I can’t sleep. It’s 4 in the morning.
I’m thinking of disappearing.
Not running away, but actually
wishing to be gone. As in the body
has had enough replenish and wants
instead to be a vacuum.
As in the body is
the only place that
has no interim between
detonating a bomb
and the residue falling
like featherweight acid hail.
Looping forever like
a memory without suffer.
No absurd pain
of shattered bones, no healing
required.
Do I want this?
I want sleep. It’s 5.

The truth is, my love does not, after all,
await me in a different world. All those nights

looking up didn't pull him closer, as there was
never anything to pull to begin with. The planets

wheeled along their given orbits, tethered snugly;
bodies unwilling to cut the grapnel, a beautiful order

and quiet dance. Stars kept exploding as I waited
for me to be beautiful. Stars hot and menacing.

Each movement a wager to rupture the fabric of time.
Maybe it is not that I'm made of stars, as the saying goes.

Perhaps nothing relates me to it.
Sadly.

But its chaos is my forward.
Its tails are my wishes.

Starburn plasma, galactic spasm,
why does starlight show me boys I can't fathom.

The neighbour is looking through his telescope
now, unbuttoning his shirt, snatching moments

to take swigs of cola. I wish I could be him.
Live in his mouth. Take his voice. And stay

quiet forever, or as long as it takes for stars
to swallow nearby stars. If that's even how it works.

I’m sorry if love didn’t work out.
There are other forms of worship.
Or maybe that’s why it didn’t work out.
You made him into a jezebel.
He wanted to be skin, bone, breath,
touch, sinew, sweat. Not God.
So now you’re stuck with an imprint
of a person you barely gave time
to settle in — how could that happen?
Residue even when he walked on air.
Sourmouth lingering there when you
close your eyes. Every letter of his name
spelling a fragrance that betrays pure-grade
everlasting peace. Your heart choking on its
own spit. His ***** inside you hardening
into a lair for a nightmare still brewing.
I’m sorry if I never held you the way
you wanted to be held. Sorry for starting
aerobic sessions of always wanting
more. For expecting you knew how to repair
a body addicted to electric shocks.
I told you. Didn’t I? I promised ruin; you pushed
unblinking. I wanted someone to invent
a new period of day between morning
and nighttime, but the only thing we ever
came up with was dimness.

Before midnight.
His breath turns to smoke
in mid-air. Sorcery.
I try, too.
Inhale. My lungs fill,
swallowing cold.
Like fingertip pressing on raw meat
fresh out the freezer.
The chill spikes, envelops
my body. Like my spine
is out.

Then, exhale. But it doesn't
Turn to smoke.
Instead, vapor.
Instead, mouth still open.
Instead, vanish.
In this suspended wait
He touches my back
and instantly I stop being a person
and weigh only as much as
dust mites, or the
germs in air corroding steel,
or the air. Probably the air.
Most likely the air.
His air?

I would like my breath
to turn to smoke.
Like Him. And with Him.
Instead, I learn to lose.
Instead, midnight finishes
its dark role, the light appears,
and the city before us
says Die.

Bark and blemish. Toads
ribbiting amid ***** dark.
Poison underneath lip balm,
prayers and price tags
scattershot amongst pared
rosebuds. I feel like explaining.
But I can’t. Just imagine
the sun peeking above,
morning starshow, skinmelt.
Fingertip whorls
pinking with sheen.

Spin softly.
Touch pebbles like your
finger will sink by mere impact.
Melt right here, in this place.
Not there, inside the heart
full of porcelain turtle doves
and twigs. But here, in my hands,
where a map of surrender is
eating itself.

As fast as fire
burns animal skin, as fast as
phantom secrets slither through
crowded teeth, I will answer the door.
And you will appear. Though dripping wet.
Though missing parts.
Though fallow heart.
Mine, then ours.