how wonderful to have found someone kindred
I like to think of you in white, me in a prairie dress, us together eating strawberry pie under a red-hot moon
you'd laugh at me and hold my hand
fall asleep in the grass, content to rot or bloom

careful! if you've got it right it shouldn't be so hard to fit
I couldn't tell if you were lingering on my eyes because I was on yours
but you looked at me while I drifted asleep, and then I knew!

warm flannel like fire
icy gaze to ease hot touch
i melt in your hand

soft campfire mouth
have you been waiting for me?
trying to stretch time

hold my waist, eager
but not hasty. seconds pass
just like molasses

you make winter warm
you make rain come melt the snow
i like you in red

"someone you love can be so damaged!"
the human body is not sacred as we believe it to be. everything is a house for a soul! but flesh is warm and blood flows so we treat it as if it lives. it does not live. love, reason, sorrow live.
flesh is not sacred so much that it is protected, but it is not sinful and it is not a cage. we cremate the body - prepare it, manicure it, embalm it. the cynic says we do these things for the living, but it's not true.
we care about the dead because we can tell they are living somewhere outside themselves.
it's like making the bed, steaming the curtains of a room inhabited by some lover on an indefinite voyage.

blood will creep into the soft, cream cotton seams of my pinafore and it will never ever leave.
will they torture me first?
I don't think so.
does a killer hate or love their victim? is it the same?

i.
will you starve me? hit me? **** me? the answer is no because you sense that I am alive - you sense my warmth, what makes me move. I wonder how a killer feels life. does he feel it at all? what makes an animal deserving of life or not? does it need to speak or sing?
killers maybe are afraid of conscience and the power of the human mind. maybe they **** other deserving creatures because they hate the guilt we give them for wanting to hurt
or for being hateful.
I wonder who made them hate or why some of them cannot feel love anymore. it's romantic to think about saving a killer with love.
but we can't and we shouldn't think about it.

ii.
I wonder why I like to seek out things that disgust me, or if I like it at all. I heard someone say that if you believe you're worthless you'll work hard to make sure everyone else believes it too.

i grind graphite like a girl shelling shrimp for five cents an hour.
the product of her work shows no toil,
no toil at all in its juicy, lustrous fat -
she throws the exoskeleton into the ocean before her fingers begin to bleed and it makes no sound.
her wails are trapped by the chastising hush of waves, enveloped by the menacing scars on her fresh hands

i sharpen pencils like her
the product of my work shows no toil,
no toil at all in its fine, glinting peak -
i throw the refuse into the fire before my blisters begin to fill with fluid and it leaves no ash
my blackened fingers are soothed by the steady whisper of tap water but i carry the dead skin forever

winter
the wreath’s rustle interrupts my sleep. in my dreamy shiver there is lucidity. between my toes there is carpet; I can feel its green, sense its virginal cool as I shuffle across the hall. I have the urge to scream, to tear the milk-matted blanket muffling my fervid anticipation. I hear you, then: the creak of the door, the friction of skin and silk, the sapped wail of youth’s wasted power. starlight pierces the linen curtains and casts my shadow ten feet tall, two feet tall, not at all. I crawl into bed and feel your breathing but it is not you. you are the unbroken hum of the furnace.

spring
the sugared smell of candy fruit depresses my throat and ***** threatens. my eyes search the window for a stranger but only rain knocks; my clothes are still wet, dripping one, two, three on each step. they dry more quickly than the boards creak; more quickly than I can find the storm drain, my translucent skin sloughing off at your touch. you are the static of broken vhs, the rattle of the closet mirror door as it slams, the easing cries through a premature mouth. I scream again, only to feel you in my ears as cotton, in my limbs as rigor. you whisper my name and I turn like a dog.

summer
dandelion seeds litter the dew-fresh yard. sing louder, you say, and I run faster. the wet heat is psychoactive. I trip and fall and you are the grass; you are the mud, the leaves, the water, the worms. you are the earth who protects my knees, careful to keep pristine my blue-jean jumper, careful to capture every moment of fleeting touch. oak leaves sway above. as intently as I gaze at it, the sun gazes at me and my doe eyes well. maybe there is something in them. maybe there is something in them with your crystal reflection, an eskimo kiss to speak what I cannot.

fall
afternoon sun rules my body and becomes blistering, unbearable; I stir, pressing against the heat, pressing your fingers into my skin, seeking to relieve the thrill. steam curls from my eyelashes as they squint to see you through the illuminated dust. it accumulates. you are the sudden cognizance of the windburn on my cheeks, lingering october air sharp behind my eyes, forcing tears I cannot help but to explain incorrectly. you are their singed, sweet-hot puddles in my hair. you are the residue they leave long after your sublime touch made them invisible.