sand-burnt chins
kissing sideways

i'm not suppose to

try not to die kindly
and I know it

my tongue's out

table of cups
gulp forward
nine of cups
destroyed

counting sips
backwards
becoming unwanted dessert
feeding off
learning you're no good for me

breakfast of champions
eggs saved for
someone different

not mine but
i spend batteries
clocking

wishing i'd inked the key
and you
meant more to me than knuckles
wish you
knew that
wish you knew what our love
*is

I forfeit for this;
mobility  
my mind
served up to
its drunkness off you
bodies full on my lack of finding

sound your disregard &
relieve your knife of
what it had done to me as

I gaze at your sleep in the direction of mine & drowned in fog until I lose
until I turn blue with love
it is there I see her heart
I want to swallow your key
I
blame the weight of the hand
& I frame the finger
I blame the math and pattern

under your mattress I left my gist
thumbs and throat

you just keep switching the sheets

I bring the ocean to hold my thighs down
for every time
that every time
I say it
it is me speaking and not the situation
I forfeit for weather reports and hurt feelings
resuscitate by mouthing off
to suffocate this feeling

it is
in-between sentences
diagonal;
directing a conversation you can't have/
the need to protect the pride
Lie on something similar, like
thick grass; emptied cartons of
unfinished favors, leftover excitement/
somewhere else to put your perfect hands
silver, white seconds
pumping your gallop
against the lips, out loud
louder
against the sureness of breath-beside-sleep
louder until we open up
breaking it down for my sanity
tell me you felt me, once
just
to my diaries of you
my need
dried coral reef
doesn't grow under palm trees, darling
pumped from
your need
& why you should be . . .
so very
so very
*brief
with
me

?

swallow her, swallow her
till we're both gone
and I guess
it's your choice on
and on
which bone you want clean
& I float regret for not asking

i'm letting you fold over me
and keeping still isn't allowed here
I haven't stopped spinning since you led me

I haven't stopped spinning

secrets become miracles
like a mirage or dance
like being kissed or ******
it's all rain and ruin anyway
unless it's you and then it's

not mine
& how many minutes till it's warm
till it's done

I can't beg someone to
become you or me become her because it's never that easy
no time machines
no moons or
I don't celebrate ordinary suggestions
because we are all born accidentally
like perfect
mirages or miracles
dancing in secrets
wet with secrets
but someone learns to love you

& I've tried to pretend, or something

running marathons of

chasing something

something like the

breath you laid on my shirt

what cancer to this body
by how you treat my cells
is irrational

& why all of this sitting ?

I would run to you

but

I know what's twisting your doorknob

and it's already sent me away

such a creature of my bad habits
but I repeat such good in you after this

your heartbeat like the quick of a revolver
while you slept
like I was inside, spinning until
I began counting us down
and
wondering how many bullets you'd saved

I drank from
the shot glass of your palm
& you made me
come
you made coffee

we went from
south to ocean
mountain to whiskey
with hands full of
what it is we're calling this
& I have your dress
but
what kind of souvenir is worry ?

your hand in the car
I could put us both in my mouth
and still make room for you
your mood filling my lungs with
bleeding
with
ignoring tomorrow &
I ignored that with whiskey

& I am certain you don't know that it killed me
to kiss you goodbye again

let's hear this wind now
you from right there &
me from under you

where did all of this blue come from ?
& I can't stop standing around
maybe if I
jumped
I'd land on my hands
backward or behind you

time doesn't exist in a bedroom - & who's strange idea to keep track? I'm breathing down seconds that taste like the rim of your shoulders & my mind can't make up reasons why it can taste you; this sort of news to my mouth will run me over

and over

& i'm drinking out of the bottle
i'm swallowing what reminds me of the time you stood between me and a sink.
the only thing between our tongues were teeth & I am tired of screaming at these evenings to have you back here

I wish I could take a picture of the sound I've just heard, lying on a park bench to capture an evening for you.
an idea that I could be anything because I believed in that.
I'm beginning to think anything & belief don't go together.

believing in anything when I met you
& now i'm back in square one, without

*focusing on my breathing