tell me how you want me to love you
in the ways you cannot love yourself enough
pressing my ear closer to your mattress
restless under your pillowcase
my teeth become something disposable by morning
your mouth begs to be fed before sunrise
lips parting for stale air between lulls in our interactions
as if saying something could make me breathe easier
knowing i will respond before i simply can't
i am expectant in the ways you clear my lungs
before lying in the bed you've made for us
tell me again how you want me to love you
in the ways i cannot love myself
to fill a void made for no one in particular
folding corners of my blanket back over each other
there is safekeeping in barricading thread count
fingers numb from pressing us together for too long
losing my grip on what reality i have succumbed myself to
tell me again how i have done this to myself
in the ways of tolerating your recklessness
pillows becoming somewhat of a buffer
for noise that concerns the neighbor at night
what good will yelling do if your body constantly screams
shouting for someone who left awhile ago
slipping out of your window at night
tell me how you want me to leave
in the ways you cannot tell me to
too afraid to make noise in a silent ballet
tiptoeing around uncomfortable conversations
dancing over select words in exchange
with the rhythm of my accelerated heartbeat
listening

over my waist stillness softens stares
much like in the thicket of an unkempt trail
he covers what he can and leaves
such a diligence departing death
before planting himself so deeply in my roots rupturing
various vines over walls to sway serenading
interior articulations hushing hollow hips
him sinking beneath my weight willingly
we intertwine beneath his ceiling fan
a canopy masking moonlight molding
our framework born beneath bedsheets
bashful in silence an appreciation arises amid
my dull heartbeat haunting how I turn
down the path where we wander
aimlessly away from my boundaries breaking
backbones for confirmation concealing inconspicuous
ivy inadvertently returning to shade solemn secrets
hidden beneath my kneecaps knowing knots
will return in the tree trunks towering
poison slobbering over your fingertip torrent
tracing rivulets from my hipbones hoping
home won't be too far down the river remade reminiscing
over my delicate bones beneath bellows
of his overpowering existence endlessly embedding
himself in a body that is made more
mine than anybody anticipates after
seeing me naked near noon
because staying still settles
a reckless act with a man
who clarifies character concluding
dismissal of his own
while i am patiently protesting parameters
to keep my heart safe so someone
doesn't come along to grieve grounds
gracefully forgiven for my mistaken mayhem
left behind by bare
hands and apprehensive apologies

evolution is the culprit for many setbacks
one being how much i crave him
the other being how many carcasses caress his floor
counterfeit intimacy plagues pests plenty
love becomes more of a noun than a feeling
his hands on my curves
palms on my shoulders
grip on my neck
fingers trace an apology down my backbone
before i can resist repulsive recollections
death recoils at the base of my spine
tolerance becomes our safe word
there was a hesitation in the love of turning away from him
though i am incapable of comprehending spaces he left
i stop opening doors for others when i start locking my own
paying back the universe with
our severed ties
their open arms
my slow progression
returns with a participation award for living
as if existing without him is an accomplishment
before learning to live for myself ever could be

I wish you looked at me
in The Gentle Light peaking midday
through the Japanese dogwood leaves
your dark honey iridescence encompassing emerald
cradling gold spun with pollen on the porch
silent stares sweeping nothing under the rug -

in The Gentle Light you are tracing my shadow
with dull flint outlining the reminiscence of our spark
when the sun sets we burn too slowly
candle smoke traps itself in jars
our emotions capped for safe keeping -

there is a leak in the sky come sunrise
dripping down dogwood
the morning hung like fly traps
you hover near the front door before coffee
transparency being the obstacle for you -

and how could it not be?

when a cigarette habit clouds your heart
reasoning closure with excuses in the ashtray
butts filling the hole you have dug for yourself
how could you fit in with the flies
when you center yourself with cockroaches  
feeding off the misery of death
greedily hunting in the dark corners of depression -

leaves continue to bud and fall in your absence
ignorant of the pretenses in The Gentle Light
when they perish beneath my feet
then you will come back hungry -

but I will not be beneath the dogwood
looking for nectar in hollow places
the luminescence of augmented love has lost its glow
rose-tints begin to neutralize in the hum of authenticity
and now I am basking happily in a monotone existence

Sometimes,
I think my conversations with You
pick up
when I put down the pen.
Other times,
I think You only communicate
through spitballs and passed notes.
I squiggle tick boxes
on college ruled lines to check
“yes” or “no,”
but You always end up eating the answer
when the Teacher is in ear shot because
sound carries faster than my sideway glances.
You say Your notes
are too loud for me to copy off of,
but I still can’t hear Your message
when we’re playing telephone at recess.
You avoided me on
the playground in grade school,
the hallways in junior high and
the cafeteria in high school,
so You can imagine my shock
when You asked to move into a one bedroom
with me in a concrete jungle gym
several miles away after graduation.
I have a four-year lease for this new place of mine
and You used to have a tendency to not stick around
when I needed You there the most,
but here You are now,
waiting patiently on the couch
holding two cups of coffee every morning
and two cups of wine every night.
You have left me with questions
that my tuition can’t cover and
that rent can’t afford,
so please understand that when I kick You out,
it’s not because You ate my groceries
or didn’t clean the bathroom;
it’s because the mess You made
for my parents to clean up
was too big to incorporate
in the chore list I left behind
when I used to live in blanket forts.
This is all hindsight,
but my vision gets checked annually
and optometrists say I’m going to be blind by thirty
if I keep wearing my contacts
during Marco Polo.
I keep telling them it’s impossible
to match where the sound
of Your voice is coming from,
so I keep my eyes shut
and my arms stretched out wide before me
to feel for Your presence.
They say that
keeping my eyes closed for too long isn’t safe
and that I should invest in glasses,
but my insurance doesn’t cover
another lens between Us
and I can’t afford to be separated
from You any longer.
Maybe someday,
You will gargle up all those
chewed up love notes
and questions
and I’ll find them below my tax returns.
Maybe someday,
You will pay me back
with more
than just a book fine.
Maybe someday,
I won’t need your change
to feel like
I’m worth something.
But, for now, I wait patiently,
writing with a pen
that ran out of ink
since the day You gave me hope
with a hushed
*“maybe.”

This is what it feels like
on the days that feel like
lonely summer nights without you.

I wake groggily to the rays of light
seeping through your cupped hands
that play peek-a-boo with my broken windowsill.
The wind exhales chills down my spine
that inhale me to into the mattress
until midafternoon
when I can finally gasp for a drink.
When I’ve had my fill of toxins,
I can poison people in the hallways of my complex
with venomous small talk that produces
half glazed stare simplicity.
You know the one I’m talking about;
the kind of look that hangs on people
thinking about what to say
while you’re going on about
some nonsense you heard at
some place from
some pretty person.
They have a certain finish over their attention
that doesn’t quite compare to the varnish of your absence.

This is what it feels like
when summer rolls over the hills
like the ongoing thread of my oversized sweaters
on seventy-degree days
because I was always a little too good
at playing hide and seek growing up.

I feel like I get stuck in a loop sometimes.

I heard
somewhere from
some pretty person that
children don’t see scars on adults
because those people
never quite make it past getting their GED,
but here I am as an undergraduate student
mocking what little authority is left over my existence.
At the age of nineteen,
I understand that solitude is the most fulfilling companionship
I will ever browse for,
but I’ll never be able to buy us matching necklaces
at self checkout.

This is what it feels like
to cry in the middle of the day
when you haven’t paid the water bill in two months.
When I put my clothes on,
you aren’t there to watch me leave anymore
and I can’t turn around to grab your neck
and mount you again.
My lips started parting for a cigarette
when I was sixteen
and started parting for you
when I was eighteen
and now they are parting for a finger gun
aimed at the back of my throat after a meal.

I feel like I get stuck in a loop sometimes.

I heard
somewhere from
some pretty person that
I needed to be a size zero
to wrap my legs around you
and still be able to leave some room
for your opposition
when I’ve drank too much whiskey
on a Wednesday night,
but here I am as a size six
and I’m happily tipsy off your rejection
when I’m sober.

This is what it feels like
to exist off of your own
self-destruction.

Put a child lock
on the liquor cabinets,
and fasten me
to your kitchen sink.

Watch me drift slowly down the drain.

Watch shattered wine glass
stick between fragments of me
in the garbage disposal blades.

Watch broken sentences
arch over our faulty plumbing lines.

Watch pieces of you stick strictly to silver spoons.

Take the skin of your Cuban
and roll a noose around my neck
to yank the blaze from my throat
into the bile of my slip-ups
that pool on the kitchen floor
from an unattached pipe
that just can’t seem to keep
her pretty little mouth shut.

Penetrate my thoughts from behind
and throw plates at the walls
of my shoulder blades
when you need to hear the question again
because it doesn’t matter what she thinks
if her face is nothing but
a cracked serving platter.

Force your hands
onto the authority of my hipbones.

Pierce your wedding ring
through my belly button for safekeeping.

Decorate my body
with super glue
so your words can stick to me.

Sort me in
with the pots and pans
so your voice
doesn’t have to clang against
my eardrums anymore.

Reorganize me
again and again
until you can’t wash the stain
out of my bottom lip anymore.

Pour me a drink
while I drip Taps into the sink
because when I realize
water isn’t strong enough
to make me forget how blood
runs so much thicker over my skin,
tears begin to slip so easily off my eyelashes.

Let my death
be a pail
brimmed with ex-lovers’
cries for attention.

Let me kick the bucket
this time
when they begin to drown out
the sound of my own.

Let me be a reminder
that not all channels
you lose yourself down
have to be man made.