you asked me once if I was angry
“bottled up emotions” benevolent. sorry
I started to answer but I stopped. “manipulation”
definitely. disconnect
over three months now and it’s time for the reading of the wills
to me you left your equity and to you
I left my pride (I couldn’t tell you the last time I used it
anyway) every time I see your face I still stop for a second
to me you left your sorrow and to you
I left the back seats of the car
“they were mine to begin with” okay.
every time I see your face I still count back from ten
you had wisdom on your lips and love in your eyes
you always had to come out ahead of me and you always deserved it
“guilt trip” maybe. maybe not
since that night my face is burned necrotic with nostalgia
(I wasn’t ready to destroy myself like that
back then you shone the street lights on my bruises and I felt at home)
something about you made me feel so helpless
something about you made me feel so safe
(now it’s just me on this rotting riverbank)
my guts were spilled out on the dance floor your arms
were bare bones on the walls and that was the last time you ever needed me
(now these pins and needles are the only home I’ve got)
every time I see your face I still pray for a second
“*******” obviously.
you painted your fingernails black while you talked about feeding the poor
I watched you from behind black eyelashes nodding and we both
fell asleep tasting metal in our mouths
since then I’ve watched my face turn white in the mirror waiting
for the blood to pool back into my cheeks
“you’re a ******* coward” I know.
since that night I’ve been waiting for you to strip this skin from my bones
teach me how to feel the sky against my hooded eyes
I wanted you in my hands as if
holding you there would give me some kind of future
I wanted you in my veins as if
bleeding myself dry would make me something like you
you asked me once if I was afraid. of dying? “of living.”
I started to answer but I stopped.
“you’re a ******* coward” so are you.

leaving you didn’t feel how I thought it would
someday maybe I’ll let go of this half assed serendipity
if I broke your heart I’m sorry but what else could I do
my hands are tied against this brick wall this music in my ears almost makes me think
that someday all my ends will be tied off
(in the meantime I will wait and unravel)
if you ask me what I want I won’t have an answer
if I tell you the truth there is some part of me (all of me) you’ll have to let go
tonight I will paint myself into the highway and try
to hold on to these silver strings that haunt me in the night
I am a mesh of fraying edges of threads unfurled
as I tumble through these stagnant streets their weavings come undone
you should know by now not to believe me
next time I tell you I met the sky leaving you tell me I’m full of it
leave me instead
because until I’m drowning in this deep blue horizon I know
I’ll never feel like it’s over
(I should know by now I’m not enough for this)
they say inside me is a swarm of locusts they talk about me like a tempest
(I should know by now this life is bitter and I’m too ragged
too much) I’m sorry if I broke your heart but what else could I do
tonight I will sit quiet
and the night will bear down upon me while I cut the calluses from my fingertips
these sheets are stained with blood my hands are numb and treacherous
maybe someday lightning strikes will cauterize my mouth and
tonight I will paint myself into my bed posts until I can let go
there’s a whole world outside and it’s vicious
you can say I loved you as long as it means I broke you too
I was born into scrambling hands too rough too tired to be untouched
as I stumble through these dying streets my insides come undone
(I should know by now I’m too rugged, too much
the wake of my body will tear this turf asunder)
I’m sorry if I broke your heart but what else could I do
maybe someday my acid tongue will cauterize you
maybe this low key atrophy will simmer long enough
to bring me full circle
you should know by now not to believe me
and I should know by now what’s real

i'm cutting the necklines out of my t-shirts
in the middle of the night i'll snap fingers in my teeth
i can live with bad feelings (we all do) i can live
with busted knees
my floors are water and cover ups. i can live
with missing teeth
there have been worse things in my hands i'm cutting tape right off my skin
(I FEEL LIKE HELL OH MY GOD)
we all do
i can live with bad feelings we can live
through bad dreams
this is the time when we all sit down. cut war wounds down our jeans
you bring the heat and i'll think how much worse i used to be

even after all this time, nobody knows my blood like you did
(i'm a donor heart, like you were)
we were the same, you and me. open veins and frozen roots. nobody
knows metal like i do
(i'm sorry, like you were)
we were careful, you and me. from the ground up, from silver bones.
if we recover will we be whole? is my body all my own?
nobody knows my skin like you did
(i'm patched up,
i'm grown, like you)

“Take off your clothes.”

this is a ***** and devoted clan

“I’ll be there,” he said. “Early.”

he is slavery’s plantation overseer. of his medals
he cherishes one

A ***** BOY WHISTLED AT HER AND THEY KILLED HIM

the back of his home is a tool house. they turned south on Mississippi No. 1
there was no moon as they drove. there had been no denial
he’s tired o’ livin’, Chicago Boy, tired o’ sendin’ your kind down here
don’t disapprove enough of them. resist the revolt of colored men
they turned south on Mississippi No. 1. they filled him so full of poison
that he was hopeless

“I’m not afraid of you.”

they included sons, grandsons and a nephew of Moses. his body bears
multiple shrapnel wounds. close range killing “he ain’t got good sense”
nobody was holding him. he was as tough as they were
hypocrisy exposed; myth dispelled
for the first time – the story no jury heard
he looked like a man, Chicago Boy
this is the sum of the facts

A ***** “CHILD” WHISTLED AT HER AND THEY KILLED HIM

he had heard of the trouble. he wanted to go home
dark-visaged, talkin’ mighty big. he staggered under its weight…
dark-visaged, he stood there naked. carried it to the river bank
stand him up there on that bluff. mark him for a coward and a fool
here are the facts
just whip him, Brother, if that won’t scare Chicago Boy
it was Sunday morning, a little before seven.
here, for the first time, I’ll pay you for the damages
they tried dirt and gravel roads, drove along the levee
here for the first time, I didn’t think they’d **** a boy
if that won’t scare Chicago Boy, hell won’t

“You still as good as I am?”

for three hours that morning, there was a fire
I’ll blow your head off, Chicago Boy
pistol whipping bruises more than it cuts
Chicago Boy, Chicago Boy
I’m no bully, Chicago Boy
Brother, whip him, shine the light on down
Brother, the Big River bends around.
the real answer is the remarkable part

“I’m as good as you are.”

seventy-two hours later – eight miles downstream
the half in their fraternity was forgotten.

it's raining on the second longest night of the year
i never said i was honest you never bought me anyway i am all
stolen breath on these wood floors we're burning in //losing// blood.
we're the last of the locusts, you and me. our mothers can't take it no more
it's raining on the second longest con of our lives
so if i recover will you be
//will you be my//

1.

It’s just the sound of breathing all together. Soft. Breathing air and water and blood. Nobody’s worried because nothing has happened. Soft lips gentle and closed eyes pure, untouched, unopened like new shoes. Head alone and empty, waiting to be bruised.

2.

The eyes are open and we’re holding hands. All of us. My quarks against your prose and your ghosts. You’re looking at me like you love me. Not even like you want to **** me. Just like you love me. Like I’m yours. Like I’m somebody’s. We don’t speak. We’re still holding hands with everybody else. On the floor there are broken teeth and ripped out ****** stitches but I’m not looking at them. Neither are you. Neither is anybody else. It’s all soft hands. Hips. Collar bones. Lips.


3.

The heat of your hand against mine. Fusion. You are not a ghost. They are. I am not either. We’re looking down. They’re not. We’re enlightened. They’re not. There is no roof and the teeth and blood aren’t real. They are only reflections of the stars. We do not speak except to each other.

4.

Teeth and stitches and bleeding hands and my blood is in your veins but you’re a closed circuit. I’m getting paler, but I don’t notice, because I am your dialysis, your transfusion. I’ll let you feel for me because I can’t feel my hands. You don’t expect it but you don’t tell me not to. Even if I die you will still hold me upright. My hands bleeding into your hands and open wounds in the wood floor. The glass floor unbroken because the teeth and blood are still just the stars. It’s okay because I know I’m saving you and I know you will save me. Cross stitch my lips so I can’t ruin it. Sew me up like a doll. It’s not your fault.

5.

Condensation into cold hands. Water droplets in their eyes as everyone else comes back again. Turns out I was just ignoring them. My blood in your veins. You’re not holding me up anymore, I’m clinging to your shoulder. Let go. You’re walking away and I’m following you and you don’t ask me to and you don’t wait for me so I step on the teeth beneath my bloodless feet. Even though they are only stars they hurt. Even though I am only a ghost I still run out of breath. Make me your Aphrodite. Yours before anyone else’s. Be mine before your lover’s.

6.

Now it’s all knees and elbows and raw hands on the wooden floor. Your blood my blood everyone else’s blood on my face. You let go of me. My blood in your veins, my cut up hands on the ground. Everyone else has better blood, more heart and less metal, and they all love you. Their blood, their flesh, their threads in your barely broken hands and you’re smiling. I haven’t seen you smile in a long time. I can’t feel my feet or my hands and in my head there is a swirl of stars except now they are only teeth and ripped-out stitches. Cut my face. Leave the stitches in. It’s not my place to speak. Look at me like you love me.

7.

There is blood on the ceiling too and you still think it’s the northern lights. My face is wet with someone else’s blood. Stitches. Teeth. Back and forth rocking on the floor. Cover me in your life. Your blood, my blood, your blood. I have no right to it. Grabbing teeth from the floor with numb hands and chewing them. Swallowing bone. Knock out my teeth and I’ll hold theirs in my mouth instead. I’m licking the blood from the puddles on the floor and dreaming of bullets to find more blood. In rivers, in sheets, drowning me softly. Dreaming of bullets and bullets and metal and blood. There is no more blood in me except in my stomach. Look away. Stab out my eyes. Cut out the stitches and put the metal in my mouth so I can sleep.

8.

I’ll wait among your absent lover’s things, something for you when the rest are gone. My stomach is hot and I’m not hungry. Blood in my lungs and I don’t want to keep breathing it. Dead nerves seizing in my spine. All I smell is blood and I think that’s a sign of brain cancer. Cancerous hands and teeth and bones and eyes. Bullets for the tumors in the grey matter. Metal and blood and skin and nerves and metal. Just one of your absent lover’s things.

9.

I’m too tired. The teeth are stars again. So are the bullets. Metal and bone. Let me eat this galaxy. Watch me.

10.

Teeth and bullets and stars. My empty head and our ****** hands. Teeth and bullets and stars.

the mornings are dark and you get into your car asleep. mist on the windshield and mist in your eyes. the night is not over and you are not yet grown. the grass is frozen in your headlights and you park your car asleep.

- clocks bigger than your face loom on the walls. they are all two minutes fast and they are faces too, somehow. (except the one down in the back gym. he is an eye and he strikes six every hour.)

- the thunder of footsteps. the thunder of bodies and voices and wind through open doors. you can feel them in your bones but when you open your eyes you are alone and the halls are dark. water rushes from the classrooms and you swim.

- your teacher says that god has brown eyes. when the lecture ends she bares her teeth. (you could swear they're pointed but you've never seen her up close.) her eyes are grey, like yours, she says. so you don't worry.

- in the art room your teacher draws circles on the whiteboard. one inside the other - ringlets, a bullseye. a girl in the back of the class has wild eyes and green hair. she smiles like she knows something and you drop your gaze.

- pencils break in your fists. the halls are a river and you don't know where it's going. your body is a raft so you close your eyes and you don't know where you are.

- you touch hands with the girl from art class. she smiles like she knows something and you shudder. she feels warm inside, like a song, like a comet. you take her hand and hope.

- you sit in the back of the class and the windows shudder but they hold. your teacher says that god walks on all fours and you grimace. books close around you as she lowers herself to the ground.

- your car is asleep and you are dead on your feet. your teacher is gone the next day and the substitute tells you beauty is in the eye of the beholder. you nod your head and you don't know where you are.

sometimes I wonder if I have ever really seen your face
there’s nothing left to explain
to this day I don’t know
if you were ever real (there was
nothing to say
maybe I just don’t remember) sometimes
my hands (my lips) still imagine your skin
the plaster of your ceiling hangs like blood clots
in my veins (the color of the walls mutating
before my closed eyes
I have never felt closer to neverland)
I don’t talk about you
I never did
no one has ever looked at me that way again
(maybe it was something about talking
to the other side of the world
that made me into a moment instead of a past)
maybe the thing I’m most sorry for
is that I will never regret you
(your name still tastes like peppermint) it is summer now
and I still remember your hot phantom hands
on my frozen cheeks
(I remember your voice like dragonfly wings)
maybe that’s why when I remember your eyes
my blood is lighter than it has ever been
I can feel your smile like starlight in mine
you breathed into my lungs once
and you have been there ever since
you were not my north star (though maybe I was yours)
you were my ocean (and
to a child’s eye all the stars look the same anyway)
maybe the thing I’m most sorry for
is that I don’t miss you because
after all these years
your anthracite eyes are steam beneath my fingers
(there’s a kind of purity in dirt and
there’s a kind of innocence in you)
after all these years my footprints dot your foreign soil
(there’s a kind of hope in me)
because after all these years of swimming
of air that tasted different with every breath
of eyes blinking against the epileptic cosmos
(stars lips teeth hips)
after all these years of running
it was not even strange to be in love with you

if I am the frying pan then you are the fire
in a way you’ve always been my gateway drug
[oh her]
and I’ve always been their gateway to you (we have never
really been that similar) if I am the street lights then
you are the stars (you have always made that one
pretty clear)
I am covered in your footprints
your hair kind of looks like mine
spit on my face and we’ll see if I start to look more like you
[oh it’s you]
we were born in hospitals and since then my infant skin
has felt like plastic in your hands
(I’ll sit down in the dirt to see if I can blend in
with what you say you really love) smile and maybe
I’ll remember
what I really love about the grass growing through the sidewalk
(I remember once you told me you would love me
if I could show you where the sidewalk ends)
if I am the bridge then you are the untamed river
I’m sorry if I couldn’t see below my feet but you never bothered
to look up either
you have always been my gunpowder and I
have always been your bastille (whether you are rogue or royalty
has yet to be determined) you have always said
that I was hollow and I held matches in my teeth hoping
it would prove me volatile
[always you two]
I used to think our bones were the same metal but you’d
be the first to tell me yours was forged in a hotter fire
I think
mine will be harder to break (and we will both be melting
for years) if I am holding their hands then
you are bleeding beneath their feet if I stand alone
then you are standing on their shoulders
(I remember you like charcoal on a cave wall
like a name carved in tree bark
there are sets of your fingerprints next to mine all down
the highway
hold my hand against the dirt and we’ll see
if the heat of battle in the blood red riverbank will be enough
to burn this skin from our bones) we are not friends and
we are never going to be strangers (and more than anything
I am sorry for that)
if I am midnight then you are three am
if I am the sun then you are (not the moon)
arcturus
in a way I’ve always been your gateway
in a way you’ve always been my coup de foudre
[oh this again]
in a way your poetry was always my first love

i don't write anymore
when i am alone (and i am mostly
alone) i spit at myself and it does not stick
i'm a cruel and spiteful host i grew up in a suitcase so when winter comes  
i pack my things. get ready. get ready
on the edge of the bed i wait for it
i don't have time to spare
anymore
when i am alone i want nothing more than this low hum in my ears remind me
pick up the leaves from the ground, oh god, and pack them
bring them with you
i'm a cruel and selfish god (i grew up stuck with unstuck roots)
and i don't write anymore
pick up the seeds from my hands, oh god
i don't have time for them anymore
(i'll never learn to plant them and
they'll never stick
not really)

there's water in the carpet broken glass in the air
(i don't need u and u don't need me) take it back to the start and stay there
i swear
we are burned to the bone so far from home we got nothing to lose from here
i'm not asking.
take my hands in urs and tell me why i don't love u
there's smoke on our clothes there's water in ur hair
i don't need u and u don't need me so
(stop. and. stare)
it's the end of the world so put ur hands on my ******* waist and stay there
i swear

last time I saw you it was dark
your hands on my waist (your head in my hands)
we were quiet, like the empty road,
do you miss my voice? did it heal you?
for years we have been gods at war
(the sea and the shore, or something)
in your hands I found my beating heart so
what did I take from you?
last time I saw you it was dawn
your hands on my face (my head in the clouds)
you never meant to love me and I never meant to stay
(from the bottom of my heart you're what I've always wanted anyway)
it's the end of times (the worst of times)
did you hurt me? does it show?
on the streets of our hometown our hands are star-crossed
(worn down)
for years we have been gods at war
the sea and the shore
the ghost and the moor
you sicken me (my heart, my throat) and I'll never let you go
it's been years and you are winning
(and I wish you luck, I always do)
our hearts, star crossed, in the morning light
was it good to let me go?
the last time I kissed you I opened my eyes
did you see me? did you know?
(your voice was soft and the sky was blue)
I never knew I loved you till you loved me too

It’s not that hard to explain
there’s me and then there’s my body (neither one matters to you)
there’s my mouth and then there’s my heart rate
there’s your eyes and then there’s your poetry
(I haven’t seen either one in a long time)
you’ve never been that hard to understand
I know you’d love to think you are and the rules
are complicated but they don’t change
(it’s okay though
most people are like that some are just better at
lying) I met you
as a child I left you something different
I met you and you rolled the dice (it wasn’t
until you were older that we learned to play the game)
I left you when I realized there would be no winner
I met you a child and left you an animal (and
there’s nothing I can say to make up for that)
it’s not that hard to say I’m sorry
I’ve been saying it for years it’s reflex it’s a tic and to you
every apology was a suicide note a notice
of my progressive apoptosis (it’s not
your fault it’s not
that hard to say I miss you) and for you
I weighted dice I counted cards I hid aces
up my sleeves and gave you my jacket and for you
I weighted words I counted stars just
to prove I couldn’t I hid galaxies in my mouth
just to prove I could (it’s not
your fault even though you asked me to) I
have been walking in circles on frozen floors
punching through windows cutting up
old love notes and paper snowflakes you
have been painting on cardboard walls
(my heart has grown out of yours and
there is nothing I can say to escape that)
I have been outside pounding on your windows you
have been boarding them up with lines about
how I was so close and should just
keep trying
(you kept saying they were paper but you lied) I
have been doing my makeup like yours and
drawing on my skin like you draw on your walls
you have been coloring over me
(there are other things breathing in your walls with me and we
are the heartbeat of the scenery
the god of the machine)
I have spent years backtracking to your door
I have spent years detaching from my floor it was
a picture you painted with your eyes closed and we thought
it was beautiful
it was a picture you painted of that void space
that existential wasteland behind our eyes and I thought
it was real (and there’s nothing I can say to make up for that)
I have spent years beating against brick walls until
my hands bled my picture
has become abstract
it’s like I’m imprisoned inches off the ground my consciousness
got lost in your blood spattered sky I have spent years
beating against brick walls until my hands broke you told me
to lift my feet up off the ground so I dragged them to the edge of a cliff
I have spent years beating against brick walls and
it has been years since I could touch anything at all
you saw the bones of my cut fingers and said they were beautiful
I will never pretend that wasn’t my fault (and
there’s nothing I can say to explain that)
I have been clawing at my face so you will call me beautiful
I cannot live anymore in this rotting skin
I think I’m ******* bleeding
I think I’m ******* toxic (I have heard you say
the same thing before and I’ll never know whether
you meant it) I wiped blood from your face
with my spit but you wouldn’t risk my infection
there was a kind of balance in the way you held me
on your fingertips but I have grown too heavy
because I was too much in myself to float off the ground with you
and too much in love to let go (I am trying so hard
not to be in love with this anymore) I swear to myself
that the feeling of this earth on my hands means more
to me than you do I swear to you
that in your existential rapture I will not purge myself
of your sins (my exodus did not come soon enough and
there’s nothing I can say to escape that)
I will breathe the prophesized sickness of this world
but I will not breathe the sickness out of you
never again will I look down at my footprints
and wonder who they belong to
it’s not that hard to remember
there was me and then there was my body
maybe they used to matter to you but
neither one belonged to me (and
there’s nothing I can say to make up for that
there’s nothing I can say to get them back)

I am a lost cause and they’re still waiting to grow old
if you heard me say that you’d be disgusted but
you’d say it right back
to you I am a flower on a broken stem it’s hard
to miss the grief in your eyes no matter how many times
I tell you I’m not dead
I can hear them in the other room their voices
tucked behind mourning veils
it’s like they’re circled around some abandoned chrysalis
like she quit while she’s ahead and
if lives were prophecies hers was not fulfilled
(oh isn’t she
isn’t she empty)
they have pictures of the time she raised butterflies
they still have the empty jar and she stopped missing their wings
a long time ago
they told me I died and I swallowed dirt to prove them wrong
(oh isn’t she
empty)
I cut myself open expecting a desert
and instead I found a waterfall

my silence is burrowed in these bones, my bones
let me go alone into the catacombs let me breathe the heart of this impenetrable darkness
I swear to god I never meant to hurt you
outside, on your doorstep I am worn out
sick and tired, and so on
these cave walls hover on my ribs I will never make you understand how the music
of this death march haunts me in my empty chest I am filled with the waning moon
the song of our sorrow overflows me my bones, my bones,
weaved within the stone floors our bones, your bones stacked against the walls
let me go alone into this hollowed darkness this
hallowed ground
in the dead of night this void shudders in my bones, my bones
I swear I’m dying I swear to god the cavern of this morgue is
my only home
let me go gentle into this good night
this holy unborn chaos under cover of darkness our world is small and scarred
someday I swear I will be still my shaking hands
will settle in these bones, these bones, let me die among the dead
under cover of darkness this new world washes over me the water of my veins
will flood this empty sky
there are thrones in the corners of this room and we turn away
(the underworld is not in flames it is drowned
in this cold breathing earth) there are thrones
in the corners of this room, and they
are empty
let me go alone into this heart of darkness, when I fall upon this floor my soul
will dance on torch lit walls my heart runs cold across this sacred stone
let the pure unsettled darkness strike in me that kind of hollow
I am trying to build a home here, these bones, my bones
the music of our heavy mouths drifts upward to the sky
I am a tragedy, for the last time
we will lose our senses underground and we will thank god
as my eyes fall wide on these hollow walls I am more at home than I have ever been
let this open earth bite me to my core
as my chest is bared before this empty sky I will not rage against the dying of the light
I am worn out
sick and tired
the chorus of our footsteps echoes on my bones, our bones, my bones
melted in this torch light we are dying
sacred

you Gutted me** (how dare you touch me when i don't even love you)