I want to fill your mouth with pennies

I’ll pull your intestines out with my teeth

your hands are cacti,
your eyes rolled backward
like your rolling papers over kush

I am a cricket,
you are a size 11 shoe

I am click bait for your insecurities:

“self-deprecating,
emotionally vulnerable Canadian
seeks love and fidelity”

am I enticing?

I sat at your window and waited
to see you come up the drive

I am fiction

at the lake where I spent my childhood
you pressed your cheek to the sand

as I held the hand of my 6-year-old self in the water

you left yourself in my mouth
and I am still picking out your remnants
from my teeth

I see no better solution

than to hack away at my joints

and mail them to you

with the note,

“I share this with you”

And so I fall again
Into the blackest cycles
The dark patterns
Of dreary steps
Running on auto
Not feeling like I ought to
Piloting the craft through
Though taking many hits to the hull

And perennial pardon ,
Sure as the sun will rise
With the impending dawn,
****** my plaintive passions
Sickening and splintering the dream
One from which I awake with a start
Bloodshot grogginess
My purest art

They called me Pluto from afar, and I,
Nameless and void, embraced the title
With the force of a thousand burning suns,
Each one like the star I loved ever so dearly,
An immense sphere of fire which had me
Helplessly, hopelessly bound by its gravity,
Caught in its orbit from the beginning of time.

They called me Pluto still from further still,
Speaking my name as the orbit of myself
And their water world drove us apart,
And I gladly, worshipfully rejoiced –
I had a name; I was no longer void.
I was distant still, but they called me Pluto,
And I wore my name like regalia,
A crown upon my lifeless skin.

They called me Pluto still as they
Waded further from the cosmic shore
That was their home, sending probes
That touched the regolith of Mars –
There was life, and light, spreading out from Planet Earth,
So I waited, hoping they’d come for me
Sooner rather than later, tomorrow and not two centuries from now.

They called me Pluto even as they stripped me of my name –
I was ‘planet’ no longer,
And I grew colder and bitterer as I spun,
Because I knew things they did not,
Things about the rise and fall of civilizations.
They did not see what I had seen,
They had not been watching
Since the dawn-time.

They called me Pluto,
And they cried my name
As I watched them burn,
The light of the flickering candle in the dark
That had once been humankind
Flaring, more luminous than the sun for one bright, shining moment,
Then fading.

They called me Pluto in the aftermath,
As if I were the God of the underworld,
Guarding their lost souls from my far-off perch,
Shepherding that which could not be led,
But I was not their God, even if I’d once fathomed them as mine.
So here I wait, patient, eternal, void and barren,
For them to leave me lonely when they no longer
Dare to speak my name from the realm
I am the supposed guardian of;
They called me Pluto.

Lips make the sweetest promises
That could hook me like a lure

Lips make the dearest promises
That I am loved and cared for

Lips make the kindest promises
That I won’t be lonely anymore

Lips make the greatest promises
But…
I’ve heard them all before

Instead of paper, here you are.
Rather than dust, here you are,
removing the world of its
human fingerprints.

Like a flicker of the sun,
a shaving of light, you soar
across the trembling flowers,
calming them with your weightless touch.

Dancing on air,
you suspend in the space,
spreading an earthly joy
into the wind, into the silent sound.
The breeze, your raja, the sun your mantra,
and I, your beholder.

Be still, my soul, be still; the arms you bear are brittle,
Earth and high heaven are fixt of old and founded strong.
Think rather,--call to thought, if now you grieve a little,
The days when we had rest, O soul, for they were long.

Men loved unkindness then, but lightless in the quarry
I slept and saw not; tears fell down, I did not mourn;
Sweat ran and blood sprang out and I was never sorry:
Then it was well with me, in days ere I was born.

Now, and I muse for why and never find the reason,
I pace the earth, and drink the air, and feel the sun.
Be still, be still, my soul; it is but for a season:
Let us endure an hour and see injustice done.

Ay, look: high heaven and earth ail from the prime foundation;
All thoughts to rive the heart are here, and all are vain:
Horror and scorn and hate and fear and indignation--
Oh why did I awake? when shall I sleep again?

fall, (v.)

what i did.

home, (n.)

when i am with you, there is nowhere else i'd rather be; and i am a person who always wants to be somewhere else.

hurt, (v.)

i have vague memories of what i said the night i lied to you that i did not love you, but i remember my voice hitching in my throat. i remember it hurt.  

kiss, (v.)

our faces are inches from each other. you freeze, and i giggle before calling you a coward. i rarely kiss first; but if i didn't, then i don't think that distance between us would've closed at all.

lost, (adj.)

i was willing to let you go, and yet, at the same time, i have never wanted to be so /selfish/ in my entire life.

love, (n.)

you.

mine, (n.)

what i want you to be.

name, (n.)

your mother's maiden name was the same as my ex' middle name. i remember laughing until my sides hurt once i found out.

prom, (n.)

"you're all mine on prom night." prom night never happened, but it's the thought that counts.

song, (n.)

all those corny tunes on the radio have been reminding me of you lately.

sick, (adj.)

you, too very often. i wish i knew how to take care of you but i can barely do that for myself.

sing, (v.)

my most vivid memory of you includes you auditioning to our glee club with *together in electric dreams. you ******. we would laugh about it later on.

stay, (v.)

you make it so hard to leave.