I'm an Amazombie in denim and fog,
Black and blue, and twenty-two:
a millennial with an oppressive blog.
***, money, and hipster brains --
condomless, rudderless, token.
I like the way you like the way
when I'm completely broken.

Time ruins our eyes
for each other,
while the moon burns
down the nights around us,
as if attracted to our madness
and spellbound by the dark
- ness that surrounds us,
yet here we remain, apart
and together, alone in a home
for the stone-cold heartless.

And I've got this tragic talent
Where I can fold up my feminism
And stuff it between my legs
Torturous ******, it's toxic shock syndrome

Apologies to suitors as I run fast from their drunken hands
When really I should be cutting those inebriated limbs loose from the bodies they've succumb to
Because I was taught not how to defend myself from charming attackers,
But rather to refrain from setting my drink down at parties and bars and family reunions

How is it that the Boy's Club manifested itself into the bible? And how the ****** Mary is only remembered for carrying greatness below her breast
Giving birth to the boy wonder all while keeping her ***** intact

And finally, once that sacred space rock exits the womb
We must answer to that almighty lord of genitals
Like if Jesus was a girl, the Ascension would have taken place much sooner
And that archangel would have had to start all over

Some memories I give her
to drown in dark water,

like an old revolver
thrown into a river,

nights spent drinking
the moon under a table

made of maple and fables
we once believed true

love lost, found
and lost again together

where only the mountains
and seas last forever.

You thought you'd see her around
Not everyday, but fairly often
And no one quite knew how to take it,
When a new boy took your place up on the mountain

Remember those endless days you spent
Frolicking through fields and licking cement
Spelling out each others names in twigs
And stitching your bones together with gold thread

Now she's got everything she needs
A blonde boy from the state park
Who lives in a barrel of beer beneath the southwestern rapids
And a home made from the backseat of her secondhand car

You have sternum pains and you know far too much
You used to wear your hair long to keep those mountain secrets  
These days it grows to hide the footprint left below your bottom lip

Some bonds lie strictly in memory
And
She knows she's been on your mind

On the drive home -
I barreled down a
Familiar highway
Numbered - 43.
******* that old
Catholic school
Coffee through a
Bright orange straw,
Down a melancholy
Throat, I accidentally
Witnessed summer
Collapse in on itself.

The very last
Glimmer of June
Covered by a
Cumulus cloud.

July waved in
My rearview mirror,
And I swear,
I almost cried.

August started
Shaking, hard,
And cracking
It's gum.

I saw the world as it was,
And then suddenly,
With no prior warning,
How it was not.
I watched as the things I knew
(Or thought I knew)
Crumbled to ice blue dust.

I drove through
Your hometown.
Past your parent's
House, the gas station
Where they called you
All those pretty little
Names you'd prefer
Never to be called,
The table we mourned
At after the polar vortex.

See, it's been almost
A year now. Since we all
Rolled down the hill
Into tiny, wooden caskets.
Since you bought a
Hairbrush to untangle
The knots in our
Best friend's chest.
Since none of us knew
What to do, but drink
Coffee and make promises.
Since we had to grow
Older, and smoke
Cigarettes on the overpass
To ease ten shaking
Shoulders.

Love swallowed you up

Old tyrant in shapeless clothes
Lining the pillows with used tisses
Blew smoke rings for the illusion
Of an open door

Arrhythmic moods
That collide in the hallway
Love were the moments
Locked inside the bathroom
Alone

All of his letters ended in goodbye
instead of to be continued

someday we're all going to die
my brother, he would say

now he's got me saying the same
words like the moon and darkness
that only we could hear

he'd listen to the blues and sip whiskey
until morning, then wake me
from my sleep, tell me to go out

and cut the weeds
growing up around the stone
angels in the field.

You dropped the garage door on your knees
At the teen party that summer
And you bled some fantastic blood onto the sidewalk
With a cigarette in hand and a lighter in your mouth

We would roll around, naked, on the trailer bed sheets.
You may recall, it was reckless as ****.
And how you almost stabbed yourself with epi on a whim
While we barreled down the highway, fifths of gin residing beneath the seats.

I wasn't the only one who had words to say about the dagger on your bedside table
Or your self made haircut all untamed and screaming

I was tied to your ribcage with fishing wire
The same day you hid all the knives.
See, I'm still here beneath the string light ribbon tree, and these days, Rachel's washing her face with wine

You're slow dancing at the state park,
With river guides and alibis.
At least now no one cries