but I’m alive
important distinction
that sometimes I can’t make out
I tried to reach out to my ex in an attempt
to analyze my previous relationship patterns
but they ignored my call
so I guess that told me what I needed it to

I’m very jealous of you, for so many different reasons
maybe that’ll be the next poem I write

this is something I do - any time someone I have some kind of respect for asks for one of my books, I have to re digest it through their eyes. Immediately I go home and read it as if I am them instead of me and now I like my words differently depending on who it is I’m reading as. It shows me- I am not afraid of touching things filled with memories. You can be. I am, however, too terrified of freezing in this place if I stay unable to figure out how to move. 
this is something I do - when I was a child, every night as I would try to fall asleep my mind would come up with the most terrible things. Intrusive thoughts that I would call bees in my brain, I couldn’t help it nor did I understand it, I’d try for hours to distract myself but still each night I’d dream of burning alive, and I believed I had myself to blame. I’m telling you this now because in adulthood I have gotten very good at ignoring the bees, too good, I’ve decided. I can barely hear myself think so how can I possibly create?
this is something I do- crave, in all regards. Food and love are the same and I am only asking for a bite. A relic from my eating disorder, I’m used to surviving on little bits and I know there is a part of me that prefers it. Restrict now, binge later, the problem is there is no longer anything left that isn’t filled with memories and sometimes it is too much for my body to understand. I will ask for permission before I am affectionate. I will still eat in a calorie deficit today.

I forgot I existed before waking up on your front
porch at 6 am. We walked to your bedroom as the
morning light waved goodbye, the first and last time

I will ever sleep in jeans. We kissed like we were mad at
each other: urgently, my hand clenching your thigh
for dear life, pursing our lips because that makes it

slower which somehow means it's more intentional.
I’m ready to wake up for the day and immediately
move my body. I wonder if that’s only something I’m

able to do if I’m not telling anyone about it. Still- it
did always feel so time sensitive, I would be rushing
without any idea where I needed to go except that I

wanted it to be with you. I was hesitant at first, until
I was able to remember what your perfume smelled
like: clean, no matter how drunk I was, no matter how

tired. I’m afraid it might be lingering, but I finally learned
that it isn't beautiful to be so tragic, not even in November.
Now pity feels nowhere near as good as intimacy

does, and intimacy only feels as good as the last time.
I struggle to find a point where I wasn’t naked in every
possible way, but that’s because people usually fall in

love with me if they’re having *** with me. This
time I was too busy remembering how to be on display,
how to play the right amount of pretend and the right

amount of dead. In the dark it’d be impossible to tell
the difference between the way you saw me and
the way I saw you, but I can still feel the sinking.

there will be another tattoo shop
with artists that have no bank account
who ask me to cash their checks for them and another downtown with a whiskey donut bar
or one that was once a mortuary
that I’ll get too drunk at and puke outside of
maybe I'll have *** in the pews at this one, too
there will be another set of grid like streets
that go one way or the other way, east to west
and I still look at the signs even after 24 years
and there will be another historic avenue
that will knock down the local watering holes
in order to create high rise buildings
for ******* boys and girls that
already have credit cards and BMW’s
and other guys in folded beanies
that sell my friends *******
but this time it'll be cold out and ketamine
there will be another set of people that are ugly
but i hope this time they are ******* honest

I’ve always imagined I would end up with someone named Sam. I think it started somewhere around age 13, when I sat earnestly inside of the closet and somehow felt even more painstakingly alone than I do now. I would shower for hours and think of her, I told nobody the depths of our relationship, not even myself. Inside my head she had short hair but pretty eyes and was my height, sometimes shorter, and she drove me to places I had never gone but always dreamed of trying out. She walked firmly and with purpose. I named her Sam because I could still say her name out loud.

Drug addiction, usage, dependency is funny because its infectious, like the trouble behind liking the burn or the laugh of the newest airborne virus finding the immunocompromised, there’s no right way to use. We say controlled, harm reduction, but I'm not really sure there's a wrong way to do it either. They say moderation, cold turkey, some vices are worse than others, but are they? It all depends on what happens afterwards, the consequences, the aftermath. Freebasing is harder than it looks and apparently so is stopping.

Sam wasn't necessarily an imaginary friend, more a person I knew I would one day meet. The first few girls I kissed I compared to her, knowing they wouldn't be able to last because she was waiting for me. I remember when I started a new job and my sweet anxiety stricken coworker, who was an inch taller than me, sheepishly introduced herself as Sam. She had a boyfriend and now she has another.

I thought maybe running a red light would cheer you up. Fairly sadistic if you ask me, but that's no longer a bad thing, it's just authentic. I did it twice for good measure, and each time you cracked a smile. Later I could hear you talking through the wall. I wasn't sure if you knew we could hear you so I moved away to be safe, being safe has become increasingly harder these days, to the point where my vision hasn't focused since I got back to town and I've started to tighten my jaw in order to try to ******' ***. It gets harder every single day.

Drugs smell like ****, all of them, every single one. They taste like dehydration and gasoline and a painful lack of sleep, they taste ******* disgusting. I've never met anybody other than myself that was able to put them down when prompted but I've also never met anybody that genuinely preferred having none. Why are we numbing, dulling, minimizing these feelings? Who decided that was somehow more freeing?

I want to write a poem about being
malleable,
so I buy clay. I try to make a sculpture
of what it is that I’m feeling and it looks like
absolute ****, it isn’t my fault
my hands are just too weak to
carry the weight of the mixture I tried to make.
that you once were.
I try again.
I lift and I punch and I mold
and I kneed and
I grab the clay like I’m
grabbing the back of your head,
your hair in my fist so now it’s grey between my fingers once again
and I hit and I switch and I try so hard to make something sturdy  

it needs to be cooked to stand up straight.
maybe you’re just not there yet.

my body is so hot that it’ll heat up the entire
room if we’re too lazy to turn the fan on,
I think you find it endearing and luckily
I’m pretty much used to all the sweating

you switch the light bulbs in my two lamps
because the ambience or mood or maybe
we just don’t need anymore warmth in here
and I lay, strategically covering
the parts of me that I don’t want you to see

it’s mid february and we’re both in blazers,
holding hands with new haircuts and some
of the healthiest appetites I’ve seen from two
people that are pretty comfortable
with the ache of starvation

it's the beginning of may and we're both
five lbs heavier, yours went straight to your ***
and mine went to my emotional baggage
we try not to speak, we try to just listen
but nothing feels as filling as just being heard