Embodied in a perpetual persona of shitheaded seventeen
(Before you snuck out on a cold silver sheet)

You could measure your lifespan (or is it your wingspan, now? did you know it's the same as your height?)  in late-night shenanigans topped with bacon-guaca-holy-moly burgers, tumbling in neon spandex and the raising of general hell, which you probably can't reach right now,

(And how many flaming bags of feces on why-not doorsteps, for me?)

Speaking of me,
Do you remember when I kissed your head beside a broken down photo machine? Do you remember when we ran away from your first girlfriend (her first kiss) and laughed because you had a current girlfriend? Do you remember when we tried out clouds in department store floor levels, like you were planning on getting one all along? Like you were my (first) and now my (late) husband? Three years doesn't seem very long ago, when placed in proportion with - what was that word again - eternity?

You were but a fleeting presence not only in my life, (in her life, his life, their lives now broken from a trio into a typical twosome) but in your very own - one blonde beach-bunny darting from top-hat to top-shelf

(Could you give up World of Warcraft for a World of pearly White?)
(Would you take me to my Senior Prom?)

We will float yellow rubber ducks down the water at your wake (one by one) and eat food-court teriyaki because no one is allowed to be sad (says you)

(Jesus, baby, what's your dang address?!)

In the end, you ride off into the sunset on your unicycle, like the bad movie that this is
(Screaming, "this thing's killer on the *****!")

In a land-mass mural hung high over my
(Smaller, Statelier) existence -

One boy, permeated in a maple-flavored monotony - one boy, half-asleep in harlequin headaches and half-assed homework - one boy, munching on metaphorical muffins - one boy -

COUNTDOWN: 5 , 4 , 3 , 2 , 1
BREAKDOWN: B , E , N , N , Y
                        (Where am I?)

Between bridges burned with cigarette butts, within ***** all-night diners and pieced (or pierced) together by solemn, salt-encrusted shadows

(I could come to you, you could come to me)
(Petit a petit, l'oiseau fait son nid)

Track my tiny rabbit feet through location services and ten-second hints

(Instagram my dead body)

COLD, HARD flesh  - a very lonely girl in a room filled with fluttering moths and fully-functional nooses

- Makes a game plan, in an effort to:
  - penetrate your wavering, wandering, yet wholly conscious mind
(The fate - the fear - lurks in the futility, the fragility, of your unsuspecting ears)

- Equipped with: an anchor (the rock-climbing kind, in order to avoid a metaphor), followed by some paper (and a pen - the use of my blood as script seems overly dramatic), and - a concoction of incredible (and edible!!) proportions

                    THE GOAL:
- To become the smallest presence possible, to take up the tiniest amount of space in the real and imagined world, and to in turn envelope your very existence - like a Sunday driver in rush hour

- with emphasis on:
The ***** of your neck - I could mount my anchor into it and climb for days; I could nest in your ****** Youth cut when I reach the top, I could build the world's smallest fire with the world's saddest hands

                    STEP ONE:
When secured in predesignated cocoon, I will unleash the first sheaf - a perforated edge - and enclose a minuscule fragment of my still-breathing soul (for your keychain, perhaps, but preferably your pocket)

                    STEP TWO:
I will mail you a fraction (incidentally, a subject I still can't grasp) every week until:
- I have decreased in size with each turn, I get smaller and smaller until my tangibility disappears entirely and the only presence left of me is a slip that reads:
- apply to areas affected (only as directed)

Wait! No, not only that- my very own subconscious now rests inside your "thinking cap"

- INTRODUCING: Your every day monotony, now littered with:
- 17 scratched mix CDs you didn't want to listen to
- 4 dogs I secretly liked (and only you knew)
- a bright pink dumpster, largely livable
- a rusted mailbox with an ocean in full
- soundless Skype calls in stolen sweaters
- alphabet soup with undiscernable letters
- the unfaltering presence of a cabin in the Alaskan wilderness - confused with the very small and haunted town I couldn't leave to see you - and last but not least -

The ceaseless, repeated  chorus of "you belong to me", like an immortal fly in an endless August dream

1.
A young and spiky boy misheard me over a pile of handcrafted valentines and said "I love you, too"
("I think I broke my tooth")

2.
A pseudo-intellectual boy grabbed at my hand and told me that we are all made of stardust, that the universe is swift and fleeting and our matter will remain etched in the very high and infinite heavens
(But do you know that I myself am made of moon dust and rose petals, laced with arsenic?)

3.
A not-very-lonely boy bought me a grilled cheese sandwich at the witching hour that he paid for with his dead father's inheritance money
(Money that I dipped in ranch dressing and inhaled in the form of a black American Spirit)

4.
A boy with jawbones made of steel called me in the middle of the night to tell me that he was nothing but a very weak and ancient stone foundation and what is the most effective method of destruction
(I told him I'd trade in my metal detector for a plane ticket to Egypt)

5.
A semi-dependent variable of a boy I had known years ago flew a kite for me in a cold and cloudless sky and hit me til I kissed him
("It's because we're getting older", I said)

6.
A boy who I might have loved named our children on the back of a game of hangman and hung up magazine pictures I stole on walls his girlfriend was more familiar with than she was with me
(I switched seats)

7.
A boy of questionable moral fiber said words I spent two years trying to say back
(One-sixteenth of them are buried in a box I'm all too willing to leave at the old house)

8.
A boy with eyes uncovered in countless concentration camps left after filling the gaps in my very sheltered universe with vegan bakeries, baseball tees, leftover curry and one-sock feet
(But I digress)

Hi, I'm calling to tell you that:
I wrote down everything you ever said to me (in the literal sense, standing stretched against my own uncultured and violently ****** vocabulary)
- And am regurgitating it back to innocent passerby - my sincerest apologies to those poor victims of circumstance, suspended in the projectile ***** of my dysfunctional disdain

(In a slew of worm guts and warm bodies, mama-bird to baby-bird saying "please don't leave the nest" - it's too hot for blankets anyways)

My original letter to you was written on the backside of an airplane **** bag, where I detailed my favorite scenes from a movie we subconsciously made entitled "Baby's First Time", while blissfully unaware of my stern faced in-flight companion.

My first draft, though, was a series of half-hearted winks and very, very drunk texts, beginning with:
          SEXT: I offer my services as sacrificial ******
(and followed a whopping six months later by)
          SEXT: I am still young enough to accuse you of statutory ****
(The art of seduction seems to be less of an art and more of a particular science)

You are:
- My own personal Edgar Allan Poe, just blonder and younger, with a bigger gut and a bigger ego and (alas!) a complete lack of interest in your sweet Annabel (but I could change my name)
- And oddly enough, I'm the one writing the poems here

(The whole world's a stage, with me just watching your sad indie boy band from the nosebleed seats)

Hooded hitchhiker of haunted hours!

(Or haunted houses, as the mainstream would have me believe)
Somewhere between New Mexico and New York the tables must have turned - see, it's not you that's seeking a ride, but me

(If a ride is what the kids are calling such a sweet and final relief these days)

Life is indeed "a highway" but I missed the EXIT HERE when overcome with the sight of your dusty bone-dry thumb creeping out from underneath a solemn black bell
(And they said I slow down for nothing!)

My curiosity intensified when: I glimpsed you behind a hydroplaning semi, just north of the Missouri River: I was going left from the right lane and I shouted to you: "hop in!"

Your blatant denial leaves me wondering...
(do you feel as though you are above me?)
(are there Escalades in the underworld?)
(does a '98 Volvo wagon not convey the utmost message of doom and despair?)

To clarify things, please observe the billboard on your passenger side:

I AM RECKLESS, I AM LETHAL
I AM HALF-BLIND AND SPINNING OUT OF CONTROL
DOING 90 ON AN UNPAVED ROAD
FINGERS DUSTING STEERING WHEEL
TIRES DUSTING DITCHES

(Please keep all hands and feet inside the vehicle at all times - unless you'd rather not)

Oh, robed and rusty reaper!
My consensus is this:
- I will not seek you out, but
- I
- will
- not
- turn
- you
- down

(Our final joyride looms just outside my rearview mirrors and directly inside my stream of consciousness)

A friendly neighborhood reminder from your favorite girl-next-door:
- it's been a while now since we've seen one another (reflect back to long, melted dog days, amidst the summer of your heated discontent - with me and everything else in the world - and my utter digression. allow me to put a stop to that)
Conjure, if you will, a mental picture of a plastic 3-subject notebook stuffed with at least six, potentially seven subjects. Ask me what's inside: laugh when I tell you "mainly lists" (dusty déjà vu peeks it's bulbous head around the corner)
- I remain very unsure of how to put this particular list into writing, but here's a shot at it - slathered in a thick layer of milk chocolate, smothered in melted cheese and sour cream in hopes that you won't approach the subject.
     1. I want to smoke every cigarette you didn't know about and lick the roof of your mouth, maybe go so far as to blow rings around your false pretenses
     2. I want to fashion a tiny scythe and lodge it in between my teeth when we're together - while you fall prey to the assumption that these nicks I leave in your neck are symbols of my inexperienced affection
     3. I want the taste and memory of the cheap alcohol in my blood to linger in your mouth for at least 8 months
     4. I want the very strong jaw of nostalgia to meet your jaw in front of everyone you know
     5. I want you to grow up and to forget.
- I know you're leaving soon, so here's a map of where you're going: the colors represent everywhere I'd like to kiss you, and the gray areas are the places you'd rather I stopped short of.
(What do you mean, the whole thing's gray?)
A friendly neighborhood reminder from your favorite girl-next-door:
- destroy what destroys you.

and don't forget to send postcards