november
his words came out like a lemming of
forceful regrets
and my phrases were hell bent on the
destruction of themselves

                     *it's decemeber now
                     you've only been gone for a month
                     and i can move furniture around as
                     much as i'd like, and you'd still
                     bounce off the cushions

if the Everything of cigarette smoke
and cheap cologne speak
as loudly as temptation
as brightly as your abdomen, stretched
like the bonds of linen across rooftops

                     that shade these lonely streets
                     then i will seek the promises you
                     left behind
                     and a late night motel
                     *to bore me in your absence

i've been hanging from the crescent moon

strung up by
the sinews of a heart that
pumps no blood

a celestial noose
of angels

and i can hear them every so often as
the wind blows -
strong underneath their
skeletal wings

it's getting tighter,
but i can feel no pain

i am hanging from the waning light, but i am not dying

the white, glowing disc among the blackness
attracts lost seraphim
like vultures

swarming around my fading flame like
a secret pagan ritual

they all wait for me to kiss the devil
with my eyes wide open
and i will wonder why
i fell in love with the wrong person again

i am a mouthful of acid

cheeks puffed with sin,
dripping down onto my waning grin

a divorce of possibility
burning me out,
and my heart keeps breaking
every time the sun brings doubt

there is a broken promise in my bones
cracking and cutting me into
worthless stones

a puddle on a winter day,
letting ripples break the counterfeit painting
of a happy fade

numbness upon
beholding
mangled roadkill,

i cried for hours once
when i went to the skating rink
instead of the carnival

most outgrow
their crybaby stage

i grew into
mine

i love to sit on
the sharp-****** shore
and watch, wait
for the next wave
to destroy 3 months' work

the gritty, hamd-scooped sandcastle
mercifylly spared by some
of my white-tipped peaks

obliderated
by the occasional
flash of monstrosity

I am one
learning how to
carefully seal
myself shut;

still working on
the art of hiding
in less obvious spaces
that won't give me away,

folding myself
onto myself
like messy origami
forming no figure,

my pale skin
being tinted by sunlight,
my hollow cheeks
being surrounded by sunny faces

that have no idea
how much all I want
is for the rays to
melt these glaciers.

I tie my hair
with bright red ribbons
like I am a present
with no future, no past.

Might want to unwrap me
only to find a box
empty,
consumed.

I do not hold
anything

for you.

I cannot even hold
myself

for me.

and here i am again
at the intersection
of pedestrian language
& old wives tales
swallowing gum
like 7 year memories
opening umbrellas inside
cause i can't seem get away
from all of this rain
i ******* with my left hand
cause i was told
back in highschool that
"it feels like someone else is doing it"
it gets me wondering
about the difference between
losing you and finding out
that some one else found you
or my sleep
or lack thereof
its starting to tear me apart
i keep having this dream
where you are in
an unfamiliar body of water
trying to wash my poetry
off of your hands
or the one where
something happens in my chest
every time you sit
on someone else's bed
i'm tired of feeling like something you've misplaced
but don't have the heart
to look for anymore
tired of you saying my name
like you're trying to bury it
i'm tired of wondering
if you can tell the difference
between the absence
of my voice & silence
the other day
i almost started sobbing
at work when a woman
asked me about
our equipment
i was explaining how
things come apart
and almost mentioned your name
it made me think
of how you used to say
things like "what would you do
if i showed up on your doorstep
one day?" now, i haunt
the windows in my house
i don't leave for weeks at a time
i sit on the porch like the dog
you didn't shoot behind the shed
the one that refuses to die
until you come home again
i told somebody once, that
you didn't even know
what my voicemail sounded like
i wonder if they thought
it was because you
are so important that i never
let it ring that many times
before picking up
or if you dont know
what it sounds like
because you've never called
you can't be the ****** weapon
and the search party
i'm tired of all the seats
to the ferris wheel in my chest
being empty
tired of your voice
being the one i look for
in abandoned places
that one sound i beg
to bounce back
down vacant hallways
i just seem to stand there
in all of that quiet
like someone looking for a mistake
on an eviction notice
so i guess the hardest part
isn't letting go
it's forgetting
you ever had a grip
in the first place
and since you've been gone
i wonder if when
you pushed yourself away from me
you used your left hand
so it felt like someone else did it

does hamburger meat stick together because it is still searching for the ghost of it's bones?
in college, i worked in a factory.
i trudged to work every monday morning at five thirty and put on gloves
to plunge into the sticky mess of beef that i weighed and clipped and submerged in.
the meat sticks together and bleeds into the same palm, which is my own.
i am livestock.
i am a nonsensical sticky mass of fat that is being pulled apart by another.
although i am trying to pull myself back together,
the bones i clung to were yours.