I have kissed boys

Girls

People in between

But lately I have been kissing bottles

Their lips are colder than yours

But slowly I have realized that the pounding headache when I wake is less hurtful than the shattering in my chest

Yet as these toxins rush through my veins

I can't help but miss the tracing of your fingers along my skin

Miss the numbness of the world when you lie with me

But when I wake I remember that a headache is treated with an aspirin

While heartache

Well if you have a cure for Heartache let me know

In the lull
Of our constricted voice

In the hushing
Of our sullen realm

In the finite
Of our broken hinterlands

A watermark
No, rather

A barrow
A grave

Without inscription
Only handprints

In memoriam
Of the receding surf

Never heard
Never reached

has published
my books. I’m pressed
penning my rhyme
noting it down and sending

it out. I press my shirt
and skirt to impress them. I wear my smile
underneath my frown. I repress
my loneliness in a *****

martini. The olives are stabbed
with toothpicks like bulging weenies. I take them
out of their piercing log and swallow them
down as a hog.