you are a thunderstorm.  an earthquake.  a volcano.  you could rip a ******’s throat out with your teeth.

you are the hot and heaving forest
sliced with sticky shimmery things,
(like bat-heads and beetlewings),
the slushing gushing river with its
tripping tumbling foam,
teeming with salmon headed
upstream to spawn.

i want to string all the pieces of you into
something that fits
but
your edges are jagged and wrong
and
the spaces in my chest are not the way you left them
and
my mouth is too sharp for kissing

i am tired of wet wings and
wax burns

This year,
I want to follow through,
But commitment has never been my style.

you left flowers on my counter
in a cup.
wildflowers. like daisies,
but with thicker roots
and heartier stems.
beautiful and built to thrive.

you left flowers on my counter,
told me you loved me,
and left me sleepy and hopeful
and standing in the doorway.
you did not stop to check the lock.
i think you are the bravest person
i have ever met.

i was afraid i would do something crazy,
like shoot myself in the head
or call you
(which is sort of the same thing
only slower)

so i drove to the mountains
and climbed barefoot to the top
and watched the sunset
with my feet in the dirt.

and i love you
and i hurt you
and i need you
and i want you
closer

and i don't know how to make you know me
the way i want to know you,
the way i want to know the landscape of your body
and the landscape of your mind.
i want to know the hidden parts
that have grown wild and beautiful
left to their own devices.
i want to know all the lines of your life
that i can't see in your palms,
and i'm glad to see the beautiful,
but i want to know it all.
i want to see your pain
because that's a part of your story,
and your story is a part of you,
and you are a part of mine.

i promise i won't leave
a mess,
i promise i won't leave
without scattering seeds,
i promise i won't leave
you the way i found you,
i promise i won't leave
empty promises,
so i can't tell you that
i promise i won't leave.

Darling, you’re fantastic.
I love you,
You know,
And I don’t say that lightly.
On the nights
(Like tonight)
Where sleep doesn’t find me,
I am consumed by you
In lieu of dreaming.

On the days
(Like today)
When I see you, hold you, kiss you,
I’m giddy, dizzy, happy,
And it’s all because of you.
My idiotic grin?
Entirely your fault,
You beautiful creature.

When I write poetry,
(Badly, sloppily,
Freely, openly)
It’s a window to a world
Populated by people
I’d mostly just like to forget.
(Or such is the norm,
But here, we find
The exception.)
But when I create,
When I sculpt, assemble, paint,
You are my muse,
My inspiration.

My cheesy, worn-out, affectionate clichés?
Those are your fault, too,
You marvelous ****.

I wish things had not turned out this way,
But here we are,
And there is absolutely nothing
I can do about it.
You will never again be perfect to me,
Or even beautiful,
Or kind.
You will never again
Be a person I admire,
And never again
Will I want you back.
I do not miss you,
And I do not love you,
But I do care,
And I always will.

And this girl with the rough edges
And the sailor's mouth
Just might be the most beautiful thing
I've ever seen.
It's not a secret that
I like a girl who can hold her liquor,
But it might be a secret
That this girl,
With her tattoos
And her piercings
And her ****-'em-all facade
Fits so perfectly in my silly dreamer's heart
That I sometimes forget
She isn't mine.

And it's like
The reason I start so many poems with those three words,
"And it's like",
Because every poem is just part of a constant flow of thought,
A window opened into a world that moves on.
And the world is moving on,
Has moved on,
Will move on,
Would move on without me.
And that's okay,
Because my world
Moves on without him,
Without her,
Without them,
Without every last one of them.
Whatever it's taken,
I have survived.
And even though I've been hurt so bad I thought I'd never recover,
I keep on loving,
Because thinking
Isn't
The same thing
As life.

i thought your name would be seared into my heart
like a brand
or written across my chest forever
like a tattoo

turns out, it was just scribbled on my forehead in sharpie
like a ****

My mouth tastes like cucumbers
Mixed with regret.
The air hums with electric energy
And the smell of rain.
I want it to be winter again
So I can watch the snow
Cover up my tracks.
But for now I'm left with
Footprints in the mud
So that everyone can see
Where I've been.

georgia summers are so heavy and hot
that breathing is a chore,
which is something i never remember until fall.
four months of bleached bones and choking on gravel
spit me gasping and exhausted into every mid-september,
when the sudden lightness in the air is so hard to trust
that i flood my own lungs
and set fires in my throat because
i don't know how to live
when things are easy.

it has been one hundred and ninety six weeks
since the last time i used ****** and
one hundred and thirty days since my last cigarette and
twelve hours since my last drink.
it has been fifty seven months since i last kissed you,
but when i think about relapse,
all i can taste is your tongue.
i told you i never loved you
half as much as i loved drugs, but
you've been dead almost five years
and i'm still writing eulogies.
i don't even know if i miss you.
maybe mourning is just easier to swallow
than the truth,
that i have felt this way ever since i can remember,
that maybe i have never been able to breathe
because maybe i was not built to last.

so far i've killed every plant i've ever grown,
but the basil and green onions i planted this summer are still thriving
somehow.
i meant to abandon them when i moved,
but my roommate brought them in amongst my things and
in my last run to pick up odds and ends,
i put them in my car.
i still don't know why.
i haven't watered those plants in weeks but
i did bring them outside and it has rained enough this month
that somehow they're still growing,
some sort of proof that something living
can survive being mine.
maybe so can i.
maybe if i **** up all the sunlight i can find
and fight for every scrap of survival,
drink up all the water i can grab to sustain me through the dry days,
maybe i can also be okay.
maybe i can thrive.

i have not yet learned how to want to live,
but i am still alive,
and i guess that means
there's time.

you loved me
the way i love dirt.
like a promise,
a glimmering spark,
a catch on the inhale.
a soft and malleable thing
glowing faintly from its core.

you loved me like i love
dusty records and animal bones.
you loved me ephemera,
your glittering oddity,
your very best party trick.
i loved you all the magic
i could muster.

i loved you
every star i'd ever counted and
the memory of falling and
the shapes of all my favorite words.
you loved me
pheromones and
midmorning drunk dials.

you prayed and you promised and
you slipped your shaky fingers
five fathoms deep beneath my skin
and tenderly uprooted my veins.
you sweetly cracked
my ribcage wide and
picked all the seeds from my guts.
you lit up my new hollows
and found you hated
clean white walls.
you never quite forgave
the way i let you ****
the parts of me that you
knew how to love.
i loved you flooded lungs and
atheist's prayers
and never enough.

you loved me
the way i love dirt,
and sometimes in my dreams,
i cover you in daisies
and weeds
and trees with tough roots.
i watch the wild things
climb high and nest in the branches
stretching out from your ribcage,
wildflowers tangling their roots
through your bones,
your body a home
at last.

Footsteps and shadows
And shots in the dark.
Days in sunny fields
And nights in dark alleys.
Art and dreams and songs,
Drugs and illusions and lies.
Beauty, divinity, truth
In the eyes of drunken strangers.
A shot at salvation
Among the ranks of the condemned.

They told me I was a drug addict,
and I refused to consider it.
I was scared and I was fearless
and I was
ancient and young
and
I didn't know how
so many things could fit inside of me,
but I knew that they were wrong and they
could never understand.

They told me I was a drug addict
and I thought maybe
they knew what they were talking about,
after all,
and I wanted them to be right because
I wanted them to fix me.

They told me I was a drug addict
and I went to meetings
and collected chips
and spoke in group
and preached recovery.

They told me I was a drug addict
and I agreed until
I got to go home
and even then I kept agreeing
for a while.

They told me I was a drug addict
and I sat in meetings
and got a sponsor
and said all the right things
to my parents.

They told me I was a drug addict
and I got high
because I missed it.

They told me I was a drug addict
and they told my friends
and said I'd try to convince them I was okay,
and when I did,
no one knew who to believe.

They told me I was a drug addict
and that I hadn't changed at all
and even when they said they were sorry,
I knew they weren't,
really.

They told me I was a drug addict
in recovery and that
the worst was behind me.

They told me I was a drug addict
and I never stopped for good
because I guess I was never sure
if I believed them.

They told me I was a drug addict,
but I think I'm doing
okay.

there is blood in the streets
and dripping from the slick soles of shoes
of the smiling old men
who sell souls and buy lunch,
who never see and who
never stop smiling.

there is blood in the streets
and flaking like rust from the walls
of the banks and the prisons,
staining the palms
of the rich and the ruthless.

there is blood in the streets,
a graveyard full of my friends
and a holy battlefield
where kids with bandanas and baseball bats
fight for their lives and for those
whose guts stain the whole city red.

there is blood in the streets,
and the rich white men build themselves bridges
so far above the red running river
that they can call this peace.

there is blood in the streets,
but all you can see is a trash can on fire
and the scattered shards of shattered glass.

your mouth in my nightmares is sticky and warm,
but in the morning all i can taste
is stale cigarettes and the bars dissolving under your tongue

I am really excellent at ruining things
by saying things I know I shouldn't.
"I'm going to chase her away,"
I say,
"By always telling her how afraid I am of losing her."
You laugh and tell me
I'm probably right.
I think that may have been the first time I really understood
that "tell her how you feel" isn't always
good advice.
So I told you I loved you in code
and kept smiling,
because I am impossibly wrong for you,
and I want you to be happy
even more than I want you.

your words drip incandescent glitter-trails
and pool at your feet
in a sparkling graveyard of shattered glass
and unheeded warnings.

Your ******* voice,
Your stupid words,
Your sickening pet names.
The familiar cadence,
The rise,
The fall,
The simpering, whining,
Saccharine tone.
Is it really any wonder
I’m afraid to touch my voicemails?

His smell, his marks, his bruises,
The evidence of his passion,
His anger,
His destruction.
They faded away before
His body was cold,
Before I’d even had time
To begin to miss him.

But you, your words,
Your ******* voice.
The soft, frayed edges of
The things you meant but didn’t say,
The things you said
That meant nothing.
These insignificant things
Fill all the dusty, untouched
Corners of my life.

Today, I began the process
Of erasing you.
Your voicemails are gone.
Your power is fading.

These many secret stirrings
Band together
To form a tapestry of verse,
Of sound,
Of color.
Scattered fragments
Puzzle into place,
United after a lifetime
Of drifting in air
Like so many specks of dust.
And these little suspended things,
These pieces so useless alone,
Meet and find meaning.

And I,
The product of puzzles,
Of tapestries,
Of so many meanings;
I,
The artist,
The poet,
The singer;
I
Give shape to these accumulations
Of nothings which together form somethings,
Turn these somethings from thought to form
And set them sailing into the world
So that one day,
Perhaps,
You will find them
And know me.

And I don't dream about you anymore,
But I still get scared when someone pretends to hit me,
And I can still feel that empty ache in my chest
In the middle of the night.
And I talked ad nauseum about the things you did to me,
But only once about losing you.
How do I explain the secret beautiful parts
Of the boy with the scars?
How do I explain the difference between
The boy with the lovely words and utopian dreams
And the one who put my head through the drywall?
How the pain of having you
Will never come close
To the exquisite agony of knowing I will never see you again?
I loved you, at least a little bit,
And that matters,
Too.

i watched two entire movies last weekend,
which was a feat because
the chunk of time a movie demands
is numbered in the massive list
of commitments i am hesitant to make.

i watched two movies about
the fight to find a place
in a culture constructed to benefit the few
at the cost of the many,
and as always it astonished me
when the people around me seemed surprised.
"it's a good thing we have come so far,"
they will say,
as if inequality is a thing of the past.
as if we don't still live in a world
where people are killed based on
the color of their skin
or their expression of gender
or sexuality or
love.
like little girls don't still grow up
bombarded with the message that they are objects
designed to be pretty and pleasing.
like our cops aren't killing black kids.
as if my government does not deny
my ****** autonomy.

it is exceedingly difficult to fix a problem
that you pretend does not exist.

every night you take
your illness up to bed,
the only lover you ever learned to trust.
you open strange eyes on strange mornings
in a body that is not yours,
in a place you don't remember.
you ought to know better.
count all the tiles on the ceiling
thirteen times
and press your teeth
into your tongue.
repeat until you trust yourself
not to say something odd.
it is hard to love a woman
who speaks with spirits over breakfast.

cheap ***** goes down easier
when you're already drunk,
so **** it up and
swallow so much poison
you forget how much
you hate it here.
dance with everyone who asks
and pretend their hands
don't burn your hips.
train your lips to smile
and you'll look just like the living.
it is hard to love a ghost.

a little perfume at your collarbones,
and your lover won't ever notice
the scent of melancholy
that lingers in your hair like smoke.
your red lips will distract
from the disembodied screaming
that tends to tumble at your heels.
you can hide dark circles
under your eyes
by lying face-down on the floor
until you remember how to be fun.

the night is for lovers,
but the stars burn your eyes
and your rusted mannequin body
does not remember how to dance.
the night is for falling,
and police lights,
and crying in a waffle house parking lot.
smile like you still have a chance.

the night knows your secrets,
but if you are lucky,
she just might pretend to forget.

It's beautiful the way you make me laugh,
But sometimes I get scared,
And sometimes it's hard to breathe,
And sometimes I can't see what's real through the tricks of my mind,
And sometimes I just wish
That I could lay my head on your shoulder
And cry.

And I do believe I was created,
Naturally selected
By mother nature herself.
How can I take offense at Darwinism?
I am the fittest,
And I have survived.
I am the product of millions of years of evolution,
And that's a lot to live up to.

i tore down the blanket you had stapled to the wall
when i got too cold in the middle of the night.
you had put it there to block the light from the window,
but when morning sent sunshine streaming in,
you didn't seem to mind.

i was glad to wake up to the sun
because when she kissed my eyelids
and lifted me from sleep,
i realized that,
for the first time in a long time,
i was glad to wake up.

“be safe,
get some rest,
text me when you get home.”

i used to love a boy
who never lived to be a man.
i was fourteen years old,
in a psychiatric hospital
after swallowing so many
of my mother's pills
that i couldn't remember
her name.
he told me i'd been crying
and rocking back and forth
for two days.
i told him i was cold.
he gave me his sweater.

“be safe,
get some rest,
text me when you get home.”
things i say so often
they have become more incantation
than conversation,
a protective spell rubbed
river-rock smooth
by worried hands.

i say,
“you look cold, take my jacket.”
i say,
“have you eaten today?”
i say,
“here, drink some water.”

i do not say what i am thinking,
which is,
“baby,
the sharks are circling again,
where is the blood
coming from this time?”

because when i said,
“i love you, stop dying,”
he said,
“go home.”
i said,
“i already am,”
so he killed a fifth of tequila,
cut us both with the bottle,
and passed out in the bathtub.

so when i see the dark fingers
that tug at your bones,
i will not ask you any questions
i don't think you can answer.
tonight,
we will only talk about things
we have words for,
and if that means
all we talk about
is stars,
then i will spend
a lifetime of tuesday nights
talking to you about stars.
and if staying alive means
going away,
then i will buy you a bus ticket
and tell you to never look back.
dragons were not meant to live
pinned under glass and i would
never ask you to be
anything else
to fit comfortably.

and the last day i see you,
i will not say goodbye.
i will not tell you i'm afraid,
i will tell you i love you,
crank up the stereo,
punk rock screaming
at a purple sky,
and i will drive you home
one last time.

i don't believe in much,
but you said maybe we met for a reason and that
maybe the reason was to keep each other alive,
and it seemed as true as anything else i'd ever heard
and approximately twice as beautiful.

i don't believe in fate,
but i have ****** the wild hope into my lungs
that some cosmic force could trust me
with something this important,
that some great mysterious power
sending ripples through the stars
could have loved me enough to lead me here.

we are not the beautiful and broken.
we are the wild and the wanting and
the howl that rattles hollow bones.
we are the wounded and the wicked
and unbound.
we are the things that learned to live in the dark;
from our bones crawl the faintly-glowing bodies
that will out-survive the sun.

your lungs cough out prayers like my lungs cough out tar,
like my hands clasp bottles like your hands clasp blades,
like our hands clasp hands,
like i had never in my life heard someone's stories louder than the stars
until you told me yours on the roof of the abandoned hotel,
until i saw the universe bend tight around your words
and for once the height didn't **** the air from my lungs and
for once i thought about something other than jumping.

nothing really feels like home these days,
but there's moments with you i feel human and
i'll take all the reasons i can find
not to step out in front of a train.
i want to watch you breathe
without some great shadow-hand holding onto your lungs,
and i don't ever want you to forget how sunlight feels.

you and i, we were born survivors,
and life has a way of reclaiming scorched land,
of stretching its great green tendrils
up through sidewalk cracks.
i don't believe in much,
but god,
do i believe in us.

And always the façade.
The constant lie,
The forced smile,
The empty laugh.
You deserve so much more
Than I can ever be.
I want to be happy for you,
Sane, normal,
Whole.
I want to make you smile;
I want you to look at me
With that unbridled adoration in your eyes
Forever.

But then forever seems like much too long a time
When I’m only seventeen
And I’m already done.

Whisper words
And feather bones,
Lips like echoes,
Eyes like shadows.
Unbreakably ephemeral.

Silent steps
On carpet,
Night thief
With her cloak of stolen stars.

It is easy enough to pretend
She was never there
At all.

And it's like
Every time I fell apart,
You were there
To patch me up
With stitches and bandages.
And now, even though I've healed underneath
And will not fall apart,
Tearing away those protections
Still ******* hurts.

This time next year,
Where will I be
In relation to you?

today is sixty paces south of heaven
reaching skyward.
here is dust in my lungs
and earth on my tongue
and half a hallelujah
strangled somewhere in my throat.
here is the ghost of every god
i ever believed in.

i fill my mouth with
promises and dirt
so there is no space left for poison.
there is no space left for anything,
but some days even breathing is a chore and
staying alive is the best i can do.
today i choke the gravel down with water because
today i can do better.

today is sixty paces south of heaven
and the stars are only glitter
and every lie i ever told curls up through thick summer air
and dissipates like smoke.
here are outstretched arms
and ***** fingers,
and here, slithering through the tall grass,
is a soft unknown that feels an awful lot like
hope.

you can tell by the way she swings her hips
and pulls your hair
and licks her lips
and whispers in your ear
that she's easy.

you'll know her by the short skirt
and the tight top
and the high heels,
by the butterfly tattoo on her lower back
and the drink in her hand.

if she carries condoms
or takes birth control,
if she can't say no,
if she takes no convincing,
you'll know.

she's the girl at the party who drinks the most
and laughs the loudest.
she's the one you discarded the first night you met her,
when she gave you
the only part of herself that you deemed worthwhile.

you'll figure her out
from the tar trails of mascara,
the untouched meal,
the word "worthless" carved into her thigh like a brand,
marking her flesh as property
to which you are entitled.

pay close attention to her need for validation.
a **** will have the audacity to seek your approval
just because she's been told all her life
that she is  nothing without your love.
she will measure her worth
in units of attractiveness
and desirability
because that is the only system she's ever been taught.

you'll know she's a **** when they find the defendant
not guilty,
and he arrives at the ten-year reunion in a limo.
you'll know she's a **** when she doesn't arrive
at all.

it's easy to spot a ****
in a society that teaches her that her lips are for kisses
and not battle cries,
that her hands are meant to be cradled in yours
and not ****** into the sky,
that her body is your wonderland
and not her home.

it's hard to miss a **** in a culture that paints women as ****** objects
while condemning any expression of female sexuality,
that glorifies the "good girl" who becomes whole
when the right man comes along
and stakes his claim.
the women you ****** in the lifetime before you met your wife
weren't marriage material;
you need a girl who's saved herself for you because
a girl who lets you **** her
crosses the threshold from ****** to ****
in a bizarre coming of age ritual in which your **** is so ******* important
that its temporary entrance to her body
renders her worthless.
you can tell she's a ****
because for her, there is no right answer.

you can find your **** at rallies
and in body-baring photographs,
alive in the anxious triumph
of finding something in herself that she can love,
of digging through a lifetime of rubble
and reclaiming small shards of forgiveness from the dirt.
her self-identified status
rips away your long-established privilege
of dictating who she can be
and defining her worth;
your resent her new autonomy.

you can march beside her,
or you can step aside.
she has stolen back her power.
she was made for revolution.

i want to liberate your heart
from the birdcage of your ribs
and squeeze it into cool red stillness in my hand,
juice it and drink it down
straight, since you always mocked me when i asked for cream and sugar.

i want to **** the marrow from your bones
and drink the breath from your lungs like
helium from last week's balloons,
cheap party trick.
i want to leave you aching and empty,
with bruised spaces too expansive and raw
for small hands to fill.

i want to lock you up and leave you with your shrieking demons,
the ones i tried to coax from you with ****** lips and gentle hands
the night you told me you fantasized about
my lifeless body draped across your shoulders
like the nemean lion.

i will chew you up and
spit you out and
send your bones to hades.

that moment of clarity,
of understanding,
of the crystallization of abstract into tangible,
when  two worlds explode into one
and you think you're complete
but then,
inevitably,
time changes everything,
and,
inevitably,
you're alone again,
and it's only then that you realize
you were complete to begin with

it takes approximately two months to fall out of love,
apparently

any two people can grow old together
if circumstances allow.
it isn't spectacular.
we can do better.
let's grow beautiful together,
let's grow strong together,
let's grow whole together.
let's grow together even when we're apart
so that time only brings us closer.
let us always love each other in this strange and beautiful way
so that i always have a reason to try harder
and be kinder
to make sure someone loves you
the way you deserve
to be loved.

Instead I sat stock-still as a room full of my drunken friends
laughed hysterically about ****,
and I listened in frantic silence
feeling like the **** of some joke
that I would never have the luxury of finding funny.

i want to live in your world,
but i don't know how to be.
and art
is just you
letting other people
experience
you.
and i just want the music to be in me,
but i live in it,
and everything matters.
and you only think i'm beautiful
in this moment,
but i want to write a house.
and if you ever need more willpower,
just touch my hand.
everyone creates the world.
you help.

and i don't understand how
anyone can be happy when they are alone,
when voices crawl from hidden places,
shadows lick hurrying heels,
the distinctive scent of self-loathing creeps up unbidden,
cloying and sharp.

i don't understand happiness
without someone to build it upon.
i can't grasp the concept
of contentment in solitude.
i don't know how to be okay
in the time between late to bed
and early to rise,
when i pace endlessly
and hope against hope
that someone is awake.

and i want your attention
the way a wound wants a bandage--
urgently
but fleetingly
         and i know i need stitches to heal,
         but at least you staunch the blood flow,
         and if there isn't a mess,
         it's like it never happened,
         even if it
                                    never
                                               stops
                                                            bleeding.

the nagging pinpricks that flower in my chest
every time i hold my tongue
when i could take a stand
exhaust me.
some days i wish i were not stirred
by every minor injustice,
by every casual -ism.
i am not all angles and shards.
some days i am soft lines and rounded edges,
some days i am petal-small and twice as fragile,
some days i am tired.
some days the inevitable backlash
of speaking my mind
can send me reeling.
the accumulation of anger and dismissal and mockery
piles upon my shoulders
and seems sometimes too heavy to carry.

but even on these days,
these quiet, glass-***** lows,
i know why i am fighting, and
i know to the core of my being that
i
will
never
stop.

less than one month into the new year,
and already i have made and broken resolutions,
quickly abandoning the poorly planned promises
i made myself.
i don't know what i was expecting.

i heard somewhere that it takes thirty days
to break or establish a habit.
thirty days.
five sets of six,
three sets of ten,
three sets of five sets of two.
you can't get four from thirty.

and i meant to go somewhere else with this,
draw it into extended metaphor,
but now the girl next to me is chewing gum,
and i want to cry.
i don't want to be a person
who freezes up at the sound of
saliva and substance.
it is far too easy to make my skin shrink tight
and start to itch.
i can't just pull it off,
and i hate feeling trapped.

i hate you now, too, for doing this.
i know it's not malicious or intentional,
but i will still resent you for as long as i know you
because you made me feel this way.
isn't that ridiculous?
but you know what else is ridiculous
is that the mind and body that have survived nineteen years
(despite my best efforts)
spiral out of my control
every time someone decides to chew.
i wish i could not be controlled
by something so simple and small.

(i think maybe the metaphor wrote itself.)

in my dream last night,
you kissed me,
and i woke up this morning
with questions and
a cold

imagine
you: fire
and me: arsonist

i mean,
i think you're hot.
i mean,
i know how to get you going,
but i would never claim to be the boss of you,
i mean,
i marvel at your power.
i mean,
i don't mind if you scorch my eyebrows,
i wanna smell you when i take my hair down.

sometimes,
we bring out the worst in each other,
i mean,
always,
we bring out the most in each other.
we run the gamut from
criminals
to revolutionaries
but we are best
when we are both.

imagine
me: ice cream,
and you: spoon,
i mean i wanna fill you up,
i mean you make me melt,
i mean
sometimes the sweet things
are simple.

imagine me museum,
all history and velvet ropes,
imagine you scholar,
head full of context and hands in your pockets,
harmonious reciprocity.

imagine this a love song,
me Billy Joel
and you,
Uptown Girl,
imagine the miles stretched out between us crumpled away like two ends of a paper ball,
imagine you road trip
and me apology
imagine us
in some hot town that knows us,
with hair that smells like smoke and matches in our pockets.

my hands are not
soft things that you can hold onto and
even at my sweetest i'm less like honey and
more like old kool-aid and i'll
stain your lips and fingers blue
like the inky thing that slithers up my spine.

i don't remember what it's like to breathe easy.

i like the way your hands shake
and that's a weird thing to like
but i am much more cactus than flower
and i am not afraid of edges and shards.

you swallow smoke the way
i swallow metal and
wanting you makes me feel
sick again.

i loved you like a car crash.
i loved you skidding tires
and screeching brakes
and shattered glass.
i loved you three lanes shut down on the freeway.

i loved you cracked palms
and cigarette burns
and shredded skin.
i loved you mouthfuls of smoke
and blood
and prayers.
i loved you holy morning moments
and sips of coffee;
i loved you dopamine
and alprazolam.

i loved you sharp and cold and metal.

i loved you sweaty sunsets in your car
when you read the bruises on my thighs like rorsarch blots
and i traced constellations in your scars.

i loved you broken
because your shards fit so beautifully with mine.

i loved you ragged.
i loved you desperate.
i loved you hurting and wanting and whispering.

i used to wake up screaming every time i dreamed of you,
but these days i just wake up empty
and cold
and aching in the spaces your hands used to fill.

Imperfect expanse,
Rolling landscape,
Sacred and ordinary.
Scars faded almost invisible.
Stretch marks slashed red on lily white,
Reminiscent of the wounds
From the straight blade I kept in a drawer.

Canvas thick with paint,
Layers of love and hate
Painted on by lovers, strangers,
Self, and others.
Cigarette butts and crushed beer cans
And masterpieces on the walls.
Cherished and reviled,
Wrong for society's standards of beauty,
Exactly right
For me.