frozen kisses hold more warmth than seven saunas backed up with people, than sixteen candles in a line lit one by one and smocked out the window. there is an inexplicable sadness when i am sitting here and i am seeing nothing, i am feeling nothing, i am nothing. and the condensation marks three parts humidity two steps back and ring holders hold not rings, not anything or anything at all. a river of words is so dried up and it hits, it hits la vie en rose, the vines are nothing but entanglements that make beauty and it is so spacious that love itself takes a backseat. mallrats, cat stacks, tongues melting on hearts and i feel nothing but lust. to burn, to feel matched with a star and to feel constellations ringing on my back, watching my steps and marking my arms with celestial swords. plant me, keep me here i do not care, i feel not the hunger for love given by anyone.

if a tainted rose is worth more pennies than a thought,
then my whole garden has a stage presence of 72 ticket stubs,
and sixteen men in beards and ball caps at a footy game.

the thick and habitual tick tick ticking of a grandfather clock
striking each end goal and beer swish of a textbook page
and skin on skin on skin on sheet on leave on lavender cream.

i have left my hose, ***, and gardening paraphernalia in the garage
and i don’t dare to take them because the last time i saw a cordelia i saw you
i don’t dare to tell mother about this grind and bind i seem to be in.

i have much rather my time in the chair, grandfather’s chair, next to the stand clock and angel ornament aunty edna gave us so long ago
did i tell you my cross stitch is past mere perfection? i most certainly have not,
and for that i must say i miss you.

if a rose is the recountment of beauty encased, and the sweet sweet essence of praise has you floundering under mere pressures of two tonne water vessels then fine, i see you as you are
you are wanted downtown, but shhh, i was not supposed to know because mother found out about me and i seem to have lost everything and please, i need that repetition and routine and please, i need renfrew’s shoe cream.

father’s run out again, i am not allowed out again, i miss you again, i am not allowed to see you again, meet me at the pasture after dark again?
mother washed my garments yesterday, and found that note, from when we little.
that’s how she found out, she found out i was dirtier than the garden and i think she thought if i stopped mucking around outside maybe i’d stop mucking around inside.

if i emptied my purse, i would find you.
also you owe me three dollars, i need new stockings.
i lie in bed these days, and i do not regret taking the room at the back of the house because our curbside appeal is diminishing, i can feel it.

my bones are aching. my mind is aching.

i resemble the plumage of a bird; furry, i have not shaven; *****, i have not bathed; but beautiful, mother says. she is not that good at lying. i find it odd you’ve got a way of writing with UK english, maybe it’s in the oxfords?

the statue called me last night, i thought i should tell you. you always had a thing for her. i felt like i was breaking the bond we precariously built between your mind to mine; i hope you will forgive me.

i have grown fond of apple cider but stick applesauce in my ribs. i tried to go through the awning to the pine, but the ivy presented a league and i couldn’t battle my feet to entangle their estranged meaning to let me free.

mother gave me more bottles; i am not a baby, she treats me like a baby, i am not her infant. i hear her cracking them to a powder and that is why i do not eat anything these days, i swear. they didn’t do their jobs and mother is none the wiser so i slip them to the dirt outside. i promised them i would help them grow and despite me not leaving the room, i hope my love reaches the ends of anyone i have ever met.

i lost my studies long ago, i lost everything else before that.

my body is aching, but more, my mind is anesthetized.

at 11:11
like we usually do
we made a wish
but he has the flu
so we txted our wishes
I made a nice wish
but when I read his
he had said "ish"

bae cannot type
properly
he types worse than he plays
monopoly

bae still is sick
so my wish didnt work
I guess I can't be mad
that he feels like elephant ****

We are surrounded by shatter broken  beer bottles, wine coolers gone to waste.
We've gone to war inside our own heads, pulling ourselves into corners and kitchens and couch cushions where all I can think is how pretty you look tonight
I can feel my heart beat to the technicolor rhythm of your butterfly gas leak eyes
"This music hurts my heart I want to leave now" is what you whisper to me under dropped basses and stepped dubs
"I know" is what I whisper back alongside the same sad forget-your-worries rhythm
So we leave, floating over alcohol puff swollen bodies left behind by unreliable boy-girlfriends sick of cleaning ***** out of the back of their pickup trucks
And we roll our sickly drunken souls to the Mcdonalds where they give  you coffee to get rid of wasted smashed faces if you're underage and alcohol-laced
we sober up over cold coffee and scalding fries
We sober up,
But I get drunk on your candy stained mouth as you pour out lies you've never told anyone before
I want to let you know all my favourites, all my secrets, all my everythings
But I don't.
And after that pretty pretty night
where we sobered up
but I got drunk on you
The only time I see you
Is past someone else's head
As I smash my drunken lips to theirs.

You’re like a white noise slushie
swirling off my sunburnt tastebuds.
I can’t quite catch you.
Those coffee driven evenings have destroyed my mouth’s ability
to make something stay.
See, whispered lollipop kisses used to work
but not half as well as my grape syrup words.
Teach me how to fix my salt-sugar body.
You don’t know how many times those candy coated sighs
“I love you”
have crossed my artificially sweetened lips.

Part I

When the bombs dropped, were you still standing?

We met at midnight at Julia Farrow’s house.
You had drawn stars on your skin in silver ink
And whatever you were drinking had sloshed out of your red plastic cup
and smudged the doodles
I said hello, trying to step out of my element.
You looked up, smiled, looked back down and said hey.
I wasn’t sure if that meant you wanted to talk,
but you didn’t walk away so I kept going.

At some point, we moved outside.
I think it might have been one a.m.
By three, I was in the backseat of your car,
and by three thirty, I was pulling my jeans back on.
Eight months later, I got to do the same in the bed on the floor of our new apartment.
We were together, and god, was it good.

Your mouth tasted like if heaven made cherry ice cream.
And your fingers on my waist, well
They felt like if the northern lights could dance on icy waters.
I never wanted to leave your side.
And babe, Sunday mornings lying sprawled on our sides were my idea of eternity.
We both knew **** well it couldn’t last.

I mean, I did love you.
You were a mass of colours and small explosions just barely contained in that lovely skin of yours.
And I was a tragic backstory, a half-assed galaxy reforming into something tentatively new.
And we loved each other, we really loved each other.
But it was perfect, too much to handle.
We were Rome before the fall
And I had no idea when the bomb was going to go off.

Part II*
So my question is
When the bombs dropped, were you still standing?

Because I wasn’t.
I had fallen on my knees,
Broken down in the bathroom too many nights to know that it was going to be okay.
You didn’t know what to do with your hands anymore,
and I didn’t know what to tell you,
But they sure weren’t on my waist anymore
and you couldn’t tell me if it was Sunday or not,
because the blinds were always closed.

I tried to piece it together,
I found Rome, the bombs, the shrapnel and ourselves amidst the rubble
but I couldn’t find out the motives,
where the bombs came from,
where you were when they struck,
what happened to the northern lights and the cherry ice cream and why that pond we like to go to dried up and cracked under the atmosphere.
I couldn’t find the middle please help me find it

I was in the corner of another party at Julia Farrow’s house, red cup in hand, feeling like highschool, and I couldn’t find you in the crowd.
That was where I was when they hit me.
Pulling me to my knees, dragging me by my hair
It’s been another eight months since they hit me and scratched me and clawed me
and we’ve only spoken four times since we realized we were living in shattered bones
and I’m sorry to come to you now
but I can’t figure out where you were.

So my final question,
when the bombs dropped,
were you still standing?
For your sake,
I hope you weren’t.