I can't ******* tell if you're squinting or not.
I am, and I can't even see any better.
When I have trouble breathing it helps to close my eyes,
I imagine the stars, and I imagine death.
The sun is beautiful when asleep.

I keep trying to hold your hand and you don't get it.
I thought we already established that we're in love.
I guess if I had any courage I would have less trouble speaking.
But I can't sleep when you're breathing so loudly.
My mind is more alive when I'm gone.

Consciousness is a dry topic to those whose concern is ego,
but neither one of us knows what either one of those means.
So stop pretending like you do and be admittedly in the dark.
I keep finding it pointless to talk.
I see more with the back of my head than with my hands.

Everything's a mystery at this point.
I'm getting so huge that I can't see my feet.
I guess you could say it's a problem,
I see it more as a pathway.
Each pound is a streetlight that goes dark on my walk home.

She held her fists between her lips
and chewed them
as if they were caramels
or beef jerky (she loved meat).
Stopping only to taste her own fear,
she became an enemy of herself
and dreaded the taste of her hands.

She kept her eyes averted
or crossed because she was crazy,
and chuckled silently
behind her eyebrows.
Maybe she was keeping up an image
to show that she was afraid of change,
or maybe she wasn't.

She kept her mind
under her tongue
and pressed down on her thoughts
until they were altered.
She let her ideas mix with her spit
and swallowed them until she was full,
or until her mind was empty.

Your fingertips are on my mind,
pulling up from the roots into each strand of hair.
It’s wet,
and my hair is dark with molecules.
I can’t feel the tip
or inside of my nose.

Sometimes I wonder if it’s just better that way.
If no one guesses
or hopes for anything,
then there is no reason to live anymore and there is no reason to do anything and there is no reason to be happy and there is no reason to lie and there is no reason to tell the truth.

Will you forget for one moment who we are?
Sometimes it works better to feel when you don’t know.
Like a blind man: your sense is heightened.

And I can feel your emotions in my toes—can you do that? Can you do anything?
Over a bowl of chocolate ice cream, you decide it’s a good idea to tell me you love me.
For a while, all I can see is your nose, red and cold,
until your face comes into focus.
And I’m still not happy with you. Is that odd?
I’m sure I’m not at all what you expected.
Once I turned the lights on, you gasped.

Is it chilly now? Or am I the only one who feels a breeze?
I get it,
I ask you too many questions; I ask you too many favors.

But have I ever asked you something
that you couldn’t answer?

No swing, no ding
no kool-aid mix for my *****,
my car's stuck in a ditch
I'm off to Norway
for my holiday
to see a band play
and visit my grandma on her birthday
where we hired a magician
but she didn't like it because she's a mathematician
and a *****
she hates dudes
she'll make calculations just to be rude
and spit in your food when you're not done eating
she's always repeating
different sayings
or her high school day-dreams
and whispering things you can't make out.

Forget it, I dread it
the day is looming
like the shadow of a blooming
sunflower,
I've lost my power
and my will
and the money to pay my bills
all because of the chill
you sent down my spine
that one time
when I said it was okay
but it wasn't.

Consume me—

touch my throat and toenails,
and I will touch yours
if you close your eyes

then I can see behind them,
and it’s like trying to read the last words
of a letter thrown into the fire
from a lover unforgiving
and a time that needs forgetting.

But don’t forget me—

don’t let me slip from your fingertips
because I can’t see that far
and I don’t want to try

unless you can tell me I will be safe
and you can hold me in moments
unlike others,
as I linger before death
without yet grasping the concept of the life you gave me.

You told me I was **** when you touched me
on my chest and stomach,
but I am sure that I wasn’t **** at all.

I have memories of you
cradling me like a lion with his cubs,
except there was nothing paternal
to your touch or words,
and I felt no safety when I was
in your bed.
Not even when you told me not to worry,
not even when I came to you
to escape my nightmares.

You didn’t seem to understand
that you simply led me into new,
scarier ones.