TELL ME ABOUT THE GIRL THAT STOLE YOUR HEART. TELL ME ABOUT THE GIRL WHO GAVE IT BACK. TELL ME ABOUT THE GIRL WHO RIPPED IT OUT. TELL ME ABOUT THE GIRL WHO RAN WITH IT, LIKE A THIEF IN THE NIGHT. TELL ME ABOUT ME, ABOUT HOW I RUINED YOUR LIFE WITH POEMS AND SCARRED BODIES AND PANIC ATTACKS. TELL ME ABOUT HER, ABOUT HOW SHE DID NOT HAVE MY FEARS, MY PROBLEMS, MY THERAPY. TELL ME ABOUT HOW GOOD SHE WAS AND HOW HAPPY I MUST BE THAT YOU HAVE DOWNGRADED FROM THAT TO A GIRL LIKE ME. TELL ME ABOUT YOUR GOOD LIFE BEFORE ME, ABOUT THE DATES AND THE ***** AND THE ONE NIGHT STANDS. TELL ME ABOUT HOW YOU USED TO LIKE THE TRAIN UNTIL I GOT AN ANXIETY ATTACK WHEN WE WENT ON IT.
I AM SORRY FOR RUINING YOUR LIFE WITH MY PROBLEMS. I AM SORRY FOR ALLOWING YOU TO LOVE ME.

i
                                                         am
                                                                                                                  not
                                                           a
case
                                                          to
                                                                                                                 crack.


i
                                                         am
                                                                                                                  not
                                                     someone
you
                                                    introduce
                                                                                                                  to
                                                        your
mother.


i
                                                         am
                                                                                                                  not
                                                   someone
you
                                                        love
                                                                                                                  with
                                                        the
lights
                                                         on.

and here i am again
at the intersection
of pedestrian language
& old wives tales
swallowing gum
like 7 year memories
opening umbrellas inside
cause i can't seem get away
from all of this rain
i ******* with my left hand
cause i was told
back in highschool that
"it feels like someone else is doing it"
it gets me wondering
about the difference between
losing you and finding out
that some one else found you
or my sleep
or lack thereof
its starting to tear me apart
i keep having this dream
where you are in
an unfamiliar body of water
trying to wash my poetry
off of your hands
or the one where
something happens in my chest
every time you sit
on someone else's bed
i'm tired of feeling like something you've misplaced
but don't have the heart
to look for anymore
tired of you saying my name
like you're trying to bury it
i'm tired of wondering
if you can tell the difference
between the absence
of my voice & silence
the other day
i almost started sobbing
at work when a woman
asked me about
our equipment
i was explaining how
things come apart
and almost mentioned your name
it made me think
of how you used to say
things like "what would you do
if i showed up on your doorstep
one day?" now, i haunt
the windows in my house
i don't leave for weeks at a time
i sit on the porch like the dog
you didn't shoot behind the shed
the one that refuses to die
until you come home again
i told somebody once, that
you didn't even know
what my voicemail sounded like
i wonder if they thought
it was because you
are so important that i never
let it ring that many times
before picking up
or if you dont know
what it sounds like
because you've never called
you can't be the ****** weapon
and the search party
i'm tired of all the seats
to the ferris wheel in my chest
being empty
tired of your voice
being the one i look for
in abandoned places
that one sound i beg
to bounce back
down vacant hallways
i just seem to stand there
in all of that quiet
like someone looking for a mistake
on an eviction notice
so i guess the hardest part
isn't letting go
it's forgetting
you ever had a grip
in the first place
and since you've been gone
i wonder if when
you pushed yourself away from me
you used your left hand
so it felt like someone else did it

here's how it happens
the morning after
you reach into the drawer
where the your t-shirts live
to find it austere
you'll shrug because
you're still drunk
& you can't remember
when last it was
that you had something wet
or how long it's been
since you made the floorboards blush
or why the carpet is upset
who wouldn't be
the contents to the upended ashtray
strewn around the apartment
resemble the aftermath
of the smallest war
to ever take place in norfolk
some midnight thief
must've made off with the lighter
because it isn't in
any of your favorite spots
maybe you chucked it
along with a hundred other things
that make noise when they land
in the neighbors yard
you won't remember putting
the refrigerator's belongings
in the bathtub
or scrawling a buzzard
on the bedroom door
but then again who would
you'll pretend it's spring again
before putting on your winter coat
to go out front with a cigarette
in your mouth
you'll hope for a passing stranger
to *** a light from
or drag yourself to the corner
with couch cushion change
to buy a new lighter
and on your way
you won't bother looking back
this is just another day
on eggshells for no reason
another november
choking on birthday candles
on your way home
you step over beer cans
the kind you fell in love with
and wonder who
had the last laugh last night
or if anyone said a word at all
it might've been another
moment of clarity
it might have been some idiot savant
any adjective that feels like home
anything that keeps you thirsty

Oh man,
Auden was right.
I don’t want the stars that work in dot to dot connections to make your bone structure anymore.
Put them out.
Dismantle the sun like every flat pack piece you ever bought and found something wrong with.
Take it back.
Oh Gemini,
You were never as warm as the month you were born into.
Find the receipts of faded love letters and take it all back.

Take me back to when Achilles was the most glorious **** up the world had ever known.
I reckon we could give him his money’s worth.
I’ve been running on cursed soles for years now
And you cannot heel this.
Feet like beat up peaches and boots laced up too tight,
Now all the blood has rushed to somewhere I can’t keep up with.

This ain’t no Greek tragedy.
This is just a messed up human telling another
That sometimes men are right
And love doesn’t last forever
But if you hold him tight
Enough
Maybe you don’t need to return each other.

My grandfather tells me I am too sensitive
He is sheltered in cardigans and sits in an old armchair,
A walking stick next to his feet.
He is not quite shipwrecked but people around him have already started drowning.

He says my heavy heart is wrapped too tightly in self-made bubble wrap,
that I’ve been so busy looking at my feet I didn’t realise the ‘Handle With Care’ sign has been ripped away from my collarbones.
And all I know is that the world is volatile
and when it storms, my god, I feel the wrath of it in anywhere I used to call home.

I think he forgets he was a soldier of the sea
And so now when he sees the fading scrapes on my wrists and
waves of old blood
He cannot understand me.

He is a tall man.
He spent his youth looking over gates into better places,
Seeing boys with parents who had colour in their faces.
Maybe we chase colours like forest covered streams to their final destination
And perhaps that is why he liked surfing oceans rather serving his mother her endless medication

I wonder if he found a piece of peace in the heart of the ocean
And if since then, solid ground seems so broken.
He is unstable on his leather soles and I think he still misses the kisses he once stole
But now, he is a soldier of solitude and talking without thinking
He is a captain of old bones and loved ones that won’t stop sinking.

My father tells me I have a kind heart.
A good heart.
I think it beats more softly than my grandfather’s.
I can be found in the shallow water, minding my step.
But if I ever look for Sailor George’s,
I know, far away in the distance, out where the sea meets its reflection, it will always be left.

You were not a breath of fresh air
you were the choking
of sadness infused
smoking
in every room
tabacco stained fingers
left marks on every table top
and top to bottom the house was so
dust filled
that you had killed
all ******* signs of life
the room was rife
with scents of her and no sense
of morality
you just turned to see
but choked every good growing gracious thing out of me
you don’t hear any noise anymore
lost my voice
somewhere on the floor with her
underwear and
everywhere there’s
another girl’s hair
strands and hair bands
and when I close my eyes it’s her hands
touching your shoulder blades
and the concaves
of your collar bones and
clean clothes
and it’s so clear that when I’m here
she gloats because her hands
have become your hands
and now they’re wrapped around my throat
And so when she chokes
You choke
And I-

and i am eleven again
feeling like tomorrow
is a couple yesterday's ago
smothered in cayenne pepper
hot enough to take off taste buds
and tonight i am eating a meal
only worth burning
it tastes like my parents anniversary
it tastes like a zinfandel
left on the counter too long
it's a bad story, see
there's no silverware
'cause my mom sold it
to keep the lights on
and somewhere in heaven
somebody in a suit
doing commentary
on this fiasco
is telling someone else
in a suit that
"you have to eat love with your hands"
so we sit, four plates on the table
for the two of us
my brother's long gone
dad's even further away
& he's not the one who's buried
i carry both their names like anchors
that i cannot unmoor from
while she looks at the empty table
and says something about the news
she says something else
but she's not talking
we aren't proud of this, see
my dad likes to wax his car
he's proud of it
and my mom says
she sees a lot of him in my hands
says, i touch the things i find
like they didn't belong
to people sleeping in the ground
she says i touch photo albums
the same way-
you know,
i never used to believe
that history could repeat itself
not until i could
fast forward seventeen years
and still wake up to smoke alarms
how i would go into our kitchen
to find it empty
and the dinner smoldering
& my mother in her bedroom
looking through family photos
like it's a just another summer day
and the sirens are just the birds
i don't ask, i never say a word
in this moment
i am an archeologist
afraid to dig up the past
cause history repeats itself-
you see
my brother is dead
and my father is gone
they have been for some years now
and my mother
sometimes forgets
and sets their place at the table
like they're still here
and in the confusion
ends up ankle deep
in pictures of how it used to be
she let's dinner burn
and douses it in red pepper
hoping i won't know the difference

Today is Sunday.
You watch your mother in her long green dress walk quietly over the sprinklers in your front yard. You don't even question the reason, you question how someone can do everything so slowly, how someone can be so fragile and yet never afraid.

Today is Sunday.
You listen to the gravel being pushed underneath the tire of your Father's car as it comes down the driveway, and you don't hear anything else for the rest of the week.