My heart was in spin cycle and I knew she would hang me out to dry
Michael tells me

Tells me
I knew she would find someone to fill the gaps I couldn’t fill*

Dear Michael,

You knew this was going to happen from the start

But it felt good while she let you hold her
when her past came back to haunt her

How your arms felt like the biggest arms
And your heart felt like the biggest heart
And you felt like a man

A real man
Who can make her feel a little less lonely
Until someone comes along who’s better at it

She tells you about him

Tells you how funny he is
And charming
And about his mini crooked sailboat dimples

You are better than he is
You are better than the wind ******* back his cheeks

And you know what?

You’re brave for trying
Brave for giving someone else the weight of your arms
Brave for the buckle of legs when you saw them kiss
And wished he was you

You are so much better than that

And you’re brave

So don’t walk away from this
A lonely casualty
Or a martyr

Wring your heart out red again
Til your body is a fortress fire pumping passion
Into swollen arms so heavy
They dangle like chains

Let them know they can weld around anybody
But not just any body Michael

Not just any body

And not hers

I know
It doesn’t feel good

But boy

You’re so ******* brave

I can sleep on her thighs if she’d let me

Hear the ache in her hips when she moves

She is a body of bricks crumbling
Succumbing to the soft

It is my head pressed to the wall of her belly
Her hand on my face
Like a shield from the noise
Of her bombing

She is a fort
Still standing
Months after the ***** ricochet
And I know I could sleep safely there

She tells me I’m cute when I’m comfortable

I want to tell her she feels like shelter

Want to tell her I haven’t slept well in months

From nights where I drink til my eyes shut proper
Nights where this bed is one person too close to being empty
Nights where I wake up from dreams
Heart so heavy
I sink into staring
And don’t go back to sleep

I want to take refuge there
On thighs like trench walls
Hatched with bed post notches
From lovers who have lost

I don’t need you to love me
I just need to know what it’s like

To sleep in safety

To the simple minded man
This day would have been like the rest

Would have been an overdone steak dinner
Alone

But he plays a broken bone remix
Of ex-lover’s gritted teeth

It is the click in his jaw over steak
That reminds him of the gnashing

He nurses a beer
In between helpings

But there’s always the click
A painful metronome
For past music
When he was capable of lapping the language out of her mouth

Days when he was all noise
Like a hallway echo
Or a fist through drywall
Or a nightmare gasp

But now all he needs is the cotton he eats
To soak up the sound

So he won’t have to listen to himself keep sayin’

There used to be this growl my gut made
For your bitter music
When we choreographed a collision
Of bone
And breath
And teeth that touched when I still thought I wasn’t pressing hard enough

The masticating click
Reminds him of her smile

It hurts his jaw
And his memory
But he continues making her painful sound
Like it might actually bring her back

And it does a little
Just for today

And tomorrow?

Tomorrow is too far away

There is a woman I know and she speaks like she is dreaming

The fog in her throat pools on her tongue
It pulls me in and I wonder if I’m dreaming too

Wonder at what age my voice will be like hers
So gentle I listen carefully
Like what she is saying will eventually make sense

Like listening to that high caterpillar
Talk in tongues
And dancing language

I wish she were my grandmother
So visiting her at the nursing home wouldn’t be weird

A woman who looks like a coffee stain in red lipstick
offers her a ride back
Though it is walking distance

She takes the smoky dreamer’s bags
And leaves
Says she’ll help her with the bags at least

I’m so confused
Where are my bags?

I remind her not to worry

Oh I feel so lost sometimes
But everything feels familiar too
I’ll feel better after a nap maybe

This is déjà vu backwards

Like walking into an empty room
Still expecting to see you there
I still get surprised sometimes

I put my hand on her shoulder

She talks in dreams
And childhood mornings
Of stereotype
Of longing
Of knowing
That any day she’ll forget again

I still have to remind her my name
Even though she smiles when she sees me

Like
Why does this boy make me so happy?

And just like in dreams
Whenever everything makes no sense
You realize your dreaming
And then everything does

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