I do not love you as if you were salt-rose, or topaz,
or the arrow of carnations the fire shoots off.
I love you as certain dark things are to be loved,
in secret, between the shadow and the soul.

I love you as the plant that never blooms
but carries in itself the light of hidden flowers;
thanks to your love a certain solid fragrance,
risen from the earth, lives darkly in my body.

I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where.
I love you straightforwardly, without complexities or pride;
so I love you because I know no other way

than this: where I does not exist, nor you,
so close that your hand on my chest is my hand,
so close that your eyes close as I fall asleep.

i still remember
when you asked me
"where have you been all my life?"
and in that moment
i knew
the word swam around my head
it was beating against the inside of my skull
like the screamo band
playing on the stage
of the ***** little bar
where i accidentally
mentally
tied myself
to you
aquarius

i had never headbanged
in my life
and i will never again
because i am nothing to you
nothing but a summer fling
nothing but a rebel cause
i don't want to be your rebel cause
i don't want to be the reason
your mother can't sleep at night
i will never be anything more
than a war you chose to fight
i woke up with my neck sore
i should have known the first time
i had a dream where you were choking me
i clearly was too blind you see

when was the last time
you had that feeling in your gut?
i asked you why
you always kept your pages shut
but never thought to close mine

it's hard to feel anything
but this hole that you left me
and the thoughts that sting
even when i don't think of you
because everything reminds me its true
i thought i was okay
until i saw your cigarettes in my trash can
i didn't feel insane
until i found your shirt under my mess
i hadn't cried for two whole hours
picture that and nothing less
i remembered when that bed was ours
and that was the only place you'd confess

i wonder if things are the same for you
i wonder if you can stand to hear the music you polluted my life with
can you hear me screaming ******
behind the melody line?
i can't even stand my own skin
impossible
your hands have been on it
and my mouth
you used to swear it was the only thing that existed

unfortunate
that i am not
nor will be
the only one
that fell into your flame
and lost at your game

How was I pathetic for loving you?

the lines on
your hands
crack
like pavement
when i touch them
tell me about how
they were passed down
from generations
of sun-dried
caramel brown
ancestors
who dreamed in
canton pink
and worshipped
the sun like
it was a
god
tell me why your
hands
breathe the
souls
of kaledioscopic
men
that died hundreds of
years ago

we spilled my thoughts
into a thousand coffee cups
across your bedroom floor and
we drank them all.
all that night i stared through your skylight
searching for a constellation big enough
to describe us.