It is summer
And the wind presses the thin fabric to your body

Every woman’s *** looks perfect in a sundress

You have been sweating
And the fabric sticks to you in the next breeze

In stillness you are a Greek statue
With wet folds of fabric outlining your frame

There are wrinkles in some places
And I think that you might look like this when you are old

You are as pretty as a moon-****

The moon
so heavy inside
Almost solid
Crashed into the Earth during its formation
Taking bits of the Earth with it

Then the Earth made oceans
And sky
Birthed life from the places inside of itself
So much color and movement
It did not need the sun for beauty
The Earth is even beautiful in the dark

And the moon
The moon watched
Spun full rotation
Keeping its face always looking directly at its skies


The moon cratered like acne
Scarred like someone without an atmosphere

Battered and beat up
But every crash
The moon did not let parts of itself go
There is no room for more moons here

And occasionally
With the calm cold rumble
Moonquake shiver
Shakes dust from its back
The sunlight stolen into white shimmer
Stars way too close to be real

Looks like the ******
Of a firework show
Only every cannon misfired but yours

The whole world was watching

And everyone said
What
was that?

What was that?

You are as pretty as a moon-****

Cigarette smoke and **** colored beer
Family is a suckerpunch epiphany
For people who’ve spent so much time
Saying they no longer had one

I swore forever
Mine was missing parts
This heart carved shells
Let’s swap odd shapes
Re-sew them and **** up our beats forever
Together

If the world is ending and you find me here
Kicking up the earth
Dirt scatter to the wind
Brown blood spatter
That’s just me trying to escape faster

Join me or leave me
But I got this beef with gravity
Like a severed head tetherball
This face senseless

You make me senseless

Numb to all the bad parts
In the same way salt makes everything sweeter
You make everything sweeter
Your salty skin
Sweet mouth
Sweet speak
Sweet laughter

Make me feel a little less stupid
About giving in to the movement
This mouth
This body
Like a knee-buckle kick to the gas pedal
And I peel out by accident

And you can still love me
Like family
I’ve slept in so many beds
And on so many floors
All so much more comfortable than my own

I swear I have bed bugs
Drinking my blood as I sleep
Getting drunk most nights
Them and me
Wake up itchy and fatigued
Like an allergy

But you
You smile like a hammock
Held up by strings hanging from your eye squint
To your dimples

Without speaking
“you can rest here tonight”

This is for the beds
For the people who say ouch when I hug them
For the family I thought I never had

For the appreciation that
Every moment of sadness
Means I’ve known so much joy
To feel that way

I’ve known so much joy
Thank you

I dropped her off on the other side of the city
Lights blur past my window
And I lose focus
A different kind of space travel

I don’t know why I drove here instead
The house on Ellen

I had always imagined it as a sad thing
Keeping the shape of comfort
Waiting lonely for me to come back to it

The shattered window
And the holed walls
The singed edge crop-circle in the living room carpet

I broke in
The place smelled new
Like fresh paint
And good credit

I am not a vandal
But these places don’t feel like home
Unless something has been broken

Tonight
It was just a lock

My tires hugged the road like it didn’t want me to be there
Like hydroplaning without the rain
And every red light turned green
Just after I hit the breaks
Like a bully placing a hand on my chest and then saying
“Nah, I’m just ******* with you. Keep on going.”

There’s this place I sleep most nights
Only
I am still in the parking lot writing this
And I don’t want to go upstairs yet

By my parking place
Frogs ribbit
They sound content
Though they live along the water drainage line that seems like a stream
Only there are more flies and crickets to eat here

Home is a funny place
So I have decided this

Not that I believe in God but
I’ve decided
His hands are as big as the world
So big it is easy to feel like no one is holding you
Even when you're being hurled a million miles an hour

And maybe that is why I feel I have no home
I mean
Hold me like you are small too

The answer sits awkward in my mouth
Like an Egyptian vowel
Some language I have yet to learn

And I stand like a third world country that there are no commercials for
There are no heartstrings to tug
No Sarah Mclachlan songs
No one sees the hunger
Building in the bellies of my motherless country

But if there must be indifference in this love
I want to love you more than you love me

Forgive me for forgetting
The purpose of this poetry

I got lost in the prose
And diluted the feeling
Distracted enough
To not kiss you completely

I feel like a man who has eaten
Food with onions in it
Self-conscious syntax between my teeth

My tongue attempting to describe
All the things your lips are like

I forget that I am supposed to feel first
Then write

Black flakes fall from my side like
Charred skin

Shapely scars
Poetry mostly

“Everything was beautiful and nothing hurt… so it goes”
This hip don’t lie

Of all the scar-stories this body tells
I like poetry the best

Though the ones I didn’t pay for
Are more poetic maybe
Their stories longer
A journey
Across the throat
Chest horizon
Knuckle toothed

This body once holie
Now healed
Inked in poetry
Now holy

Like charred skin
Stained black
Falling
from my side