I read the dancing steam
above my coffee cup,
and I still drank it,
the wax hardened my tongue,
and my glands exploded,

maybe that’s the story you’ll tell
when they ask us how we met.

pouring another glass  
is peeling a hangnail
down with your teeth,
a monotonous ****
will only draw blood
to surface,
waking up is now
a monotonous signature
on a death certificate,
a tedious magnificent
and I’m still here
and my calligraphy
is becoming magnificent

broken homes
are broken bones,
no christmas trees
and more ashtrays
than dinner plates,
hand prints
tattooing arms,
hugging stair cases
over beer cases,
no shoe laces
and cut soles,
lingering souls
of would could have
been without neglect,
vines entwine her neck
and the kids tease her
for smelling like cigarettes
and her shirts are stained,
she sleeps on a mattress
only a mattress no frame
of mind will remove
these memories
from the twenty five year old
****** you are now,
her parents OD’d when
she was thirteen,
her child has a beautiful name
and beautiful eyes,
and before mom dies,
I hope she she gets
the right frame to sleep on.

I listened as a mouse struggled
to escape a half empty frozen coffee cup,
it took a while for me to understand
where the rustling was coming from,
I stared down the open lid
and saw glossy eyes
squinting up as me, as if I was the sun,
and my first instinct was to bring him outside,
I poured him on the frozen ground
and noticed as his legs were chilled, dead.
I placed him back in the cup,
put the lid on,
and breathed into the lid
giving him all the warmth
I could give,
his chest moving like
metronome trying to break
though his skin,
I could hear the ticking of his
heartbeat like a broken clock,
there was no chance,
his eyes opened and
stayed shut longer,
his legs stayed dead,
so I put the coffee cup
on the frozen grass,
closed my eyes
and stomped
like it was a cockroach,
I sparked a cigarette.

I’ve quit smoking 6 times,
quit drinking 4,
the intervals are
sparse and unworthy,
I wear jeans with
dainty holes
from cigarette butts,
my breath wreaks
of a mixture,
and my cologne
surmounts the
insurmountable,
I’ll look skyward on
chilled nights
and try to decipher
between smoke and breath,
I’ll purposefully wear worn socks
to give the sought useless
a purpose,
I’ll run soapy loofas
over scabbed knuckles
for punishment and end up
enjoying the sting,
I’ll tie ties to tight
and my shoes to loose,
I’ll scrutinize grammar,
and misspell because
hypocrisy makes me *****,
I pick at calluses until they bleed
I’ll **** on ****** hangnails
cause I like the coppery taste,
I’ll never litter,
and I fight at bars,
I drink alone now,
but I’ve quit 4 times,
allow me to put into perspective
that quitting anything
has moved from an elective
to becoming eclectic,
and new habits,
for me, don’t replace
old ones but squeeze them in
to a car destined at a dead end,
but what doesn’t **** me now,
makes death so much sweeter
in the finale.

adolescent women
below adulthood,
high in heels,
and validating
worth by regret
and planting
seeds in beds
of alcohol,
pulling over
sheets of hair
in dorm room cemeteries,
seeking acceptance
in snowless Januaries,
because the
beginning is
supposed to be
this cold

The light shines down
On your pale face
And outlines your vulnerable lips
With a heavenly glow,
And bathes your pleading eyes
With pure light.

You look away,
Afraid,
Because you know that the light
Has always revealed your scars,
Your flaws,
Your imperfections.

But I simply laugh
And think
How lucky the sun is
To be so close to someone like you.

(a.m.)

in the early morning hum,
in the beat of the drum of the white noise and the misplaced light, i
treasure you.
the sole familiar thing.

an old, cloying taste
clings to my mouth.
i think you are sleeping.
i know? you are sleeping.
i awoke to silence filled by your silence.
i know you are sleeping;
i felt loved by your silence, still.

i know this is love i imagine for myself in the ways i need it most;
i know how this goes.

in the early morning hum,
in the beat of the drum of the white noise and the misplaced light,
i allow myself to feel a very real fear that you
will be everything i needed
and almost everything i want.

and so in preparation,
a separation:
i shift and twitch and shiver until i am at once here
and not,
until i am at once here
and in the moment,
some way down the line,
that old, cloying taste magnified,
when all comes to pass as i knew it would and i can say
“i knew it would.”
i know how this goes.

you take the morning bus to secaucus,
and i, the one to new york.
when sleep greets me and leans my head
gently
against the window pane,
i will let it come.
i will let it try to fill your absence
in ways i know to be short-lived, for naught,
but i will let it try.

i will miss you when i wake up,
miss the silence that i thought you crafted for me,
but which was really just
silence.
i will miss you when i wake up as i miss you when you are next to me.
i want, for us, something infinite:
that which we cannot have and which you do not want,
hard as i wish you did.

but.
the sun rises —
i know how this goes —
and the misplaced light finds its place again.
the silence i thought you crafted for me, which was really just
silence,
becomes noise.
hectic. colorful without order.
i will miss you when i wake up,
but what ache is strong enough to pull something personal
from all that noise?

you take the morning bus to secaucus,
and somewhere in new york i try to live a life as though you have already left me.
if i had my way,
hopeful, futile grasps towards the infinite would not hold ample weight for a haunting.

and yet,
that old, cloying taste.

still.

(a.m.)

My moods change like seasons
and yet the weather stays the same,
it’s the middle of summer
and my boots are covered in snow,
I’ll wear toques at 30 degrees
and the chills dont
come from the breeze
but from kicking snow off
shoes on green grass
and realizing that nothing lasts
it just always melts,
worrying about tomorrow
makes yesterday the future,
so I never live in the past,
wearing a mask
so that the sun doesn’t burn
my skin, it just sits and sets alight
whats always been within,
the grass can grow under winter snow
but from what i know
theres no sun above,
so I ask myself why
I’m wearing this mask,
maybe the weather’s never changing
and I’m just looking in the mirror,
I’m not wearing a mask,
I’m just growing a beard,
the snow never comes
the green just disappears,
and what’s left
beneath my feet is standing
on ceramic egg shells
slicing my toes is starring into hell
and the only way I’ll stay
comforted with the weather
is standing still.

a man in a trench coat
walked though construction
after dark,
dead branches grew
from the holes in the
end of his sleeves,
the night painted
over retinas
but his skin still seemed pale,
dyed dark hair
shined without hygiene,
and his boots
kicked the road torn,
I though of columbine
when I saw his trench coat,
I saw guns and children hiding
I heard shotgun shells
breathing smoke
onto the pylons,
I saw brand new
blood pained lane lines
in the middle of the road,
I couldn’t make out his face
but I looked at a smiling maniacal,
and I was just driving by
and it seemed cold,
I had the window down for a smoke and
I smelled tired exhaust
from sleeping machines,
and it was then that I realized
he was most likely walking home
from work or going to get milk
from the convenient store,
perception will always drape over us
in a cloak no one else can see,
it will never disappear and
to the trench coat man I apologize.