I've always been jealous of leaves

because they have the luxury of dying
with the promise of being reborn
in a few months' time
even brighter and more
beautiful than before

    sometimes I want to die
but death is such a big commitment and
I've never been a fan
of permanence

I miss you
but
not in the a-piece-of-me-is-missing-when-you're-gone
kind of way
I miss you in the
I'm-okay-with-being-alone-but-I-like-it-better-when-you're-ar­ound
kind of way and I think that
that is a pretty healthy way to feel

It took me a very long time
to realize that I was whole

    and I'm not so scared of winter anymore

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.

It's been 19 hours
  and I think I've finally ****** away
  the ***** I drank while giving you shots of water
  so you wouldn't get sick
I thought maybe you were too drunk to notice
but I guess you weren't because you smiled
at me with a sincerity I can't come close to describing

It's been 19 hours
  but the wrenching pain in my stomach
still hasn't gone away.

       and in the airport today
I bought a bottle of water and some pepto bismol
and as I handed her my debit card,
   the cashier asked me
             if I was heading home
                   and I just
*******
choked
  and I'm talking about the really ******* ugly kind of crying here
   and the poor thing didn't know what she had done wrong but
she told me about her grandfather
         who used to say that crying
         is just your body's way
         of getting rid of the toxins
         and making itself stronger

Its been 17 hours since I last saw you
and I don't know how long it will be
before I see you again
but I really,
            really hope that it isn't too long.

melting
in warm waters
wasting away
to sin and bone
with you
and letting
life ebb
out of my mouth
gasping for
air
in the most
passionate
of ways

there are men in my closet
there’s one on each hanger
there’s one for each scarf, t-shirt, top hat, and trainer

I’m hoarding them all
they’ve been there awhile now
they grow very small
(the old men can die now)

the young men are new
and the children are old
(they make friends with new children
or so i am told)

there are people around me
and people inside me
they all smile blindly
I don't care who’s smiling

Something strange happens
when you find yourself in a room
with all the boys you ever
thought you might have loved

each with their own poison
their own pressure points
                          inside you
               one in my knees
              one in my lungs
             one underneath my eyelids
            yet all of them together
nestled some place inside my skull
in some tiny electric current I'd like
to pretend doesn't exist

        But something strange happens
because when you see them all
                  side-by-side
it suddenly becomes so much clearer

        that really,
they never mattered too much after all

   and it was always just me

you'll be able to tell if
he touched my tongue
by the pressure with which it presses
  against yours

and you'll be able to tell if
if he held my hand
by the placement of my fingers
  between yours

and you'll be able to tell if
he broke my heart
by the length of time it takes for me
  to break yours

and its funny to think of certain things
like that elevator painting  with colors
flying off the canvas that you
wouldn't touch
because you wanted to believe
that it was real
but I had to touch
because I would rather know the truth

and I couldn't tell at the time
but I can think about it now and know
by the way I remember you feeling
beside me
that you had a kind of
fleeting realness about you
that I wanted so badly to be permanent

and it took me a long time to realize
that I was better off
knowing the truth