simple reminders:
beach towels,
mustaches,
grilled vegetables
beetles,
time.

All the coins in your pockets,
everything I've ever given you.
in the washer
in the dryer
burning in the back yard,
like those notes,
and the pictures.
subconscious attempts to hurt you
the attempts of escaping everyone else: equally beautiful
until you looked away.

Don’t leave things alone for too long
or they'll begin to rot.
It took three years for you to give up,
and now your over bite clenches onto your bottom lip.
It looks painful,
but you're always so calm.

I can never tell where you are.

I feel ridiculous asking you questions
that I already know the answers to,
but I can't help it:
I love to hear your voice.

When you came home drenched,
spinning dizzy,
you laid down as I gazed at the wreck that laid before me.
You were in another world, and I didn’t want to follow.
Your golden feet could take you anywhere your heart imagined.
(I guess that was part of the jealously).

I want you to tell me about your childhood,
learn what made you the way you are.

Back to the photographs:
You looked so fragile,
so small, (breakable).

When I saw you cry for the first time,
the comfort in your grasp gave me the confidence
not to panic.
I stared at the bruises on your body,
knowing they would never heal,
knowing that you liked it that way.

I know you never understood how special you were,
that you never would.
I was scared of the things I knew,

I knew I had to leave
before you woke up, and,
walking with the faint shadow
of sleep behind my ears,
itching at my scalp
from the inside:
I took notice of your car,
and the bird **** on your windshield
                                                   reminded me that we were the same.

She kept talking about the blood,
how it fell, how it wouldn't stop.
She believed in it so sincerely that you could feel it in her skin
and the way she held your face so that you couldn't look away.
It scared you how she could speak so beautifully,
how easily she could persuade you to follow her,
no matter where she went.

In her dreams, nothing could be more real.
The sarcastic smiles, casual conversations.
Everyone she touched, someone new,
someone she'd never seen before.
Never bothering to learn their names,
they weren't as important as their bodies.
It was alright that she acted this way,
she never pretended to be something she wasn't.

The dirt underneath her nails,
that filled her pockets,
was from the beach.
She was always correcting him,
"Not sand, *******."
Always with a smile.
He would stare at her, and she would try to read his mind.
She'd tickle him, but he'd shake her off,
she'd try to hold him, but he'd slip out of her grasp.

Anger: consumed.
She grabbed the broom, tied a shirt to her head,
jumped onto the table, (knocking his breakfast onto the floor),
"My dimples are waiting!" She screamed.
He stared at her like he had never seen her before.
She'd never gotten that look, not even the first time he saw her,
he'd always known her, (somehow).
Her face dropped, as did her body.
(and the table shook as he watched her fall).
He stood up, expecting something.

Indifference: something terrifying when it comes to love.
They kissed as though it would be their last.
She was social, he liked that, and he tried to escape himself,
(she encouraged it).
They loved each other, enough to forget the world,
(but not quite).
They laughed together, so much that their ribs cracked,
(like his voice so often did).

It seemed like they were lost in each other,
and they were.
He would ask her questions,
but she wouldn't always answer.


Confusion: it's something they hated.
She spread her body on the table, and he undressed her.
(with that same expression)
They had never done this before, but they kept at it.
(he left the shirt on her head)
He made no move, he washed himself with her image.
(she loved it)
Sweeping up his breakfast, his eyes fixed on her.
(as always)
They both loved it.

He grabbed at the fat on her legs with his tongue,
and his teeth.
He was going to devour her,
like the dinner she made earlier.
All he thought about was ***,
his friends all called him, "Caveman".
It turned her on
(especially when he left the lights on).
She was obsessed with the heat,
in her room, in the kitchen.
When he cut off the circulation on her wrist,
it made marks,
(she loved them).

She is an angel, I think. At the very least, she can fly. A few times now I've glimpsed her stretching her wings in the privacy of her bedroom, naked in front of the mirror or in front of the windows. All I can see are the curves of her legs and hips though the tall keyhole, and often the feathers that cover her bare, dark skin. There is something empty about her when I see her there that I feel the need to fill, shadows pushing her closer to the crimson curtains that flutter with her movement.

I often linger by the door longer than I should and imagine her flying, a contrast to the soft sky and clouds surrounding her, the light air only lifting her farther up.

I've knows for three years that she wants to leave me. I can often sense it in the way she breathes and blinks slowly and moves about the kitchen. She eyes me as if we speak completely different languages, and sometimes I believe we actually do. I'm too this or that for her, but her image is unchanging in my mind. I will let her fly from that open window any moment she chooses. I can do nothing; I watch her life simply through a keyhole.

She seems reluctant to jump. With my mind I will her to test her wings, as a child tests the water of his grandmother's swimming pool before diving in, limbs flailing. He can swim, though the cold water is hard to breathe in at first, and he moves from side to side in chilled giddiness.

The rustling of her wings keeps me up at night, as I lay in bed half asleep, half dreaming, in a hot and clustered mind. And I keep one eye open, too, for I know in some day to come that she'll be gone when I awake.

It's a mirror in the doorway that tells me I can look no further.
I am not experienced, like you.
I don't know how to defy this.
I don't think gravity is on my side;
nor luck or love.
I wonder why, sometimes.

It feels like summer in winter
if I think of you with my eyes closed.
And there's something kicking at the edge of my mind,
like a skeleton tired of being locked away
and tired of trying to read in the dark.
The bulb is burnt out.
I can't see anymore than you can,
but at least you have the key to the closet.

I meant to be this and that
and all the things you used to get mad at me for being.
I'm not sure why you're so simple,
so feeble.
When I used to admire your heart I would sit on my knees
so that when my feet went numb I could feel the pin-***** of waking up.

Now you've been sleeping for years,
and I know, at this point, that I'm not Prince Charming.
You've told me nearly a million times.
Or at least your lips have,
as they mouth the words of your death,
like a diabetic child ******* on a forbidden lollipop.
I still can't seem to miss you.