You drove away and I thought my nose would bleed
The lump on my head makes me wobbly
Or whatever they stuck in my drink
The roar of that old red engine ringing in my ears
Go die
The boy who doesn’t know how to be in love
Leave me alone to get drunk
On the tears you leave me to
It always ends in tears
Don’t leave me like this
You always leave me like this
Go die
And leave me to mine
The lump on my cerebral cortex is getting bigger
Swelling by the minute
And I’m drinking water
And trying not to let whatever you stuck in my drink
Get the best of me
But I think I’m leaking
Leaking salt water and your own ****** fluids
Leaking my dwindling supply of iron
I’m bleeding
The lump on my head swelling to golf ball proportions
My heart turned to a solid lump
I wait for you to come back and apologize
But you never do and you never will
So maybe if you woke up the next morning
And I didn’t.
Maybe if you heard the words
“her brain hemorrhaged in her sleep”
Maybe if you had to go on without me
You wouldn’t complain about the way I fall in love
And the way you can’t feel ****
You don’t know ****.

We’re like tramps living in this half-furnished house
taking two-mouthful shots outta that big old bottle
playing 8-bit games in between smoke breaks

And when we feel like dancing the house will shake
letting the primal urge take we throw ourselves around
the basement room empty save a couch, the speakers
and some ****** art installment we are still painting

There’s a pile of us on the extra mattress in the laundry room
talking about hopes and dreams for a new life
****** out of old nests, we build our own in the ***** clothes
someone starts crying
I swear I’m in love with every person in the room.

It’s time for another pack or two of smokes for the boys
So we wipe our tears and snot and leave the nest
to run down the 4 am streets with no shoes
sparkling in starlight like vagabonds.

And I turn to my shoeless friend and say:
We could live like this.

Home to a half-furnished house, muffled in sleep-sighs
the couches, the chairs are draped with passed out kids
I cover them with sheets and blankets and kiss every one goodnight

Even the mattress in the laundry room is full
so we lay out a blanket and throw pillows in front of the ****** art installment
sleeping in just shorts, as the heat wave holds the town
the boys let me on top of the dog-pile because I’m smallest
and because in the morning I’ll wake up to make them breakfast.

Your washy grey eyes only meet mine sometimes
when you’re being really serious.
On days when you laugh we talk about how
when we’re old and rich, I’ll buy you a green
Lambo and you’ll buy me a red one.
Or, how one day you’ll be president.

I try my hardest to make you smile on days like these
they don’t come very often anymore
your cheeks are hollowed deeper
whispered to me late at night about that needle
because you trust me for some reason
you have decided I’m the one you will trust
and I think that’s why I try so hard to make you smile
on days when you laugh.

On a Wednesday, Thursday driving
by your father's house
I come bearing gifts
but no one is home.

And all I want to do
is give back that
effeminate powder blue shirt
and say good riddance
to your mother's house.

We like our steaks ******
my daddy and I
wear plaid and glasses and slippers
and hibernate in the winter.
I steal the pens out of his desk
and lose them.

I steal the wedding rings out of his dresser
and stare at them on the bedspread.
Sometimes I wear the gold one
and remember that time I found it
in the glove compartment
with the rest of the loose
change.

It is ritualistic.
and it makes me aware
I’m scared to become him.
But I know he did what he had to;
I will do what I have to
when my time comes.

My time and the easy way out,
I am already so much like him.
But at the end of the month
there will be a new package of roller *****
in the desk drawers
and he won’t say
a word.

You and I are best at night,
or in the lazy elbow of sunsoaked afternoons
curled up somewhere
talking books not television
religion not politics
in person not technology
honesty not reservation
life not death.
Sometimes you’ll hold my hand
mostly you’re looking the other way.
When we’re together it’s deepest sentiments
forbidden thoughts whispered
cinematic meeting of the eyes
carefully constructed
because sometimes you’re more theatrical than me.
More grammatically correct than I
maintain at three am.

I
Sleeping in your bed till noon
a silent prayer
redeem me
naked angel pulls you up
bathes you
and says make one wish

with her uncommon beauty
the combination of the
sharpness of her teeth with the
sharpness of her words
you cannot help but
wish for
her

II
His head is heavy when he wakes
Redemption is curled like a child in his arms,
put to bed with a bottle of *****
but lemons killed the taste.
She didn’t mean to wake up.

III
The thin blues of your eyes wash over
The blessings are small and smooth
Redemption waits for you at the bottom of the stairs
the delicate curves of her feet
buried into the grass,
she bristles out to become all encompassing
running towards the sea.