
It's my ******* house.
So what if I fell asleep in my chair?
So what?

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.

I'm sorry everything I did was just sweet way to make you leave,
surfing on waves made of maybe I'll kiss you again
getting high off disappointment without knowing that's really how all those movies end.
And all you wanted was my heart on a plate
and baby, maybe I said no,
but I'm still bleedin' from the hole.

And I backtrack all the slanders for the moments you got me to believe in you.

I may have made up a lot of dumb excuses
but they were exclusively to your benefit.

and I remembered the line in your shoulder
and the wine I had out of a water bottle last night
and how everyone around me was on acid
and how I was 22 and if I got cancer this early
at least I didn't know about it yet.

and I wasn't scared
and I wasn't scared
and I practiced what it felt like so I could remind myself later.

We are learning to make fire.

It's always the moment just before the gunshot.

Why do I remember it as summer all the time, then?

They gaze at me and see a chainsaw ****** just before it happened.
You think I'm not a goddess?
Try me.
This is a torch song.
Touch me and you'll burn.

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 know you are an explosion of chemicals,
heart races,
marvels,
sweat, spit, teeth, lips.

You are momentary

but so am I.

He asks her in a whisper
“What makes people beautiful?”
and she can’t say.

We see it where his jaw
meets his neck and makes
a long shadow.

Invisible except for the way
her hand drags each finger
through hair, behind an ear.

But that’s not a real answer.

Mirrors look back in lies while
scientists probe our souls
to find where they reside.

People wrapped together
in a present for each other
answer with a smile.

When the aliens came to take our humanity
they made us choose which part.

I chose sleep
and felt like I had won
until every night you left me for it.

When you lie there gone to a place I could never go
I guess it felt like I couldn't do anything
but wait for you to come back.

She liked to feel like she was drowning in him
the hard way.
Because it made her love her lungs.

"My love, I don't want to hurt you"
sounds like a promise
the A-Bomb made to Nagasaki.

*"My love, I don't want to hurt you

but I will."

Blacked out again,
unsurprisingly,
swallowing the room.

Spinning in a lucid dream,
blessed to consume.

Breaking into.

Ash shadows
drill bit chest
I am not your savior
I am a suitcase bomb
I only devour
breathing fire

and I will apologize to no one
for doing what I said I would.

If you wanna leave me
then you must be smart.

You must know
I pick fights with my lips when I kiss
That there's barbed wire at the end of my tongue
That I get into your spine when you sleep
and stay in your lungs after you breathe me in.

If you wanna leave me,
it's because you're a little scared to **** me
because you're afraid I won't like it
And what will happen if I actually do.

Like,
maybe I shouldn't kiss this girl
because I'll either break her
or catch something.

You must know my eyes will close up your throat.
So, baby,
let me make you bedridden

Or you can go.

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.

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.

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.

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.

I felt nothing when you kissed me.

Only your paper lips
moist with words you said to get me here.

But it's just the words I want
and all the rest feels like chalkboard dust on my hands.

I remember what this excitement was
like the memory of grabbing a sparkler that just went out.

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.

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.

I climbed up your arms and had a fight in your collar bones
because I wanted to taste what you thought of me.

So, when I wake you up don't be mad
because I wanna feel your breath on me,
your smile against my face,
contagious
and in that moment I feel I'm growing again
instead of dying.
And can you please, please
be at least half of what I think you are
instead of me being me
and wrong.

Don't be mad when I put the crown on you,
I wanna see if it fits
and if it sits right, or at all
I'm fine.

Stars blink their tired eyes at me
for the first time in a long time.

A looping chorus ribbons through my ears making music through my hair carried by the wind.

Eyes closed, nose breathing,
my smile laughs for me
while I swallow air.

Dizzy heads come faster two-thousand feet above sea level,
with conversation catching up quickly.

There's a picture of you on the back of my eyelids
so I grin when I blink.

For the days when you're moving so slow
and the universe is moving so fast.

Blush in a shade of bruise
leaving trails on collars and bones.

"Siren, siren
Body language me.
Concave me in wrong angles.
Sift through my sand and prospector me."

Every man wants to be saved by an angel
but heaven's just a mirror of hell.

Fellow puddle jumpers of the world,
gather your
sidewalk worm armies
and meet me for hot cocoa.

Tonight is the battle
of getting it wrong.

Tonight we fail
the wrong tests.
Tonight we kiss
the wrong person.
Tonight we go to sleep on
the wrong side of the bed.

Ghandi said
"Be the change you want to see in the world,"
so we will be them all
and ring in walking pockets.

Tonight we have a big enough gut
to swallow the world
and stomach it all

Because if we fall asleep
on the wrong side,
we don't have to wake up on it.

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.

Your distance felt like how it looks when cops break up a riot
with pepper spray.

I kept saying I've been here before.

I went through all the old poems I wrote
and I realized I was afraid to write some about you.
Because you know the rule:
Whatever you write becomes truth.

I kept texting my friends about the light pole sticking out of my chest
and they all said things like
"I think you're just making a bigger deal out of the light pole sticking out of your chest than you need to be."

The moment I felt you leaving I beartrapped you
so no wonder you're bleeding
I started seeing visions of the amount of time I would spend crying in my bed
divided by trying to remember everything you said
and what tone you said it in and what time of the day it was and what I said before that and what tone I said it in and what time of day it was and what it was in response to and why did I say that But in the middle of my trench warfare...


I heard a lightbulb on the top of my head
that sounded like me, but smarter, and she said

"You gotta give love to get love and you gotta do it for free."


So this is how it feels to stop drowning.

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.

His ear-to-ear smile infects everyone,
too big for just his face.
It cracks the strong jaw of anyone who doesn't know
to open their throats and give them a taste.

Laughing is like music
from his broken open mouth
and it drowns out sounds that threaten to calm it,
contagious enough to bring tears to eye sockets.

Oh, but, oh you see it in her now, too
and soon the whole room
full of it, bursting

Fully Cooked Steaks.

Except she’s the one who brought it here
tenfold like a wildfire virus that lights him up and lights her up
and they’re two standing lamps, the old kind, with clocks in ‘em to wind and keep the time
forever.

And in the ravaged swirl they are glowing.

And we’re all clapping.