We learned about a boy in class
In 1st grade, some god granted him wings
But he flew too close to the sun
and died and drowned a terrible death

I meet this boy a few years later
I tell him about my death-wish
Thats at the bottom of my bucket list
And he tosses them all away

He says his wings have been clipped
and that he still thinks hes drowning
in a sea of vast emptiness
And the only burn signs on him
are his eyes
like dying embers that I cant save


he kissed me with abandon
threw water into my heart
it was dried out and torn
you see
his eyes they burned their way down my throat
igniting a light
as he leaves

And I think about that boy
Icarus I believe his name
He flew too close to the burning flame
Like a moth to a light
and singed his broken wings

but they forgot out the part
where the sun melts his wax heart
and he drowns in the deep dark
blue

And I forgot to tell you about the ending
about the salt water in my lungs
that I lurch back profusely
I realize its just the second skin of a little lost zombie boy
This isn't CPR
this is choking on his dead weight passion
drowning on his blue eyed sorrow

Like he choked on the sea.

Men who look like ferris wheels
every color representing different aspects of their personality

The first three words don't have to be beautiful
they just have to make sense
like connecting dots on paper

men who love with their fists
and hate with their mouths
who once were boys taking things apart
like remote controls their own fathers used to beat     Obedience into their small bodies.  Left them with a fury tattooed across their hearts
Just to give them the challenge of putting themselves back together

They buy their wive's flowers after
a four day bruise isn't so glaringly purple anymore
not so accusing-
kiss her broken ribs
and tell their children midnight stories

children trained as mood detectors
human robots
know when to shutup
speak when you are spoken to*

Men who speak like cutting boards
Every slice of the knives in their toungues leave
hollow aching missing parts
just to teach their children that not all
things can be put together once taken apart

whose daughter glues together the parts of old telephones
to spite the missing pieces
so every welt he beats into her bones
she sings herself unbroken
until she stands robust and imperfect
there are holes in her armour
but she holds it together

with her fathers fists.

The law said her body was made for love
The kind of love that wants to show you
just how much it loves you
by sticking things inside of you

hard
fast

Then slower

The kind of love that wanted to make the bible blush
make you quiver; the
kind of love when you put a female and male hamster together.
The kind of love that wanted to make music out of your ******

Love said "This is what happens
when you use
Needles to ingrain the words love
on peoples skin"

It feels a lot like pain did

Like when the first boy you ever loved
said I love you back
And proved it because he held you after
sticking sticky things inside of you
Like how he said hed wait untill you were ready
then said "You're gonna make me wait forever.."

How that guy on the third date said
"Come back to my apartament
So I can put what I want into you
Until you are empty
Because we might call it love"

Until you met a boy
who untaught what the word love meant
never asked you when you wanted to have ***
whose hands never roamed as greedily
searching for places to settle on your body
who didnt wish to make a home out of you by filling you senseless
and calling it his furniture
art
who traced outlines of constellations on the palms of your hands
and played
"Guess the Nebula"

Whose hardness never prodded you in the back
like a protest
in the early morning
whose breath always came easy
never hard
or fast

It was just holding you with no intention to
*******

He said
"Love isnt what you put inside a person
In hopes of making it stick;and naming it after something beautiful
I can pin my thoughts on you but
you are not my canvas. That wouldnt be fair.
I respect your property."

There was nothing broken when he left.

There is a never ending breed of bracteria livig in my bones
It
almost chews with the full intent of biting off but not quite, holds back just enough to leave me hanging
my joints, nooses of collateral damage,
they
almost wiggle like worms but burn with less intensity than pain.

There is a never ending wall of inter knotted muscle within my back

I call these things frustration
although alot of the time they feel like fury
make my neck ache like guilts burden.

I have ground my teeth to tiny sizable pellets and
picked at my charred white skin,
until there is no more youth in this body
all you will see is five foot seven of sallow eyes
pale faced
bloated frustration
corpse-like
if corpses smiled.

Untill my teeth are yellowed from coffee and cigarettes and the laugh lines around my mouth taunt me like the scars on my upper arm (if you are scarred just as painfully by laughter as a knife what is the point of it all)
12 inches of stitched back frustration that reads:

you cannot undo
what was done


   stitches I want i want to rip out in the company of polite
normal people and
smile at their disgusted faces

have you ever as a child
been so unhappy by what you put down on paper
you would scrunch the whole thing up after crossing it out in the thickest black marker
throw it in the bin and start over?

This is what living feels like
I am just a  canvas

I can almost remember what it was like to laugh