hands that sizzle against skin
fingernail markings
and angry pink marks on my neck

a thumb pushed harshly against my lips
but only slightly

fingers, not tracing ,but hungry
following familiar paths on strange
bodies and the urge to just shut me up

or argue on a different plane

the look of victory on both sides
neither willing to compromise but
aware that the sheets are the white flags
not so much swaying but rather tangled
and pushed aside for peace talks

lingering looks over half filled glasses
whispering when you don't need to but
just to know how it feels to have your face
on their neck and letting them know
you're thinking of it

pulling back at the last second,
let the moment before the kiss last
as long as it can possibly go on for

watch your arm break out in anticipation,
******* hard against soft fabric and
wondering if you're also thinking of
my clever mouth against your skin or
your face between my legs

staring at you fingers, i wonder if they'd
slip in smoothly on the first attempt and
i watch you fidget with your belt

and wonder if you're thinking you'd like
me to be there to carefully and attentively
undo it while i tell your foreign policy
seems to be lacking

your drunk, nibbling on something sweet
and your hands move in circles
i wonder what you're thinking of
as i nibble on a pencil

seven hours and i wonder if
conversation would last that long
were we sitting in the same room

we talk culture clashes and imperialism
you say i'm a perfectionist and
i say you don't think things through

and the morality of *** lingers on our tongues

1.
i fear you more than i love you

2.
sometimes i wish you were dead so that i wouldn't have to leave you but i wouldn't have to live with you either

3.
i went to dinner with a friend you forbade me to see. when i hugged him, his body was neither as soft nor as warm as yours and i didn't like it very much. there was no ****** tension; only liberation, and deep, deep guilt.

4.
sometimes i lie to you about my phone being out of battery. it's on airplane mode because i need some time to myself and you don't like it when i ask for "alone time". why do you need alone time, you always ask. i don't know how to explain it to you anymore.

5.
i wish i had never met you because i am in a cycle of evil and fear and guilt and pain and sure some days you make me feel loved but mostly you just drive me insane. insane, not in the oh my gosh i'm so in love way but in the i don't know what's real anymore way.

6.
i feel weak because i am not strong enough to leave you.

7.
i feel strong because through it all, i have survived.

A lot of poetry
comes to me while I'm
driving
because theres
an awful lot to take in
on the road.
Like the woman in the
minivan who came tearing up
out of the ether like Death himself
only to cut me off
and I couldn't even be mad
about it because
She had a life sized rabbit
stuffed animal collection
on her dash board
and before I could even guess
where she got them,
there's a guy leaning out of his
truck flipping off another person who
is texting while driving
and I think back to what a pastor
told me:
"If you want to see an example
of original sin, just go drive on the freeway"
But to me,
freeway driving
is just high speed poetry
waiting to happen.

i followed, until the follower button broke and suddenly
sullenly you're verified hanging out with other pretty things
amenity people, furniture unwrapped from foreign places
making flirty faces with the next boy and the next ones after that
i followed until my patience broke and the pride flooded in
rejection swiftly came within the bucket my heart was found within
just because it feels so good, you knowing my secrets
and stalking my social media like my biggest fan
it doesn't mean a thing if i don't know you at all like i used to

enter stage left: the regret part nine hundred and seven

maybe we're too young to feel something real between us
bottles of liquor on your mini fridge, messing around
with each other's bodies all this reddened afternoon, forgetting
the crisis seems so averted when the asymptotic answer
is just forgetting it exists and you can do way better than
hanging out with me but here we are
i swear i can make it worth something for you to remember
well i'll be the one you'll take home tonight or tomorrow
in that red convertible like a weird chainsmoker song
and i'll forget it's 2017 just for the whole ride.