He loved her and she loved him
His kisses ****** out her whole past and future or tried to
He had no other appetite
She bit him she gnawed him she ******
She wanted him complete inside her
Safe and Sure forever and ever
Their little cries fluttered  into the curtains

Her eyes wanted nothing to get away
Her looks nailed down his hands his wrists his elbows
He gripped her hard so that life
Should not drag her from that moment
He wanted all future to cease
He wanted to topple with his arms round her
Or everlasting or whatever there was
Her embrace was an immense press
To print him into her bones
His smiles were the garrets of a fairy place
Where the real world would never come
Her smiles were spider bites
So he would lie still till she felt hungry
His word were occupying armies
Her laughs were an assasin's attempts
His looks were bullets daggers of revenge
Her glances were ghosts in the corner with horrible secrets
His whispers were whips and jackboots
Her kisses were lawyers steadily writing
His caresses were the last hooks of a castaway
Her love-tricks were the grinding of locks
And their deep cries crawled over the floors
Like an animal dragging a great trap
His promises were the surgeon's gag
Her promises took the top off his skull
She would get a brooch made of it
His vows  pulled out all her sinews
He showed her how to make a love-knot
At the back of her secret drawer
Their screams stuck in the wall
Their heads fell apart into sleep like the two halves
Of a lopped melon, but love is hard to stop

In their entwined  sleep they exchanged arms and legs
In their dreams their brains took each other hostage

In the morning they wore each other's face

Loneliness is like hunting for redwood trees
Their gnarled faces
Gritting teeth

They bite the loveliest poison

Out of all the holes your heart couldn’t fill
Sprout carnations
Sprout dahlias

All crimson petals
Blooming from the places
You wanted to be held

Loneliness is a garden
That no one tends
So you choke on the roots

Your tongue turns green
And little tendrils tickle up your throat
Looks like worms at first
But those come later

Pretty soon you’re planted
And collapsing blood red beautiful

Loneliness kills you sometimes
Turns you into a garden after you go hunting
For redwood trees

And on the brief occasions the light breaks the treetop
It shines on you
Just a few red red flowers

A little girl sees one maybe
She plucks what’s left of you

Places you in a vase
That sits on a kitchen table
Without much sunlight

Loneliness is you in a vase
Trying to be as beautiful as you can
Before your petals fall
And your stalks wilt

For a girl
Who thought you were worth taking home
Long enough to brighten up a kitchen

A few days maybe
That’s all we can hope for

Abigail slides the glass door shut.
As beads of water percolate off her body
and land on the faux stone tile,
the smell of chlorine from her swim
and the smell of coffee from my brewing *** blend.
My uncle, Abigail's father, and my mother
are seated at the sticky, spilt soda kitchen table beside me.
"Go get ready for dinner," my mother's brother says, sending
Abigail's bikini'd frame through doorway and around the bend.
The brew idles, and I'm all porcelain and sugar substitute for a moment,
then back by my uncle and mother.

"Abigail has gotten so thin," my mother says.

"Is she eating?" my mother asks.

"I know it's tough for girls her age. When they're looking to marry," my mother says.
I want to bash the smoking cup into her face.

My uncle says she's been training for a marathon.
My neurons get tidy and taper off.
So, it's out of the kitchen and into an empty living room
to park my *** on an empty piano bench.
I set the coffee on top, and press eight of my fingers down
on black keys.
I hear toes-to-heels, toes-to-heels.
I gaze over my shoulder.
Now, Abigail's in a black, black dress. Mid-thigh.
In her left hand,
red ****-me-shoes with a heel that could turn a curious man blind;
in her right hand,
black pantyhose and cherry lipgloss.
"You should have swam," Abigail delivers with hushed precision,
like she'd been reciting the line throughout the duration of her swim.

Abigail has long brunette hair,
and it's sticking to her neck.
Deep permanent dimples frame her lips.
She's a nurse in Waco.
Each time I see her, I think about
Bukowski's 103-pound "Texan".
It makes me rash, violent, a heady monstrosity,
and trembling sick.

"I forgot my trunks."

"That's no excuse."

I would respond, but she's sliding the hose up her leg.

In the living room.

While my uncle talks a second mortgage around the bend.

Her right leg crosses her left,
an overpass and an interstate.
My forehead overheats in a flash,
and I feel like she's staring back at me.
When my leering eyes shift from
her toes to her eyes, the pupils beckon:

"All roads lead to me."

Sometimes I cry
when I think of him
unbuttoning those
orange shorts
that make your
*** look so good.

Sometimes I sext
you and your girlfriends,
but let's blame that
one on the drink.

Sometimes I smoke
to celebrate one of
your many deaths
in my ****** collection
of unpublished
short stories.

Sometimes I hope
you'll apologize
to me for ruining
my name.

Sometimes I want
you to hold me against
the wall and push--
until your bony body
passes through me,
and I turn you to waste.

Sometimes I call
to ask what's off limits,
so I know where to
set my goals.

Sometimes I buy
that cheap red wine
you loved so much,
and drink it all
in a night -- just
to watch it go empty.

Sometimes I curl up to
that lumpy, stained,
blue pillow, and
pretend it's you.

Sometimes I dream
of raising a family
in a small house
near Pacific Beach.

Sometimes I nearly
smother myself
with that blue pillow.

i mentioned your name to your mom for the first time since it happened.
i know it made her sad,
but things need to be said.
she will never run from this.
not successfully.
she will always be left picking your brain off the walls,
off the ceiling, out of the carpet.
fragments of your skull left shattered in her hands,
like the rest of her life.
i think the amount of red in that room drained her life of color from then on.
she could move a thousand times and never leave that home.
i could say this a thousand times but you'd never hear it.
some things are pointless, especially after time.  
i hope you never realize what it's like to get a group of your family to clean up after your messes,
even after death.

she doesn't like to sleep anymore.
she'd rather stay up and make wishes
on the scars that she counts
than slip under a sheet.
it's something about vulnerability.
something about letting go.
if she can just keep her eyes pried
for one more second, minute, hour,
she can control it.
how long she sleeps and if she'll
dream [of him] again.
and maybe later,
once she's all alone,
she can sleep through meals
and start to hate the spots
he loved to hold
a little less.
anything, just to
hate him a little less.
she spends every spare second
checking her phone,
hoping to see if he's responded.
hours later.
still checking, and still hoping
for no real reason at all.
"is it possible,"
she asked herself,
"to hate someone and still
hang on every word?"
but maybe she wants to hang on
every word, hang on everything
he meant.
because letting it go was harder
than holding onto it.
staying awake was harder than
just shutting her eyes long
enough to let him go.
so she wastes her time counting
stars and counting scars,
until she can breathe again.

They are strangers now, separated by their worlds and walls.
There is no chemistry, no spark, nothing special.
They are simply strangers, sharing a couch.

One is autumn, one is spring;
one likes talking, and the other? Listening.

If walls could talk, they’d weave a tale so tragic.

In the beginning, he was sun, and she was moon.
At the ending, she was running, but he was leaving.

In the beginning, there are many things.
There is music, and laughter, and broken strings.
They have cooperation, and commitment, and promises.
Her mom gives them glasses, his mom gives them dishes.
She has her charcoals, he has his guitar.

At the ending, close to the ending-
There is his guitar, her laughter, they’ve broken things.
And that is all that is left.

Promises and glasses, dishes and hearts.
A year of trying and losing is written on the walls;
the wallpaper- peeling, the curtains- ripping.

He clears his throat, she stills- hoping.
“I’m sorry,” she hears, and it’s okay.
“I’m sorry,” she hears, “that it’s ended this way.”

I’m sorry, she hears. I’m sorry, that it’s ended this way.
I’m sorry, she hears. That it’s ended this way.

“It’s ended this way?”
“I’m ending it this way.”

I have lost my sun,
Though I still orbit in a strange attraction.

I have lost my music,
Though I know my heart sings sound.

I have lost my vision,
Though I see in dreams an impossible beauty.

I have lost my sense,
Though this world has never tasted as sour.

I have lost my purpose,
Though aimlessly, I write in the pale drear of twilight.

I have lost my reason,
Though I chart dangerous courses without a crew.

I am the last falls of the loveliest red proscenium
curtain.

I am over, undone, a foundling, lost,
Without you.

Your lips, soft and full,
Are tearing at my heart.
Your skin, freckled and bumped,
Is at play with my palms.
Your eyes, of water and stone
Rain, storming like fists of hail.
Your *******, are blooms, pouring
Like white chocolate cupped.
Your hair, is a loom even
Penelope could not weave.
Your little feet, are drumming
Like puddles by the sea.
Your thighs, make me mutter
And sigh into the winds.
I will, not go wondering now
For whom is master and who
Is slave, are you the Morgen
Or are you Fand my gentle
Ocean wave?  Your voice 
Is song, your breath is air
And your pooling, marbled
Face, torso, hair, how they beckon
And your words, gifting melody,
Such words must be forbidden.

Her fine hands are gentle
With lithe and spiny fingers
Of bone and fin.

Her eyes are opal,
Essence of emerald and topaz,
A hoard of treasure.

Her hair is sea gathering
And dances in the blue currents
Deadly as the sea snake.

Her skin is coral,
Made of mineral and sorcery,
A fatal beacon.

Her lips are urchin,
Set in a whirlpool of face,
A spiral of doom.

Her voice is dream,
Rocking the lost wrecked ships,
Ground into sand.

Her long tail is fable
Of paradise, beyond faraway seas,
Cyclones and waves.