with forceps and scissors
i open myself up
i incise parts of you
still lingering around
the sharp cuts are
methodical, swift -
the poetry is
messy, unrhymed.
with every snip,
i can feel you
leave me
in my lonesome
tiny, quiet life.
it makes me sad,
it makes me happy,
it makes me angry,
and then
i feel nothing
at all.
this apathy, i think
scares me
the most -
have i given you
everything,
after all?
i put this thought
back inside,
i slowly stitch myself
back,
seven of them
holding me together.
if it were possible,
i would like to sleep
for a long time.

goodness is not
an inherited trait
we were born to
learn violence
the soft animal
that breathes inside
hungers for the
clawing, the blood

goodness is not
an inherited trait
devoid of all emotions
we choose to survive
it might be a knife
to the back
or a bullet
in between eyes
but we all will choose
certain certainty

goodness is not
an inherited trait
we are awake at night
because
we close our eyes
when we get
too close to
the sun

they have taken my words
and minced them up
in front of me
this is a familiar hell
this oubliette, this hole
this ******* landfill
of words and words and
words have
lost meaning, lost color
as little by little
i am pulverized
to grain, to salt, to dust
over and over again
over and over again
over and over again

i would like to run away
far from the bogged down
existence i have made
sell my clothes, my hair
sell my words still
dipped in my blood
i’d use the money and
board a train, a ship, a plane
**** it, i’ll move to an island
everywhere’s an island
if i tell no one where i am

the letters used to taste vanilla sweet
they now stick in my throat cloyingly
it is so hard to pronounce,
a four syllable reminder of you
the shape of your name
has its edges sharpened
has its corners sticking out

(my mouth moves to kiss the air before tugging
the corners of my mouth back into a sneer
then i open my mouth twice, chomping
at the ends of your name, ending in a scream)

i used to trace it nightly
the slopes of your initials in my palms -
it was a river bend in its grace
it was a story in gentle motion
it was daybreak with lilac skies

now, your name is stuck in my throat
refuses me relief, refuses me reprieve
in a decade, in a second
perhaps then it will stop hurting
and yet the thought of that scares me
i want your name to hurt -
it is, i think, some semblance of love
i want to choke in it before i give it up

i had a dream - you and i
were forty-ish in a room
stuck at some premiere,
maybe yours, maybe mine
our eyes would meet
and i think, or maybe i hope
neither of us would look away
and you would finally smile
and i would smile
and that would be enough

the world is quiet whenever i cry
i could hear the birds, the leaves
falling softly to the ground
a sort of drunken lullaby