At the library I look for old books
Ones that might have actually been owned
Before they were borrowed

I write fake love letters on the inside
How I want these stories to change some person’s life

Now these novels are secondary
And the people finding them make up their own stories

They constantly ask themselves what it means
How it relates

In some I make lists
Of the parts of my body that still function

Some
See you final chapter

Some
This is the reason I almost didn’t **** myself

Some
I write what I really want to tell her

How seeing her sometimes
Is a punch to the gut
Like a fire at a library
And I dry heave barely blank pages

She comes here a lot
And if she knew
She might read them and wonder
Why I chose the books I chose

So in one I write
I don’t know
I’ve never been good at telling stories
I thought you’d make up some beautiful reason
And I could say yeah

In the bible I write
I never believed in god
But I also never believed
The story is over
After reading

The end

She is salty lipped ocean throat
Warm morning fog
Mixing with her overcast

I want to place my head on her treasure chest
Listen to her wet ruby cascade and thump
A metronome for people who dance lightly

She is a mildly ******* mermaid
Born with the deformity of legs

We were all born a little bit broken
I tell her

I know you’re a body of water I want to drown in
When home feels like it’s so much bigger than these four walls
But not much stronger than the skin I’m in

So here’s to jumping off cliffs
With the hope to land a little painfully
So evolution might give me the wings I was meant to be born with

She walks like a riptide
Often risks drowning in the off chance

Nature might be kind enough to understand
What it really means to have sea legs

This is for the soft shelled crab
Who was tired of the heaviness of home

For the mockingbirds who never studied music
So they copy sound
Sometimes really annoying sound
But they hear the beauty regardless

For the Dumbo Octopus
Who clearly watched too much classic Disney

The beluga whale who can crane its neck
When its sonar song of home is not enough
To know their kids are coming back to them

For the penguins
Who are fine being flightless
Because they’d much rather swim

They didn’t think it was stupid
When they wished they could be different

And she is the ocean
Hips sway like a high tide approaching
Hiding sirens’ secrets
Skeletons in her closet
Lovers who have lost
And drown in her pitch black

She wears the water like a second skin
Smiles like the wind is pressing back her cheeks

She chokes on sea water
Drowns a little
With the hope that this place might feel more like home

Sometimes home is the hardest place to get to
But there’s nothing wrong with going home

“I don’t believe in love”
She says

As I speed through a yellow light
She presses her first ******* to her lips
Then touches the roof of my car with them
She shuts her eyes

I don’t ask her why
I just trust her intentions

In the same way I don’t believe in anything myself
Save for the passion that takes hold of others
When they believe

I like what that looks like

The word believe when broken down
First means to live
“Be” means to exist as
Or to live

And “Lieve” means love
And I think about the bravery it takes
To believe in anything
And the bravery it takes to love
And how that same bravery is made by love

How many stupid things have we done
Just by loving someone?

How many arguments are there against a belief
In anything?

I don’t believe in god
But I believe in you

When I watch you do things
Like superstitious knee **** reactions
To keep the light yellow a little longer

So on the ride home I do the same thing
As the sun bends it’s yellow into red over a horizon
That is kissing our sunburnt necks

Because I want this car ride to last a little longer

Even though we say nothing
And you don’t ask why for the last fifteen minutes
I’ve had my fingers pressed to the roof of my car
A satisfied smile pressing back my cheeks

You just trust that I feel this means something

So maybe you don’t believe in love
But you believe in something
And by doing so
You are partaking in love on some weird level
Subconsciously
Like breathing

But I want this car ride to last a little longer
So I say nothing
Let the wind **** the silence like white-noise
It’s as close to prayer
As either of us
Will ever get

Murdering murderers
done gone
melancholy
in the moonlight.
It's midnight.
The perfect time
to commit a crime.

Here's to premeditated drug dealing.
And everything else that can get me
a one way ticket.
To the Devil's bed-room.