Something comfy but
ill fit, come get through this stretch
of time for a while

You and me
are like red
and green:

Good for
Christmas

But what
about the rest
of the year

A pair of young palms: one
bends to kiss the other
in the passengers seat.

A young she at the time
leans like a tree: only in
the extremities, while

palm fronds flick and flutter
shirt hems and tongue tips,

Wait, stop--

Words in haste laid
to wait against the force
of a singular intent to
bend a tree trunk.

Words are less
convincing than
demonstration,

are ineffective against
strength and conviction

To be like
the older
Dedalus
blood wooed
by grace of
language and
gesture,
blushing

conceding
to take a
cigarette

Waistband
hugs little
indents in
the hips in
its full
circumference

Temporary
permanence:
the ridges
mirrored
elastic strands
in fat flesh in
flat flesh in
trapped flesh
the rest in
arrest even
when it rests

I was
raised Catholic
after all,
which means:

I've been
tenderly pruned
by the

Shears of
Catholic Guilt

Newly waxed
legs
still have
patches

Even no
shave November
has its loop
holes

Were you
afraid
at all

When your
feelings strayed
so far from
your solipsistic
logic?

Free will:
the beauty
to deliberately
decide a choice
and act
accordingly
-illusory-

But the
freeness is
difficulty and
desperation

To be the
adjunct one
must primarily
be unnecessary
-or else of lesser
rank and authority-
and added to
an already complete
institution

Secondary
requirements
include a lack
of permanence:
why keep what
is only auxiliary
-indeed, I too
now see-

I let you do to me
what winter does to forest trees

But I suppose they don't
have much say in the matter

Love is just a chemical
like aspertame or
sulfuric acid

It's 4:53 and
I've woken from my
sleep to think of you and how

This whole speak
when spoken to thing
isn't for me and I've run
out of reasons to stay except
for bad timing and fearing

your immaturity and the
paltry amount of love
left I guess

I would stay if I
thought you wanted me

Better is better, but
not necessarily good:

Do I deserve better
or goodness?

Why can I not
tell the difference?

Water is
so filling

up fruits and
bodies of oceans
like people

Have you ever
felt the jolt of a name

the same but a change
of face? Do you like how
the drug always

hugs a little tighter
when you pull in
on the tip of the spliff?

I don't like hugs, but
do you like love?

Frozen pipes filled
with clear molded
folds of flesh
-like wrapped
up flowers,
budding-

No shower
to take
-not even a
cold one-

The sink is running only
warm to hot water, so
at least there's that

Would you want
to know or seize?
Are you able to

see which arms belong
to me and—can cling
to love undeserved—
in the meantime

I grow tired and sleepy
from forgiving you, so you
let me be your blanket, with
my head in the crevice of your
neck, and tuck yourself in with me

Made a fire
made of fire
maid of fire
underneath

Lit made me
glow

Held a flame
helm a flame
held aflame
on the beach

Lit made me
glow

I was going to
do an obnoxious
blackout post but

Decided against it,
because who really
needs or wants it,
anyway

And it's in these small
ways that you affect me

No change
-the only
thing that
remains-

Two sides
and the
ego
needs a win

Sinistral:
It's fine
-having
to switch
arms at the
end of
the dance-
and tiring

No blame
-the only
thing left
remains-

Frigorific:
the oversized pores
in the windows
and the
paucity of
you

I've not been myself
lately, I've been some
other archer firing off
blanks at a wide target

What's a poet that
doesn't write?
A thing that jot
down drivel before it
got down off its pedestal

There is an I beneath every
made decision despite my environment

My I exists and I notice
its being doesnt take up much time

I try to avoid
writing about you:

I consult with
deep sleep and music
instead, but

They lack what
poems have:
a permanent place
in performative space,

A sight full shape: like
the scent of your name exhaled
from the back of my throat.

I admit: time did not
properly permit love to
become anything more than
a thing that could have been done,
But

I've missed you,
                              -somehow-
I missed you,
                         -there are times, still-
I miss you

Child eyes
used to spin
the skies into
cotton candy
tasty cloud
nines

I wanted to make
you happy and feel like life
Bright like mine, not yours

My father wanted
a son and got daughters

Much like how I
wanted a lover and
got you instead

You were once
a grand influx of air:

fluffing up lungs,
puffed with oxygen.

But the inhale has
quickly become
a held breath

I still want
to talk to you

Details and pretty things
the strongest of foibles at hand

And on the other some amount
of certainty about the self, and
how it should be run and
perceived by others

She walks and
they watch:
a detail herself,
a pretty thing

I'm on all fours
I'm on the floor
I'm on the force
that turns the day back into night

You think
you know
beauty

better than
the bee, but

Flowers turned pretty
for them-- so we say
Flowers turned pretty
for them

because of evolution and propagation

and not how the bug sees
something pretty enough

--for a human
to say its pretty
enough--

and go to it

It's a strange feeling
not wanting to be pretty and approachable

but wanting instead to be
celestial and vaguely menacing

If only
the youth knew

We do not last,
this is not our life

What came after and
when comes before

My smooth skin akin to
a knowing or lack thereof

What is it? What's wrong?
It must be me.

An inability to think or speak
directly except a certain assertion:

Do not write poetry about him,
do not write poetry about him,

do not write poetry about him,
do not write poetry about him,

do not write poetry about him,
do not write poetry about him

Tossing words like Serta sheep over fences
to force the eyes back into sleep

I don't need
you to be completed

I need you
because I love you

Need like water upon waking,
not quite dehydration, just thirsty

Layer your love
atop me as brusque as
the strokes of an oil painting:
red over blue under yellow

Lying at the bottom
of an ocean

-enough plots of land
to plan on the
seafloor-

To make a home
where the sand
is strongest

Moon princess
prism power
activate monthly:
destroy everything

Basic
mathematics states:
it's just two
bodies
-merging into
a finite set
temporarily-
equating
to two bodies
again

A body exposed or
naked for pleasure
not yours: beauty

What do you do
after you've taken a bite
of the world and found
it unsavory?

Call the waiter to
return it and
eat the sun
instead

And if little
proclivity for
spicy food then
opt for dessert:

lick the moon
to its gooey
center

I joke about
being dead,

and it's funny
because it's true

The soul sings
of sweet succulent

freedom: not needing
much else but a sip of sun

and a
nudge of
water

here
and
there

I do not
want bitterness
in my words

To debase and
defame
Refute and refuse
no one and nothing

True truth
in its essence
transformed
and reformed
-impartial-

Slip slap
*** clap
tip tap
*** hat

The worst part is
not that I love you

It's in how you've
become some routine
within the familiar
comfort of us

The nature of disintegration
is erratic, and inconsistent, and stilted.

Again! Again!
wild shouts from
a child tossed
in the air, and
so it goes

I want you to be the only
one to make me ***

Again! Again!
and so it does
for the benefit
of the child

I don't see a future with you,
I never have

I am the ghost
-of chemicals-
in the air that
slow and
turn to rust

While the droplets
in the air rush to
turn to dust

Does the girl even
matter, or is everything
a matter of time

Arms and
sleepers
lurking amongst
us:
happily
and unaware

You don't put
a gun on
stage if you
don't plan to
use it

Trigger words

And then
gunshot wounds