The indignity
Of you who gave me life
On a cold, passion-filled, loveless night
Your young skin
On her old bones

You who hid from the cradle
The bat-catcher
The apologetic on the phone
Lying amidst the ruins of
Dreaming of

Scents and spices
Hot flames licking the back of your hand
Pastries dancing
On grilled lamb shanks

Do you often wake in the middle of the night
As I do
And wonder if there was something you could do
but didn't
And then willed yourself into

Nonexistence

The indignity
Of being forgotten by a part of yourself
Of losing your soul to the mistakes of the past

In second grade, we did an experiment with static electricity
We rubbed balloons on our heads,
& stuck them to walls
& kissing you is kinda like that
My hair stands on end,
I get shocked when I touch things
& I want to tell you stupid stuff like,
kissing you is a bundle of kittens
colliding with my face at .5 miles an hour
It's like being shot with a dart gun
made of hummingbirds
that shoots darts made of hummingbirds

& your lips are so soft,
I can't actually tell when we are touching,
like braiding hair underwater,
like napping under a blanket filled with rainbows & clouds,
& your favorite books

When you kiss me,
the cartoon devil & angel on my shoulder
climb into my ears,
like all of my neurons,
& start ******* on my brainsteam
If you were a 300 pound professional weight lifter
& if I were a Kia Sorento,
you could drag me anywhere

Kissing you is patient & impossibly slow,
like peeling paint off the wall with glittery stickers,
or cooking a turkey with a lighter
You remind me of the time in second grade
when Bethany Hopkirk
called me a freak face & stabbed me in the arm with a pencil
Cause kissing you is kinda like that,
unhealthy & will probably result in disfigurement
But baby, bring on the ****** scars & lead poisoning
Cause when you kiss me,
you are dangling me off a bridge by a belt
You are the screen door of my childhood,
all taste & swinging
So full of holes you could never keep anything in

You are every black eye,
you're a semitruck & I'm a turtle with two broken legs,
& a broken heart
You are illegal fireworks falling down stairs together,
driving on four flat tires,
playing frisbee at night with a saw blade
Kissing you is like falling out of a 37 story window,
exploding into a cloud of robins
& reappearing on the ground with my mouth full of feathers

& when I can't kiss you,
I try to find the static electricity in my apartment
I dig around in light sockets,
change lightbulbs with my teeth,
& make out with the toaster
& I know we've only been seeing eachother
for a couple of weeks,

But baby, when you kiss me,
I can't remember my middle name,
or which one is my left foot
So come over tonight
We'll shuffle around the apartment in our socks,
& we'll let our lips drift toward each other,
like tectonic plates made...

out of kittens

The way you write,
It's like painting the sky.

The way you speak,
Makes my heart grow weak.

The way you make me feel,
Is like insanity on wheels.

Screaming,
Is believing.

Believing,
That your words,
Will be heard.

You may hear,
Seeing is believing.

But you see,
I believe nothing,
Yet see everything.