Gave up on being a saviour,
A martyr in the thicket of danger,
I won’t fight for my place
In the Free Speech Corner.

Gave up on being a bleeding heart
Run dry.

I won’t burst into flame
To prove a point:
Burn myself out
Until the chip on my shoulder
Sings like a flute.

Gave up on being a shelter,
Passion rains upon your window,
The traffic hum of weather
Just sends you off to sleep.

I won’t kick for the current,
Float to the surface,
Wait for the ambulance.

Gave up on being a lighthouse
Stood brave.

I won’t hold a torch
For love off in the distance.
I won’t carry death on my tongue
Until the moment comes.

I am terrified of the flashbacks
So vivid and green
On our foreign ghost's porch
In the park
We were scrawled out on the same page
Holding hands on the track past midnight
We spoke of velvet in the basement office
And I kissed your neck

I am stuck in an infinite loop
Memories of nights spent in the boiler room, beneath the string light tree, on the carpet in the mountain -
Anywhere but here

Somehow in the last moments of this January
We ended up in the same bed

We dug up the soil today
Thousands of insects rushed out
Centipedes, beetles, spiders
A crumpled grub writhed in the sun
Too weak to do much else
I’ve always hated agriculture
Fingers tearing plant roots
Sap soaking flesh
A neighbour walked past and said ‘looking good’
And it was the saddest thing I’ve heard all year

This life is so boring
Flies gather on light bulbs
And burn their legs off
I’ve spent the last hour
Rolling their bodies into the storm drain
But they keep coming
They just keep coming

I still have the scars on my ankle
From the day we got drunk in school

I have a few nights burned in my brain
I have some type of mind
That returns to a mountain girl
I make peace with bodies thought otherwise to be dead
I make no apologies for laughter in churches
And my throat was raw on the first day of spring

I miss flying high in that aeroplane
Where guitar strings did anything but strangle our hearts
I left the state
Just to play our soundtrack to a room full of strangers

*** on the bathroom sink
Back then at the retreat,
Time was spent getting married
Or being carried
Off to a hospital bed

There were
Shattered knee caps on hardwood floors and
Hands dipped in jealousy, coming out as green
(Or a tortured, teenage lesbian)

Aluminum barrels of smooth poison
And glass bowls of hydroponic hand holding
It was a day spent breaking the law, somewhere past coherence
A void in which we fall beneath the affection of strangers

Shooting up skirt in the shower, and keys in the trash
Hey, it's all better than drinking and driving
Or sinking and thriving
In the marsh of your own oblivion

Stupid boys and their razor blades
Stupid girls and their glass shards

No one holds hands anymore, there's just too much blood

I've worked with shovel and
trowel half of my life but right
now if I could recall the hypo-
tenuse of a right triangle I'd
try another angle for putting
those tools to use digging a rect-
angular hole so neat and six feet
deep then sew my mouth shut
just so I can't tell the devil where
to go when it's cold and I'm sleeping
with white slugs behind my ears like
big Beltones so I can hear the mock-
ingbird sing those words on my stone.