A weight has been lifted from my shoulders,
placed beside me
where I can see it and laugh at the things I felt
when my eyes were closed.

No matter how much clothing I remove
it is still too difficult to see what's
underneath my skin unless
I am using your eyes as a mirror.

The women dancing on the wall have not shown me anything
and my mother seems to think they have.
somewhere out there, you are lost in a moment
a bottle of pinot noir
and a pack of cigarettes you smoked when you were young.

The air is softer than it was before,
your skin is softer than it was before,
my mind tends to paint things more beautifully than they were before.
Though we're falling from the face of the earth,
I'm not afraid of where I'll land.
Somehow, I know there will be room for me to stand in between one line
and the next—
and within that space, enough room for my heart to
expand and contract
in the steady motion of breathing

with taffy wrapped across your scull for warmth,
you look at me in secret glances
—there, beneath your heavy eyelashes—that make my heart flutter so ironically
like the soft shake of my bed when snow drops from the sky in chunks.

you are still the same pile of bones
but flushed and grown,
still the same gentle glow, but now are close enough
for me to feel your warmth,
and for me to become wrapped inside of your exhale.

even if I am only using tears to hide from the wind,
they are better than bare-***** chill, or the helplessness
of true winter
, darkness
, space.

how full can one mug be of slowly climbing steam and the gentle loss of speech?
it rises until it is at the ceiling, and it sits there
taunting my empty lips with calm silence, embarrassed touches,
accidental movements
until we are only pretending to hide behind walls that we are only pretending exist.

I do not know how many times we will need to close our eyes
or how many times you will reach for my cold fingertips,
but these things are irrelevant
(immaterial)
(unrelated)
(extraneous)
(beside the point)
and the doors that come unlocked open to cliffs,
the steps we take cause us to fall eternally, spinning into blissful
"nothingness"/"somethingness."

there is no space between the lines we carve ourselves
unless we fall asleep too early
or we decide to go out for food instead of writing down our futures in pen.

is deaf.
talk here: whisper into the part of me what still works

sometimes I feel like a clock left ticking,
there must be someone out there who knows that one day I will stop.
I'll be an hour behind, then days,
then nothing matters; I am only in your parlor for looks.

when you move you're hesitant
but you cannot break something that is already (            )
no measurable time has passed, though I have waited like a bird in a nest
for its mother.

it's too hard to admit how much I miss you
and it's too far to walk to your arms(whatever shall i do?).
but if I close my eyes for long enough, maybe I will hear

some secrets you say to me are better whispered into blind spots
and I cannot help but hope,
                                          even a sliver or a smidgen,
                                                        ­       that you will save me all of yours,
                                                          ­     like a child collecting stamps for  
                                                               a letter he will never send.

I'll promise my immobile body warmth (if you will someday do the same.)

I'm tired of the same licence plates
over and over,
all the padlocks, all the nods
from my neighbor over here.
Why must you ask me questions when I say some
people are more beautiful than others?
You are full enough
You will go home and eat at least

two more meals,
you will pet your cat and yourself and have a bowl of cereal before bed.
dreams like chocolate
silk. fingers like bear claws on trout
or salmon
from upstream with last names
coffee shops. They try to

warn you and you let them lose their cries
to the wind. They think
of their grandmothers.

When you ask me to hold your
hand I wonder if you will wash it before we eat
kiss make love
(you don't always warn me if you're

not clean)
In your chewing I hear the words
I should have said before dinner with hands
clasped, heads bent, feet flat
on the restaurant floor. The waitress
is younger than she looks, I
try not to laugh because I'm sure she's worked here for ten years
no
benefits
no
raise
no
tip over seven fifty.
Her eyes are strong from all the tears

but her words sound like
swing sets
half eaten dinners:
merciless.

Her teeth are the San Andreas Fault:
tired of opening and closing.
Tired of fake smiles, nicotine gum, chattering in the cold of other's
glares, all the nods from her next door neighbors, the same streets
with the same cars with the same licence plates. So she'll press them
down over her tongue, and curl her lips back slowly
until the day someone touches her the way she was touched
before claws
salmon
chocolate silk

before she was fat.

saturday feels like tomorrow
already?
already.

i told too many stories in one sitting
and now my fingers are moving in circles and changing
colors. (because of this, I can't make it to your birthday
party)(can you believe the excuses I am making?)
i will be speechless
already

once someone hears something they shouldn't have
we will turn off the fan to avoid further mess
and keep our eyes shut so that we don't see what
we've done.
melting like butter, quickly
when put on too much heat but always,  always tasting delicious

I will try and keep my mouth shut after this last meal.

(it's impossible to make anything from words
it's impossible to **** without *******
moan without a mouth.
I'm not happy with your body or the way
you treat mine. I've had it I'm not me anymore-
I'm an alien, an name, a slowly disappearing breath in cold winter air

gentle, slow, inconsistent
kneecaps that hold every limb suspended by a tendon
tendon: it hurts, it's new, it's an excuse
excuse the coldness of my mind
minds molded from clay, hardened, and smashed into tiny pieces that look like dead children
children holding hands to face a man with a rake and two hammers
hammers to pound the right answer into our minds and out of our teeth
teeth gripping onto fingernails
fingernails gripping onto teeth
bitten rotten, bitten ******* short, smelling of cheese, and falsities
and
****)

**I put on my shirt and go to school.