i dream
of

my hand pushed through your hair like a gasp of hot air- the chemical burns cradling your head upon impact-arms like a limp nylon belt to strangle out the painand your neckbrokenand twisted around the words you could never managetosay
-or even muster up the courage to believe
we collided
on the way to discover a new piece of beautiful

we collided.
you feel to your knees.

i swept you aside

and whimpered for
new religion

will you
place my face on shelf of trinkets meant to startle you.
paper momentos. and
pewter figurines.
think twice,
or look over your shoulder one more time before you turn to step away
from this

kami-caress-
soul siphoning
season.
or toss me with a
splash into a fountain. meant to splatter up droplets-
black as succulent stag bone bowels.
rinsed over
maidens.
wearing porcelain faces and bedtime.
-rising like a timid ghost from me

in
this
straitlaced summer.
spiced red water.
linseed lull.
easy,

tame hands
can strangle too

turning to indian summer,
turning to the crisp
cool
autumn.
turning
my body to

wet
sinewy
earth

and when you can't close the door hard enough
i am the sharp-ribbed man under the bed
that wants to touch you
and through all the sheets that wrap around you
i can still feel you
with my
fifteen fragile fingertips there's nothing to understand there is only to listen. or try to ignore
and you swear you can hear my shallow breathing
my slender arms bristle for sensation
your slender body
twisted into blankets
i must take away

i saw one little blip

on the  

sawtooth wave




it must be me

today i sliced my thumb open
doing something stupid

i

try to remember
to never

push against broken glass with bare hands

or slide my fingers into sharp places



but

today i sliced my face open

and

pushed my way into the front of my skull with my forefinger and thumb
holding the flesh open

i felt the bony ridge browline, with the pads of my fingertips

were the contours were not smooth as they should have been but
mountainous and irregular from

old

injury

you wouldn't know it to look at me but my
skull is irregular

and asymmetrical.

and
just a little bit jagged.




feel it and you can tell.



i could tell. i





sliced.
my face


open.



to tell. i




opened up my
skin

just to catch a glimpse.

at my

crooked eyesockets
and


they were hideous.




and





but you wouldn't know it just by my face.




or by the small scar beside my left eye that falls directly in the valley made by a crow's foot talon

i wonder

if
the wrinkles
are
from the scars or
if
the scars are just
conveniently

placed- today i sliced my face open


and
pushed my way into the front of my skull with my forefinger and thumb


with all the
viscera

of a madman

i've heard

the difference between medicine
and poison

is

in the dose.



but



i
never
stopped

breathing.

sometimes
breathing
­is all

you
can

do. and

i
sliced my

face




open
to
catch

a vision


i
guess

that
was
a pretty crazy thing
to do.





and
i wonder what

isn't it beautiful to know exactly where the bowls are in the pantry cabinet,
and the way she kisses each gummy bear promptly before biting off its head.

you browse through my being
with fluttering eyelash-
squinting at the unpleasantries and
tugging at your brows with nervous thumbs.
i wonder-
will you know me any better by it.
sipping from the warm marrow of old bath water and running our hands down eachothers' sides. i
watch you take another big gulp of nothing
-find your feet amidst the company of elongated creatures that walk idly on the flat- smoothed out places of the world
that stretch
far and wide like some never-ending ungodly plane. you
scallop out pieces of your knowing just to make sense out of this happening. you
forget to receive beauty in all your eyes devour-
and in all you can crave.
the stiletto legged spiders cross paths like stilted walkers, wishing they were smaller
and you
will know nothing of them but will speak as if you've known them. i
can tell
you've never known them. i
can tell
. you
extend your limbs, hands open
as wide as the sky before you, you fancy your fingers as feathers,
and your outstretched arms as wings. i
know your bones must be hollow because
i've never heard such terrible sounds from them knocking together-
drumming out strum-songs because no strings could be used to make noise
in this place
you are lonely-
feeling as empty as freshly blown glass
and with
pins sticking out of my fingertips
i cannot drum along to your sound,
the crackling scratch of a vinyl record as
a cat claws at the beige carpet and
catches like velcro loops. i
know i've
put less thought into greater things
and
you
hold me
for only one second and
you are the tear in my jeans at the knees,
the flecks of dried paint in my black eyebrows,
and

infinitesimally small particle-sized portions of us all
bouncing around in the dark parts of your irises
like over-exited electrons colliding in a
cloud
of everyday
dust,
exiled into the far corners of
heavens.

you grasp the air around you like a flightless bird i used to know and i
peel
back
everything i might of known about you before
that lash-fall instant
in which
you
smiled