Independent is the word they all use,
They tack it on me,
Let it hang a crooked ribbon.

Seeing all the things I already knew
Transcripted on the blanks of stacks of white and black,
Reverberating off chapped pink lips,
Takes me aback, shoves me into the corners of myself,
Tastes new like bird meat ****** off the bone tastes new.
I want to cut it up into little squares and abandon it in tupperware.
At least for a few days.

My dreams are silent. In them I move about and fold my clothes and brush my teeth and carry books, in them I walk around rooms, in them I walk and walk and walk down white square sidewalks past white square windows and I feel whispers sometimes screams, feel the movement of circles and stomps and laughs. But it is silent, I am silent, I sit at white square desks and scratch at white square papers and I walk
past boys whose white faces turn, square,
at me as if their eyes and my silence are enough to pull us together.
(4/11)

Run, run, run.
Until your legs are wheels spinning off the planet.
Until your waist is a bag of rocks,
Tumbling and turning.
Until your lungs are smaller, bigger, gone altogether.
Until your air is coming from the wind
Until your heartbeat is coming from your feet.
Until your hair and your arms and your stomach and your legs and your knees and your feet are you.

I am a peripheral *****.
I brandish my notebook
Like a chef brandishes his dish-rag.
Where do wizards keep their wands?

I build worlds out of words
Universes out of silence;
Universes that can be destroyed
With a single eyebrow.

I am a calculator.
I am a thermometer.
I am a clashing painting on the wall.
I am a question.

I am as much as my pencil.
I am as much as my frame.
I am as much as my stains.
(I am as much as the buttons unbuttoned on my shirt collar.)

I.
Strange sailing horizon couch be feel entirely wonderful.

II.
Electric music sunlight power beauty magnet illusion you.

III.
Charming window fading metal possess buy hands caress want.

IV.
Bubbling skin welling up stomach head rain pop back hello go away.

V.
Suddenly spectacular hackneyed driveway pretending curiosity sky.

VI.
Like not embarrassed cute jokes smell touch safe tangent lips.
serious lean think kissing eyes wrinkle smile crooked tilts.
soft miss dizzy breathe wish.

VII.
Unwind yarn whisper beautiful lockpicker smile big words blue free.
tell sparkle touch laugh suspended warm lit inside lonely different.

VIII.
Hands enough. Watching lips kissed miserable breathing
music fingers concentration sweater
streetlamps shadow pupils slid chin soft ancient scream.

IX.
This dream dangerous questions sure realistic promises dodging desperately
seek hide silence.

X.
Shopping music too smiley spinning mirrors fabric
curled clutching heart glossy floor.

XI.
Restaurant streets town sunsets grass records remind.
makeup beautiful touched.
ring hope answer replay kissed marvel still not letters won’t.

XII.
Eyelids written pieces backs guy knew replay spring rhythm used reflected.
Make girl actually smile.
Racked brain consumes broke cold soaked poured phone deny script glory.

XIII.
Maybe lesson learned silver broken angry summer,
waiting pinned swings freezing,
no take back potter dig,
cast air reside spell,
splat 360 degrees bent to bone.

XIV.
300 miles wake you terrified scorn who still don’t know love.

XV.
Put remind jewelry mirror wallet things can’t memories
ashamed happy lonely always weaker
Love end about right.

XVI.
Still smile seattle pictures camera loves seeing excited lights.
perfect looked much beautiful quieter.
dream arm cruel told me too.

XVII.
Supposed angry wanted love cyanide lost
sporadic calls cruel phone secretly confused smile haunting flat.

XVIII.
Don’t sick maybe sad talk phone anymore text voices 5:00am day
games still trying over now:
my convictions not foreplay.
million questions never anyone again say marry promise need never hate angry lonely
always changing same don’t know.

I am convinced that healing me must hurt you,
must be pulled from some strength inside for you,
and even though there are lots of people I bear my soul to,
you seem the only magician,
the only one strong enough to hold my roots and make my leaves grow,
you seem an entire earth squeezed into a tiny fairy frame,
crystal eyes and marble square teeth that tear the stars to shreds
and when I thank you for giving me the best gift you could possibly give me,
all you do is laugh your confetti splendor laugh and say “what for?”

I have known your imperfections and I have secretly wanted all of you.
I have wanted things to never change, secretly,
I have wanted to live in lies, to close my eyes,
To cut myself apart every day only to be kissed by you again.
Only for your safe, burning embrace, your terrible singing, your raucous smile.
I am still in love with you.
I secretly love your sporadic, haunting, cruel phone calls,
Am secretly glad that your lost flat words match my ripping insides,
One of us is supposed to be angry.
I am supposed to be angry.

You smile when you see me
As if to remind me
That you are a small part of me.
That parts of him I knew were actually pieces of you, reflected.
That the rhythm of you is written in his spring, and
You, too, replay on the backs of his eyelids when he sleeps,
That we have both known the burn of his warmth;
Both shared the blush after one of his ******* lines.
You were his ice cold spring, and
He was my only summer.
He was warm to my touch and now
My heart doesn’t know how to live in the winter.
I smile back because none of it really matters.