Justin looks at me from over the counter
He keeps his face in profile
Stops to pace

You know it just ***** because
I can’t see all of me
So I don’t know how to fix it all
It’s like the moon
It can’t see all of itself either

He nods his head as if he’s agreeing with his own thoughts
He steps aside so I can ring people out
Still paces
Still nods his head

Jon,
How do I get girls to like me?
I’m strong and nice,
But what if that’s not enough
Because I can’t see all of me like they can
Ya know?

I know
So tell him that I am still trying to figure that one out myself

I can see all of you
That’s why I come

To him
People are ***** you can hold
Glowing ***** of light
We pulse like stars

And this whole time I thought there was something wrong with me
Because I’ve felt it

Feel it when
Halfway through performing a poem about my brother
I burst into tears

Or how sometimes
I just want someone to touch me
Run your hand across my belly

There is a sun
Swirling fire in my breastplate
I just want someone to see it

It is made of
Fortified bone flint
And the slow breath made between lips while kissing
And is coated in palm skin
Because the only thing I’ve ever been good at
Is holding people proper

And I am happy to hear someone sees it

Sees me as a man
With a decent heart
And a sun in his chest

Even though I spend half my time ******* up

Everything

I tell him this

Justin,
I only know one thing to tell you
It’s the only true thing I’ve ever learned

As long as you want to be better
You will be

And
As long as you want someone to love you
*Someone will

She smothers me with her words of desire
So I kiss her to stop it
And choke

I choke on her words
Choke on her soft tongue
Like a vicarious seizure

Put a wallet between our bear traps
So that I might catch my breath

Her lips brand my brain
With short circuits
So I stutter responses

And if she were any less beautiful
Or I could somehow be gay
I might actually have enough confidence

To say
Shut up and bring them gnashers my way

It’s okay if you bite
I like it rough

And
Already I can barely breathe
Suffocating under a blanket of words

I can smell the alcohol on her breath
As she speaks
As if her words could be any less flammable

Makes me wish I could drink gasoline without dying

Do you hear that dark room dancer?
You liquor breathed torpedo tongue
You cat eyed lighthouse
Reminding me where I want home to be?

You make me want to drink flammable liquid just to compete

I pull her close
Like the gentle slam of a car door

Are we dancing?
Or swimming?
Or drowning?

Go ahead **** me with your words

I give up

David is so much ****** origami by now

It is 4 am and I find him folded to the floor
A cigarette in his mouth
He is trying to stand

He is immune to his sleeping pills
But we can’t give him more

So he wakes dreamily to smoke

He breaks things

He broke things

Threw me through a plate glass window once

I carry him to the couch

Don’t ******* touch me
I can walk *******

I take the cigarette from him and finish it

I don’t smoke

I wipe the blood from his nose
And the torn shreds of skin peeling from his paper arms

I think about what people have said to me
About how abused kids abuse what they can

I wonder how I will hurt the people I love
When it finally comes to that

When loving me back is dangerous

I tuck him in tight enough so that he might not get up
The rest of the night

He laughs to himself

Maybe he hasn’t stopped dreaming

I’ve never wanted to hurt anybody

Even him

Especially because

I don’t love him

You’ve got rain falling down your cheek

You natural disaster

Dressed in a slow building thunder storm

You’re too strong to cry
So I know that those heavenly heaves
Are just tornadoes beating in your chest
Winds whipping away heartache

Know you can discard your debris here

Because when the smoke clears
And your coal corrupts the sunset

I can lay beneath you
Point out the stars on your back
Imagine that home is ******* to the right
And ******* down
From your left shoulder blade

Laugh for me a hallelujah of thunder
So I know how much longer this will last

I am helpless beneath you

Not enough sun in my smile to clear it away

I mean

I am glad the last time
Your cheeks were wet
It was raining

It’s a different kind of helpless

Because we accept it

And if we were children
It might have been easier

How telling you your rain tastes like tears
That won’t kiss away

Is like saying
Okay
You perfect storm
You natural disaster
You lungs filled with cold front
Breath the sweetest fog I can’t see your face through

You are only raining again

*And this too shall pass

I want to make love to you violently

I want to put my hands on you

I have been told that I am a good lover
Because of the way I use my hands

Forgive my fingerprints
I am still learning how to be gentle

And

I want to ******* like a crime scene

So much DNA evidence in the aftermath
We both come like ******

It is your hair
And skin
And sweat

In my nails
And teeth
And sheets

I have never done things gracefully

But I have learned that loving proper
Is not seen in how well you say grace
But is seen in your willingness to sit at the table

I will dine on you

Leave my sweet tooth in your naval

You can scar up my empty spots

Until this hardened tissue
Becomes the secret cuneiform of regret
For all the ways I didn’t love you
When I had the chance

Now’s my chance
To love you like a vagrant fire in a forest
When I was busy building homes
At the base of your volcano

These hands are practiced
in callous
in rough
in firm grip steel kettle fire without the wet rag

And I want to put them on you

Until none of this makes sense

Dear poet,

Dear ***** talker of some unrequited nasty,

Dear slow admirer,
Noticing my detail like a detective

Twist this halo into handcuffs
And love me already

Or don’t

I’m not real

And if I were

I’d hate to be her

You perfect pitch psalm sayer
Waxing generic

Quit the verbal dance

And dance with me

I am glad you know I’m not perfect

I am as faulty
As a topographical map of California

This body is chills

Is goosebumps

Is legs that were soft yesterday

Kiss them

Prickle your cheeks

Does your beard know the difference?

Do you?

Do I feel like scented sandpaper love notes
Still stained with a kiss?

I know I might just be squid ink to everyone else

But you dear poet

Dear detective
Black lighting my flaws into glowing beauty

Put your lips to my stains

They still taste like stains

You made them

You made me

You made me Dear Poet

Stop talking

And take me

1
Pete sets off the alarm as he walks in the doors
Tells me his new heart must be talking to the machines

He talks like Jimmy Stewart was from Boston
All elbows
While I am bruised ribs

Vera sounds like an airplane concession cart
With all the right liquor

Her faded blue walker
Drowns out her sighs

Maybe it’s her knees
I am not sure

2
Before our bodies blend
And I am part appliance

I want to love your sound

If your navel were a ****
I might turn your soft belly
Into a music box

So I could listen to your heart
Through your ribcage
After I bury my head there

Put me to sleep with your
Human sound

I want to hear the rust in your hips
With my head on your lap

The sweet sound of our lively decay

There is no better music
It is simple

Like my name
You can still say it while being punched
In the gut

You breathless barbarian

Just dance with me
Until it is all that we have

To know we’re still human

Dance like flames
Without the fear of swelling joints

Dance like waves trying to break the boardwalk

Dance for your future fake hips

Just dance

3
We link arms as we walk

Even through your jacket
I can tell how soft you are

I want to tell you about our footsteps
How when we are old
And we both have canes

When walking down hallways with linoleum floors
I know we will sound like the saddest horse

So I tell you that I will still love you
Even after our bodies are made into glue

You know me well enough by now
That this is just me being sweet

I kiss you goodbye
Listen to your car’s engine hum

It is so quiet
You might actually hear me sigh

When the sound of you driving away
Sounds like the horsepower of one sad horse
On his last three legs

Like
One sad old lady

Even if we’re just friends by then

I won’t forget
The sweet music of our decay