what you see:
me, quiet and deadly still in a way that
i never am
staring into empty space or
at a blank wall. maybe i'm
counting cracks or cataloging creases.
you see me zone out—
such an airhead, that George is
i wonder what he's imagining

what i see:
ivory skin and hair as orange as
sunset, and she is as beautiful...
on the outside;
but on the inside, she is a
black hole.
she ****** me in
and i thought she was the light
at the end of the tunnel.
i must have been a traveller
stranded and thirsty in the desert
crawling towards mirages.
now i am helpless.

i am watching her line her legs with ink
as she tells me to make sure that she
doesn't line her legs
with blood.
meanwhile, i scratch deep
at an itch that isn't there
and call it catharsis.
i am seeing white tiles and
a translucent shower curtain and
a sink and soaps and everything is
normal—except the girl
sitting in a bathtub
naked without water
and bare skin has never made me feel more
ill.

what you hear:
ambient sounds.
my breathing, perhaps.

what i hear:
she hums like a Disney villain
brewing potions
and calling it tea. she looks
like a princess
but her words are witch's curses
and i'm hexed
under her spell,
hanging by a thread
to every word she's ever said
and somehow not noticing
the noose she looped around my neck.
darling, choke me
'til I can only breathe as well as your drowning lungs
as you gasp into your oxygen mask

what you see:
i'm having a panic attack.

what you hear:
i'm hyperventilating.

The sultry evening falls like the silk upon my shoulders
                   I kiss your throat as you write to your mother
It conflicts you, does it not?
                   The memory of her weeping and the very act of your hands
One clutching your pen, the other gliding over the inside of my thigh
                   Both ever so foolishly stained in the purest of black
It certainly conflicts me, my love, for all my tender heart longs for is this:
                   Stain me
Grip my hair, press me harder onto your lap, blacken me
                   Let me see the sweetest stars—
And may they be sweeter than the relish of raspberries upon my mouth
                   Write to your mother about me
I shall kiss you for it
                   And thus, as we clasp hands dreamily, become your muse

I was going to write this poem
To say how much I still love you
Even though you don't love me
But that's not true anymore
I'm writing this poem
To say how much I love myself
Even though you don't love me

Wasted days hang like corpses
in the five second pause
between our lips
and thick melancholia spreads
through my bones
with thoughts of
what should have been.

I want to tell you that I'm sorry,
but that's not quite right-
I want to give you the oceans
that press against my seams
and bend with weighted remorse.


I want to tell you that I've missed you,
but that's not quite right, either.
you have been missing from me
and I've been sticking these leftover pieces
together with chewing gum
and bits of dental floss,
blindly trying to recreate
a feeling from shadows and memory.

I want to tell you that I've changed my mind,
but this one sits like a lump in my throat.
I haven't changed my mind
because it's never really left you.
I've been looking through this camera obscura
at all of the things I thought I knew
and I missed the ghost of an idea,
patiently waiting for an eloquent realization-

It's always been you.