the scars
and errors

is your name
singed
white

branded by
corona flares

when I feel like
you’re here with me
and that you will be, it
in some odd way star form
gives me this focus and clarity
to face the world that I never have
like hardly, ever, shrinking away into
this no one knows no one gets place
where I hang out and nod my head
at the rest who I don’t know how
they can’t see I’m pretending
this whole scheme is OK
but somehow it’s all
so much better
when I think
you’re with me
-really-
even just
in my head
you go closer
than anyone has
on physical planes
and I feel like my chest
gets less heavy and I can
breathe deep and not think
about my regular plagues
and it all seems so doable
like I can play the game
in order to get out of it
eventually
like I can be a better
everything
when I think we are OK
it’s dumb in a way but I swear
when I think you are mad at me
or don’t understand me or
confuse where I’m at
it’s like my own limb
giving me the finger
filing papers to sever
it feels so lost awkward
and I’m like, ahem, get over here
stop being silly
we don’t always have choices
as to what feels like home
because if we did
we’d have been there long before
we stumbled into it, my dear
at the first cozy thing, as if
one could stick a welcome mat at
another’s feet and make it feel right
we surely would have before now
but I won’t forget
and I won’t let you
forget who
the **** I am
namely, you

for the times
I said the wrong thing

for the gagged silences
I Iet speak for me

for poetic interpreters giving
insecurities creative license

for the things I knew
and didn’t say anything

for letting my fears fester
until they exploded

for the days wasted
and nights tormented

for my sudden releases
on this karmic rubber band

and, most of all, for
how it’s so hard to be

the one thing we both so
desperately need

you took my hand
showed me yours
and my jaw unhinged
you had me then & there
up against your wall
******* pushed aside
suddenly incapable
of mouthing anything
but yes

;)

I'm not always good to her
but she's always there for me

I pour my wretches into her white
and she just takes it
without flinching

I only come to her when it suits me
because sometimes it's just
so hard

sometimes there's just
too much to say
I don't know where to start
and it gets so loud
convoluting in minor keys

I leave her behind
because she knows
I can't lie

she ***** the truth
right out of me

I can't smile and nod
glaze over as disconnect severs
the feelings I'm fleeing

so I avoid the conversations
that are dying to get out of me
but it's just so hard
to say some things

even when you know
after there will be relief
and weights tied will unbind
and release

and you may yet float
and breathe

so thank you, P

for giving all the unsayable things
air and wings

of pre-recordings asking me
to STOP WHAT I'M DOING to hear
some uber-important message
like I owe some cookie-cut IVR fuckbot
my undivided attention, like whoooaa
HOLD. UP. let me sit-the-****-down
with a hot spot o' tea, bobber nodding
do tell, do tell... mmm, you don't say?!

you've got to be ******* me
how the **** these went through
an actual marketing department
not manned by evil narcissist toolfucks

oh, wait...

with fingers for lips
he slipped underneath
deboning human skin
strung up my ribs on the ceiling
under which we dangled
femurs and phalanges
on super strings
chiming 3-part harmonics
on black galactic wind
him, me, Everything
tender clinks silencing
floored motionless flesh
I was not bones, nor skin
but oms inciting orbital dance
spinning with him invisibly
with heartlids pinned back
pounding the key of eternity