Each one giving for the other.

But then we were giving too much
From a place we didn't have to give from
From dry wells we fed each other our earth
When what the other needed was sunshine and water

But we hid together beneath the earth
Building little tunnels between our wells
Digging out the earth underneath
Forming a wide chasm between our wells
Earth cleared out by our most ancient thoughts

Our network of tunnels
Each giving consent to our nightmarish coping
Easily excavating thousands of avenues
A complex and beautiful city grid
An Atlantis a la toxic-lovers-just-learning-to-love-well built in the earth and clay at the bottom of these wells becoming one
Sweeping breaths pouring more and more illness through our tunnels

Our relationship built of the mutual chemical compounds in the poison cups we drank each day and then began to feed to each other.

We needed therapy and instead we held each other on the shower floor wailing and surviving by filling each other up with the others' insides, then dumping that new cocktail back into the other, over and over and over again. For a few moments balancing our sloshing insides between our mouths.

Each one giving for the other.

I am learning to be free
I am learning to stop giving into the feeling that I am being watched
I am learning to lose myself in the present
I am learning to stop trying so hard to be anything other than what I am
I am learning to indulge myself in my every whim
Why not?
I’ve gone my whole life not indulging, judging, chastising, trying to fit, trying to be everyone’s cup of tea.
It didn’t work and I didn’t like it.
Now I think I will just be.

One time
You used the word
Reek
To describe how badly yours hands smelled of orange
And now sometimes when peel a cutie I think about
You saying
Reek
And how your hair flopped into your eyes
And that stupid watch
Everyone liked
On your wrist
Just there
Beside your fingers

I remember your thumb knuckle
I liked it a lot
I don’t remember your finger nails
But I remember the way
Your hands sent me
The way they felt on my skin
The way I craved them
The way that electricity jolted through my throat when your palm pushed against my Adam’s apple

For my withoutness of you
I can be humbled when I need
I can feel longing when my other seeds
Fail to take root

But

I wish I knew
You
Still

So

I could eat a cutie and
Not try to remember
The way
Your lips parted
And you flashed your teeth
When you said
ReeK

Feeling like maybe for now music is too much
For now all those sounds sound like noise
Silence accompanies the flick of my lamp
And the sudden quiet of my mind
Much better than the
Constant ***** beats and nasty flows
That used to charm my ears
Now the sound of crickets in the city
Are a luxury I simply can’t override with a synth pop track
Now the way my sweater brushes against my skin
The way my glasses rattle when I spin
Around the room to a tune I’m playing in my mind is all I want to hear
My neighbors air conditioner
The random honking car
The voices echoing down the hall
All these anonymous sounds call to me

They have no master
No order
No point
They exist simply because they do, they are collateral and in that they are everything.
They are collateral and they make up the experience of one entire sense.
And I only want to hear them speak
To know what my world sounds like

Honestly the way
That Maroon 5 is constantly playing in my head
Is music enough for me
Just to sink into a pocket
Unexpectedly while I order coffee
“Give me that red velvet”
Making my hips twitch and my brow hike
Is enough music for now
Harmonizing perfectly well with the din of the world
With the sounds of my body
With the breath from my mouth

Who Knows? Maybe moans retire
Maybe silence is something else to explore
Maybe deep in the quiet a voice is calling
Maybe here there’s a rhythm I have yet to explore
Of course there is.
Of course it calls.
Of course there’s more.

Jeans tight up to her waist
And a thick *** *****-line
water dribbles on her nails
From a jar of water that still smells like Ragu

It’s okay

I'm a sleek owl
With hooded lids
And talons razor sharp
My neck turns round
I weigh 2 pounds
And my call is like a harp
Who knows how I see the world
Who knows what I recall
Who knows if I live
To **** the kids
Who rule the streets  in early fall
I stay up late
And contemplate
Or maybe I don’t even think
Maybe I live in this tree up high
Counting the seconds until I can blink.