and sure, i guess that
the rituals i am constructing
here are a certain
kind of intricate

intimate?
INTRICATE

can’t just come right out
with it and ask to be held,
so i’ll provoke you instead,
my love

your fist,
my mouth

my bloodied teeth,
your soft neck

tighten your hands in the
collar of my threadbare jacket,
and at least you’re
touching me, then

and it feels like i’ve
written this before,
walking in tracks that
already match the soles
of my well-worn boots

and maybe i have, and maybe
it’s been about you
every ******* time

1..when i think of you,
i find myself as a teenager
again, both of us standing
in the middle of my messy
bedroom, with the curtains
and door both shut

and i don’t remember
who kissed first, but i
know how it felt when you
bit the inside of my lip,
and hot blood ran down
my chin

maybe there’s a greater
metaphor wrapped up in that,
but you were my first in more
ways that just a kiss
that ended ******

first girlfriend to first
boyfriend, growing into
who we were supposed to
be, side by side

until we stopped, and
i lost you somewhere
along the way, and i
never did find you again

i don’t want to
find you now, my first
and last of so many things

i try not to think of you,
and i wonder if you feel
that way about me, too

2..when i think of you,
i am 14 years old and
in what i thought was
love at the time, again

i’ve done a really
good job of forgetting you,
can’t even remember the
color of your eyes,
or how it made me feel
to wake up in your arms

you were simultaneously one
of the best and worst things
to ever happen to me

but i remember how
it made me feel when we
met for the first time at
the mall, and you took my hand,
looked me in the eyes and said,
‘i’m not afraid of people seeing
me holding your hand’

3..when i think of you,
we’re eating sushi and
drinking cokes,
meeting for the first time

it should have ended
then, but i’d gotten a taste
of what it was like to be
looked at and seen,
and wanted more

you never did look
at me like that again, though,
and it still makes me angry
to know that you wouldn’t
hold me, or even touch me,
unless you were ******

4..when i think of you,
we’re kissing in the cold
garage of your ex boyfriend’s
townhouse, and you’re touching
my cheek like i’m something
that deserves to be held tenderly

walking home in the
dark, feeling drunk off of
what might have been love,
i drafted a poem in my head
about another man
and we both wanted
there to be a love story
for us so ******* bad

but all you did
was use me up and then try
to take even more after
you’d already bled me dry

5..when i think of you,
it’s in the context of all
those pretty lies you fed me,
that i happily lapped up

and you were surprised
when i’d had enough and
bit the hand that held me
in a way that could have been
tender, but only made me bitter
in the end

6..when i think of you,
there is good food warming
my belly, and *** in my glass

we could go play
pirates together, and forget
what it is that holds us down,
that which we must carry,
if only for the night

and i don’t regret
loving you like i did,
oh captain of mine

7..when i think of you,
it’s like coming home again
after having been gone
for just a little too long

and i’ve been madly,
deeply, head over heels,
in love with you since i
met you when i was 16

when you read my
own words to me, and
i liked how they sounded
on your tongue, you made
me feel seen, feel known,
in ways i never had before

you know how to
soothe that great snarling thing
that lives between my ribs

you tell me i
am good, i am kind,
i am known and seen and
loved, and i believe you
every ******* time

under the cover of
near darkness, with the setting
sun painting the clouds in the
richest of hues, and a light patter
of rain falling onto the trees,
i will say, “follow me”

and lead you by
the hand deeper into the forest,
where the glow of the sunset
hardly reaches, and i will say,
“here’s where i buried
a part of me”

you’ll ask me what
part that would be exactly, and
i’ll drop your hand to hang
my head and reply that i
don’t know anymore

you nod, and drop
softly to the forest floor,
pushing dirt aside like
you know exactly what
to look for

and maybe you do,
always able to coax out
the bitter and broken parts
and then hold me until i
am myself again

then, freeing a small
box from the wet earth,
you stand once more to
present this long-since buried
thing to me

part of me is
afraid to take it, which you
also seem to know, and tell me again,
“you are good. you were made to
love and be loved in turn, just like
we all were”

and we’ll bury that
box again together,
albeit empty this time

and you’ll take my
hands in yours to lead
me back out into the
velvet blue beauty of the night

and you’ll say to
me, with my head resting
on your shoulder,
“i’ll always be there to
walk you home”

and
and
and
i will always know
this to be true

almost a decade after the
last time i saw my father,
i dream of his death

and isn’t that
just like, really
******* morbid?

i don’t know,
maybe it’s my subconscious
looking for closure in the
only way it knows how

if he’s gone, then he
can’t hurt me anymore,
except for when he
does leave me for real

and i look at myself
in the mirror when i
shave, and for the briefest
of moments i have been
made in his image

these tattoos, the way i grew
out my mustache and goatee,
the art that i do,
everything is haunted by him

i want to say to him,
to his back as he walks away,
‘look at me, *******,
don’t you see how i emulated you
so much and so well i
almost became you?’

is that not enough for
you to love me?
is that not enough for
you to be proud of me?
is that not enough for
you to want me?

and i know the answers
to the questions that don’t
keep me up at night,
but sometimes bring
hot, angry tears to my eyes
and a lump lodges in my throat

the wound my father left
still bleeds,
albeit sluggishly now

and i know that i have
done nothing wrong here,
because i was a child,
*******,
i was just a kid

i was just a kid

you learn from icarus,
this time, and instead of
flying too close to the sun,
you simply pluck it from
the sky like a ripened peach

eaten in one bite,
you laugh through the
blood running down your
chin like sticky nectar

and when what remains
of those great wax wings has
been sufficiently cauterized,
almost matching the scars
stretching across your chest,
you decide it’s time
to go home

there’s no porchlight left
on for you this time, and
the bed is unmade just like
you left it

but you’ll turn the lights on
as you go, moving through
the house like a ghost,
finally the one
doing the haunting

and you’ll fall asleep
alone, and wake up
much the same way,
but that’s okay

alone but never lonely,
you tell yourself,
and even if it’s through
clenched teeth sometimes,
it’s the truth

so you say your own name,
feel it on the tongue like you
imagine a lover would,
and let that sun in your belly
keep you warm on the coldest nights

my lady of the ocean
and the waves, you
soothe this wild thing
snapping at my ribs

clawing at the walls
that i so carefully built,
the sound of your voice
sends all those stones
cascading down around me

and you tell me i am good,
you tell me i am kind,
that you are proud of me,
and that wild thing throws
back its head and keens

‘i see you,’ you say,
and when you call me by
a name that was never really mine,
i do not flinch
for the first time

this wild thing and i,
we will bring you all of my
sharp and jagged edges,
the parts that i fear are unfixable,
and you love me until
i am whole again

oh, my lady of the ocean
and the waves,
i see you, too
i see you, too

a bard falls in love,
writes ballads and poems
and plays those strings
until his fingers
******* bleed

out in the desert,
the horse spooks and throws
a cowboy down into
the hot searing sand,
leaves him gasping and staring
up at an empty and blue sky

on the high, unforgiving seas,
a pirate falls overboard,
sinks like he was always supposed
to return to the ocean

and i watch myself in two
different mirrors, in a bathroom
that is not mine, cutting the cord
around my neck and holding
these two rings in my hand

these hands of mine do not shake
this time, and i briefly consider
swallowing the rings,
cracking my teeth on the cold steel
like so many empty promises

instead, i pack them away,
and do not look at them,
like these other things i will
not look at

because, while i may be
a hopeful romantic,
and a lovesick ******* fool,
i refuse to let these torches
i carry for others burn
me any longer

i will rebuild these walls,
brick by brick,
and plant rose bushes with thorns
to keep away that which does
not serve me anymore