It's been 19 hours
  and I think I've finally ****** away
  the ***** I drank while giving you shots of water
  so you wouldn't get sick
I thought maybe you were too drunk to notice
but I guess you weren't because you smiled
at me with a sincerity I can't come close to describing

It's been 19 hours
  but the wrenching pain in my stomach
still hasn't gone away.

       and in the airport today
I bought a bottle of water and some pepto bismol
and as I handed her my debit card,
   the cashier asked me
             if I was heading home
                   and I just
*******
choked
  and I'm talking about the really ******* ugly kind of crying here
   and the poor thing didn't know what she had done wrong but
she told me about her grandfather
         who used to say that crying
         is just your body's way
         of getting rid of the toxins
         and making itself stronger

Its been 17 hours since I last saw you
and I don't know how long it will be
before I see you again
but I really,
            really hope that it isn't too long.

You'd think I would have learned by now
   not to take the things
   you say too seriously
because to you,
a promise is little more than
a few flimsy syllables and spit

and if words were a currency,
your's would cause inflation
of the highest degree
         but I live
in a place where words are precious
and dripping with sincerity

and that's why its sometimes
so hard to come up with
the right way of saying
  the things that I mean
and that's why I sometimes
say nothing at all
because words that fill space
  just feel so unclean

so you'd think I would
have learned by now but

    they say that gambling
    is an addiction
[and you know I've always loved good fiction]

I thought that by
   spreading out my obsession
I could make it easier to bear but
it only made me more
                   certain
that nothing could ever
live up to the way  you make my chest
bubble with electricity
                            and unease

and wrapped
  in the sour scents of someone
  else's childhood
it becomes easy to forget
where I came from

     but at least I
can be sure
I'll never forget
where I'm trying to be

you told me the
  other day
that the heel of the foot
is the least sensitive part
of the body
because your brain tends to remember
trivial things like that

well I feel
   from the bottom
      of my feet
that someday soon
                         I might be free

you have kind of a cool brain
and today
I told you I was sorry

but it didn't make me feel much better
      at all
because I didn't really get to say
what I needed to like
how ******* brave I think you are
and how I hope you'll never
let anyone walk all over you
    the way I did because you
deserve
so much better

I guess maybe
there are some things I'm going to miss
but never enough to make me stay

Something strange happens
when you find yourself in a room
with all the boys you ever
thought you might have loved

each with their own poison
their own pressure points
                          inside you
               one in my knees
              one in my lungs
             one underneath my eyelids
            yet all of them together
nestled some place inside my skull
in some tiny electric current I'd like
to pretend doesn't exist

        But something strange happens
because when you see them all
                  side-by-side
it suddenly becomes so much clearer

        that really,
they never mattered too much after all

   and it was always just me

you'll be able to tell if
he touched my tongue
by the pressure with which it presses
  against yours

and you'll be able to tell if
if he held my hand
by the placement of my fingers
  between yours

and you'll be able to tell if
he broke my heart
by the length of time it takes for me
  to break yours

and its funny to think of certain things
like that elevator painting  with colors
flying off the canvas that you
wouldn't touch
because you wanted to believe
that it was real
but I had to touch
because I would rather know the truth

and I couldn't tell at the time
but I can think about it now and know
by the way I remember you feeling
beside me
that you had a kind of
fleeting realness about you
that I wanted so badly to be permanent

and it took me a long time to realize
that I was better off
knowing the truth

The last time you trusted
me with yourself,
I knew it would never happen again
so I

ran away with a mouthful of you
and burrowed into the ground
and added you to my nest
  of people I never wanted to forget
  the taste of

cheeks puffed out
and scurrying feet
  I was gone before you had time to notice
  that I had
  taken a piece of you with me

They hardly ever notice

   because I only steal mouthfuls of
   things I know they won't miss
like distrust- which I'll bet you didn't know
      tastes like cinnamon
or fear- which tastes like milk
      that's just a little bit too old
      but when you add a squirt of chocolate syrup
      you can hardly taste the sour-ness
or anger- which has that charcoal taste
      of anything that's been cooking for too long
      
and it all makes me wonder
  if I had stuck around
         long enough
to steal a mouthful of your love

what would it have tasted like?