When the girl, I loved, died,
I locked myself in her room
while her parents were in Arizona.

I went through her things
and found
**** photos;
A few where she seemed
ashamed
and a few where she
liked her body.
She had a gummy smile
and in others
she looked down at her *******
while having a blank expression.

I found empty
alcohol bottles.
Cheap bottles of wine
and a bottle of red,
stuffed with tissue paper.

Under her dresser
I found an unopened
letter she intended to
give the boyfriend before me,
where she admitted
to being ***** as a teenager
and how she hoped
it wasn't too much
baggage.

I threw out the photos
and
alcohol bottles,
but not the letter.

I don't know why but I kept it.
I occasionally read it,
because it's her,
and I love her.

I told my friend
and he called me a
Halomaker,
because I made sure
she was remembered
as an angel.

She kissed me
not because
she wanted to
but because
she could.

We fell in
love.
Not because
we could
but because
we wanted to.

We made
mistakes.
Not because
we wanted to
but because
we could.

We thought
we were
perfect.
Not because
we could
but because
we wanted to.

I vomited in
the bathroom
of a
Baltimore
7-11
because
sometimes
you cannot
hold it in
much
longer.

Her hands shook
as she held her
mirror
because
sometimes
your reflection
can only
tell you
so much.

My body shook.
Her body stiff.
And when
the bodies
move
the hearts
stop.

She lied some.
I drank words.
The veins
in hands
are maps
to imagined
consciousness.

Really,
it's just
a
*******
*****.

Music to
my ears.
Nervousness
between
blinks.
Noise to
my brain.

She said,
"I love you"
not because
she wanted to
but because
she could.

I said,
"I love you, too,"
not because
I could
but because
I wanted to.

Father mosquito
drank my blood
and promised me
that there was a lot
to live for:
***, money,
women, love,
food, water.

But *** is only worth
the ten seconds
after I ***:
the ten seconds
where my body breaks
but not my heart.

And money is an idea
that belongs to someone else.
So, the money I have
never really is mine.
The things I need,
I'll never have.
The things I have,
I'll never need.

I do love the softness of women,
Father Mosquito.
You have understood me
once.

It's just underneath
my skin.

But you say love
and no love
is as important
as self-love.
No lips stitched into mine
is worth the feeling
unless I understand my worth,
and you're currently
*******
it
dry.

What happens when food
loses its taste?
And water is no longer cold?
What happens when
my body fails me?
Drink my blood
since it is yours, too,
father.

It's just underneath
my skin.

I sit and I dream,
a parasitic dream,
where we aren't
who we were
and we aren't
how we seem.
Where I eat you
and you eat me
and somehow
we're still
happy.

In each pile of
body on body
I walk by
loneliness
and loss.
I love you's
and
I hate me's
saturate the air's
conscience.
Us,
the nation and all
are pinned against
each wall
being ******,
mercilessly.
We are
*******
heartbreakers.
Our ***** are
property of
others:
intellectual property.

In my dream,
where I dream,
everyone
I've ever loved,
is dreaming
and
trapped in a pit
of motorized
rubber ******
where the rubber
pumps and eats,
pumps and eats,
breaking ribs,
shattering spines,
ripping esophagus,
splitting spirit like
tissue paper.
Bodies ripped apart
by branded, artificial
"love":
society's configuration.
Brand recognition.
Product placement.
Motor salad.

I'm a white, male,
American dreamsicle
who says "****"
way too much
to not be cool.

I read about my father issues
on my mother's face.
I hate things and people
because the news told me to.
Art is ****** and ****** is art;
when Billy killed Sue,
my heart raced.
Do drugs with me
or do none at all;
promise me when we're high
we won't fall.

There are ******* on the street
and the cops are shooting them.
There are ******* kissing
and old, white men are scared.
There are mentally ill people
and they are "seeking attention".
There are women with voices
and old, white men are scared.

I am an American Dreamsicle:
cold, unhealthy, and killing your kids.
You can buy me for 40% off
and I promise to take 60% of your ideals.
I am what my parents don't want me to be
and that is the appeal.
Little do I know, I am every thing you are
and that is my cancer.

Pale body, blue eyes
Dark haired WASP;
adopted.
Cigarette burns
Cigarette breath
Black nail polish;
worn like her gaze.
Plump lips;
Tastes like
*******
and
"he left."

Milk body, brown eyes
Blond haired voice;
accent consumes.
Diseased brain
***** like a parasite
Blood-shot red nails;
scratching at life's surface.
Chapped lips;
Chews on them
like a blown tire
dying between metal
and the road.

Our bodies shifted in and out
like an ameba.
Suffocated by lost teenage years
and daddy issues.
Riding my knee.
On my face.
I want to disappear
into outer space.

Skeleton ***;
our corpses mix.
Sweat stained smiles.
Soap smothered tiles.
Showering with two souls
as lost as mine.

Every soul I come into contact with
leaves an impression onto me.
But I don't believe in souls,
so how can this be?
How can I taste the flowerless
nature of a coke nose
and find it to be an eternal bloom?
For I, to without and before sunset,
**** the shadows that mask the morose
and keep the victimized stalwarts close.
See thy honor in the trauma of the night
and transient beauty of the light
that shines in all that I touch,
not enough or, perhaps, too much.
To break my empathy would be shimmerless,
but I'm dimmer, thus, a shallow crest
of what I thought was best
on the Earth's grass
and in the brain's broken glass.


Intermission:
Soda Pop and Popcorn in the lounge.


****** in France,
you like coke and being other people.
You tried to **** yourself with your car
but it only went as far
as the saliva leaping from your mouth,
when your head hit the horn,
and blared until your ears popped,
with your spit splatting against the speedometer.
Because what is fast isn't fast enough.
The EMT told you this when you saw the lights flash
across your eyes. Focus. Focus. Focus.
Follow the light with your eyes.
This isn't god. Do you have parents?
What is your name?
Your wallet melted in the heat.
What is your name?

You think you hear rusty bone saws
but they're trying to cut your friend out of the vehicle.
There isn't enough time. Time is never enough.

This is what she looks like when she's sad:
The human condition effective immediately.
Winter shades shift side to side,
exploding out of each iris.
Skin falling off,
when lunging forward to kiss me.
Fingernail daggers dig into my pores.
I'll bleed under her fingernails,
if she'll drag them down my torso
until her knees click the floor.

This is her tongue inside of my mouth:
We taste each other before we waste each other.
Hip bones parallel and our eyes rubbing shoulders,
my hands surfing her rib cage
and it's all the rage because she moans.
And when she moans,
color tones orbit around her head.
Planetary tumors dancing around her skull;
jump roping with her hair,
eating morals and removing plurals.

Those are her lips around me.
Her head moves up and down
but her eyes focus on me.
She makes eye contact
and I empty my dreams
into her mouth.

We are a public forum.
I ache with alcohol poisoning
and liberal undertones.
The terrain that is my face
bleeds oils that would lubricate
the axle of the car that she drove
into the tree
that we carved our name into.

Come back to me.
I miss you so much.
I watched you die.
I watched you die
and there was nothing I could do.

They told me that she wouldn't make it.
They told me that she might make it.
My hand gripped at blood stained blanket.
I think she said my name under the air mask.
I could tell if she saw me;
her eyes rolled back into her head
after she gazed a thousand yards away
into the field of black
that sheltered the tall grass
that we would chase each other through
and get lost in
as we got lost in each other.

I love you! I ******* love you!
My back, a membrane coil
that rises my stiff neck
that cares my head full of memories.
I turn on the light and you're not there next to me.
I put my hand on your copy of The Thornbirds
and know that you've read it more than the notes
I leave in your inbox,
hoping that it'll say that you have seen it.

Walking to your grave,
I am a darkness that the abyss has swallowed
and I have followed myself into nothingness
that is such bliss
that I forget
your kiss.

She applied the latest fashion tips to her lips
and put on the newest dress to cover the mess.
I held her as she swayed in front of the mirror.
"I want to get away from here," she cooes in my ear.

It rains ridicule as she tries to be classic cool;
storms that brew from within-
and there's no way of knowing how it'll begin.
She'll say that she's a succubus
but I promise that she's a star and thus
destined to implode but shine beautiful before death.
And I await to be burnt by her deathly breath.

She says that she feels detached,
I read the message that has hatched
from ten eggs thrown from a wrist.
Her lips are mine but all I do is miss.
Her lips aren't mine and all I do is this.

I **** time with new noise and old sights.
She asks if I'll be home tonight
and I wish I could because I'd clearly sway thee,
macabre debutante lover baby.

Her name is Tricia and as I whisper,
her cheeks blush.
"Don't break hearts or mine too much."
I could say the say the same for you, my Josh.
Couldn't we all break broken signs
with the love we reallign?

I tantalize her lullabies with eager hands
and lethargic eyes.
I shoulder her and press her near,
and kiss her from neck to each ear.
She slides hands and traces each crease.
She runs her hands as soft as fleece.
My hands hide in her underwear
and she says,
"How did you remove all of my air?"
She fixes her hands and grabs my base,
I kiss each corner of her face.
Stroking, stoking my desire,
I ask her to lay naked by the fire.

I disrobe and throw each cloth on ground.
Tricia takes off her bra and there is no sound.
Her ******* make me eagersome
and, suddenly, I'm no longer numb .
I tell her that if it doesn't feel right
that we don't have to make love tonight.
She walks and her feet kiss the tile.
She says she wants to stay for a while.

We get lost in blanket and the cloth is soft,
as we move from the fire to a loft.
I tell her that her lips are silk,
her chest plays songs,
and her taste is milk.

Her feet appear behind my head,
and she bites her lip until I feel dead.
I place my hand between her thighs
and listen to each moan and sigh.

I hear her shudder as I break her soil
and I feel my body start to boil,
as I push in and kiss her nose.
She throws back her head
as her mouth can't close.

I wake up and she's next to me.
I kiss her forehead to thank for harmony.
I pick her up and let her bloom in my arms like a flower.
And then I walk her to the shower.