How soon words become their sounds saying themselves,
a muffled echo of a canyon packed
full with abandoned spaces.
I intend to fall over
you like the best part of a disaster,
like the thousands of things I have,
will have said to you,
only two will have been true.

It's like i'm standing at the bottom of the Grand Canyon at 3:27 am and i'm screaming your name screaming and screaming and it feels like the whole world can hear it but it bounces off the cold rock and the only answer I get is the echo of my scratchy voice that somehow made it's way out of my throat that is now raw from the endless need to receive a response and it's making my head pound and it seems like lately you are no where to be found and i'm just trying to make it home but I don't think I can carve people out of stone and I may be able to build a house in the sand but they say 'home is where the heart is' and my heart is where you are and I am where you're not so a house made of sand would do no good except to shade me from the desert sun when it awakens over the canyon but truthfully I'd rather burn up down here than drink one drop of water just so I could remember one last time how my body filled with heat when you'd say my name and my heart would stop when your light took away my last bit of pain.

you who swayed on stoop-steps and picked bits of teeth
from your knuckles, your fantasies, your crouched in blood
giggles; monologues.
you who wrapped knives around tree hides and in carvings
found your way back to days of love
& dead wet leaves.
you who rattled in hate of sweaty girls but
smeared out on the boulevard for girls anyways
& made those girls sweat.
you who ****** in the snow and wrote out all the names
of your far-fallen friends and sisters in just one stream.
pacific coast highway.
you who soaked back in the trans-fat pools of employment
to grip at tips and taste at *****
in this fine phase we call fermentation.
you who came hurdling down from hills and hallways
with navajo sidekicks,
your battle-axes sweetened with sugar powder flecks; for flavor
while dying.
you who peeled skin from your fingertips in protest
of the war on whales, warping you irrevocably
down the path
of a whisky avocado diet.

There was speed
in the way the rose hips aged on your alabaster canvas.
Nothing falls gracefully.
Life passes in waves and ripples
the lulls of it trapped in pockets of wrinkled flesh.
When smoke colors your finger tips
like turmeric.
Whose lungs would be better to seep the blood
it took to build our youth.
I said if you let him deal in front
of me I'd **** him.
It took more then broken bones to keep you out of the tar
and feathers.
Those needles I broke just turned to coal
stains on tin foil, crumpled
it was the only thing
above ground when you were through.

it is 2:23 am
the fan is set on high, despite the fact that the weather outside is -20°
fans are good for these sorts of things
white noise
drowning out the silence
the thoughts the beer brings

thoughts of fools in love in coffee shops
and cynics in tears in basement rooms
and once brave men in coffins

the dog chews on a rawhide bone

and I unbraid my hair
untangling each knot with trembling fingers

I undress slowly
removing each piece of clothing like a memory

I put on that shirt I bought for you

I crawl into bed
smearing plum lips and black eyes on an off-white pillowcase

and I think of once great loves of cynics
I think of coffins
I think of you in light blue