I feel like I have fox-holed my gut
Sleeping only in the shape of a ball

And I have folded the thought of you into a trench
so that I might sleep safely tonight

But I have learned how not to be lost
In the sharpening of my shoulder blades
I have learned never to shrug
In the off chance I will
shed my wings
and truly be lost

Come back to me

I have been drunk for a week now
and I feel like your breath will sober me up

I want to hold your head like a sunrise
strands of gold drizzle out to the tips of my fingers

I am buzzing
Lacking structure

Your smile
like a hammock hanging from the laugh lines in your eyes

You laugh like a runway held up by your own cool breath

I want to place my mouth there
In darkness, aquatic nightlight glow

Your skin, goose bump braille
a language I am still learning

My fingertips
tracing the topography of your smooth

Your landscape
I want to get lost

My hands
your skin
My drunk
your breath

Come back to me
Sober me up

I don't know how to be scared anymore
I don't know how to be cold anymore

I've spent some nights in this car
Not worried about anything
Even though the transmission is failing

Drive back and forth most days
Trying to understand this thing we call home

And I want to repay you in something more substantial than money
This poetry posted on websites
and left on coffee tables
but the transmission is failing

And I am falling in love with you
And if I knew that love was the answer to homelesness
That in the shedding of weight
and in the cutting open
Was this

I'd have left long ago

Vaggabond heart
Finding safety
In your chestplate
Like a sea snail who has
shed his shell

To squeeze into yours

There is so much room in there
So much room

Your body
a cabin
made of welcome mats

An extra plate of food at the table
I am always hungry

This body
A broken radiator
always overheating
Give me your feet
To keep warm

Keep me
like a humble savage
Saying grace
In a language
You'll never understand

Changing clothes in a closet trunk
3 backpacks for different things
Worn like heirloom rings
Like they are all that I own
That mean anything

They are

And not that I know what it means just yet
but
Take me home tonight

The password to the entrance of your home is
I brought beer

I love you with my liver

If you were a city
You'd be Atlantis
I would be its shorelines

We have both participated
In each other's floods

We were never levies for one another
I will not hold back the ocean for you

I will pick you back up when I can though
So that you can be a landscape that is timeless

In your presence
we are never killing time
We are defining minutes into laughter
So that we can walk away happy

Even in silence
We are living

I called myself homeless
and you said
I wasn't
but I couldn't stay here forever

Then you asked me
"Is it solipsistic in here, or is it just me?"

Then we sank into sleep

And I know your mornings
Your noise
Your wake up call
Takes getting used to

But that is fine
Because I know your flood
and your drought
And I love you with my liver

And yeah
I brought beer

1
I remember her body against me

She tells me she doesn't want to get hurt
That I will break her heart

You can break me like a wishbone
and keep the better half

Sharpen it like a prison shiv
and stab me with it if I do

2
She is the snow
I am a stove in a single room cabin

I have been cutting off parts of this home
and feeding them into my belly

There is sawdust
on the floor of my love

3
Most of this house is gone now
I am still a stove
she is still snow

We both think
this heat is a good idea

I keep burning

Call her iglu
Call her daring
Call me almost homeless

4
I have left the stove

I am a candle now

Slow burning

Call me always hot still

Call her always melting

The floor is always wet

5
I tried to trap the ocean
in a dresser drawer

But we were flooded roofless

I learned to hold my breath

She learned that warmth doesn't really change anything

There was the sun
and it heated her body

I bathed in the ocean
she made
a thin
near burnt candle

I sank down

Her heart was made of winning halves of wishbones
Sharpened like shivs

I did not go near them

I am not afraid of getting hurt
But I have always been taught
to respect the sea

I am as tasteless
as the boiled chicken we are about to eat

Her hands tremble
as she sips her beer
The glass taps her teeth

She exhales like an ocean
made of bone

skeleton secrets
and rolling clatter

It is not cold in here

I don't remember what I said

But I do remember something my grandmother
often said to me

"Whatever man has been here before
and whatever man will be here again
Do not let him speak for you now"

I am falling
No
I am about to fall

There are instructions in my hand
something about landing safely
Something about floating
Not flying

I do not know who has decided this for me
There are tools in my hands
I am expected to build a kite in the freefall I think

Somone pushes me
If I land safely then she will love me
this is dream truth

I am a kite now
I let my string drag along the surface of the earth

Reel me in as I pass by
Or don't

I don't care
I can't fly
But I can't fall anymore either

I feel like a big man
in a straight jacket
who has just learned
despite all his strength
he'll never break the restraints

I'm not saying
you should ever give up

Just relax when you can
Don't fight so hard
You'll be free soon enough

It is  what loneliness feels like on late nights
and I find myself drunk texting poetry

I want to make your ears time capsules
for the things I have to say

Sometimes I settle for your phone

I want to wake up
in the morning
with a message from you

A picture of your smile
Your smile
Your stupid beautiful smile

It is all I ever really wanted anyway