I.

I’ve swallowed too many I love you’s
to be afraid of coughing up blood.
They cut you on secret.
Who knew it was drinking gasoline
and sawdust and every little inflammable thing
and then sitting down cross-legged
in the heart of a howitzer; soft.

II.

You are a soft explosion.
You are streaks of a rebel orange
in a sky that is supposed to be blue.
You are steel rods in the curve of my spine,
holding me straight.

III.

I love you’s are like death notes written in ash:
you’ll have to smoke your way to it.
Smoke cigarettes, journals, curtains,
and yourself to get that much ash in your lungs;
trying to blow smoke rings into your finger;
my ceiling knows more about my sadness than you do.

IV.

Saying an I love you once will have you
chanting “don’t leave me” on a rosary;
love will take your bones and leave you
lusting for somebody whose back
is the last thing you’ll see, and whose
skin you’ll think you left your keys in:
and now you’ve locked yourself out
of your own house, in a storm
whose sirens wail in your ears and remind
you, you’re hopeless and homeless.

V.

I love you’s leave no exit wounds,
no shell casings, and when the time comes
you’ll be telling them all how his bullet
ricochets in your ribs,
but emotion never made up for evidence
in the court of settlements for a broken heart.

VI.

Telling someone you love them is like cutting your jugular
and not expecting to bleed out.

VII.

I love you like the pages of a mad girl’s journal.

VIII.

The moon turns from an ally
to the haunting image of science and realisation:
you share the same sky, but no longer the same bed.
And astronomy keeps ******* you over
when you look up at the sky
and no longer understand constellations.

IX.

Love makes it more getting-back-at-you
than getting-back-together-with-you.

X.

Every time you taste blood,
you’ll know you kissed somebody
with teeth like needles
and they cut you everywhere; they
bit you, they bit you, they bit you
and you kept letting them.

there must be a place where broken words go
the ones without a limb
not fully formed
not spoken right
not heard

there must be a place where broken words go
the sentences left uncompleted
the trailing words that never left the lips
the "but" and the "and"
that were always left hanging

somewhere between silence and speech
there must be a place where broken words go
full of stutters and writers block sufferers
somewhere between the "i love"
and the "you" that never followed
or the "wait"
that was whispered into the air
the "please come back"
that made peace with dying
on the corners of a turning mouth

there must be a place where broken words go
the words spoken but never heard
the letters written but never posted
the train of thought that crashed into the clouds
the words in the bottle that traveled the sea
but sunk to the bottom before it could ever reach

there must be a place where my broken words go
the stains on my diary that didn't come from a pen
and the letters on my thighs that don't make sense
the things i could never say
and the things i said that came out all wrong
all the broken alphabets in my song
that cry for salvation
for one more chance

there must be a place where broken words go
there must be a place i can call home.