you told me
you knew
we would bring each other down.
you told me the world was cold
and we would drown in frozen lakes together,
when hypothermia turns to terminal burrowing,
we could burrow within each other.
you told me i would **** you.
after that,
i spent 5 hours in the shower boiling off my skin.
you and i
will not sink in tandem, you and i will not
fall apart in unison,
clasping hands.
i am not your personal suicide pill.
i am not your romantic,
selfless partner
in helpless self-destruction,
you're talking like we'll die tomorrow but i have plans to live a while yet,
if you jump from lover's leap
then you will fall alone.
i think you think
i love you.
i think you think i value
your voice
more than the voice of my thoughts.
it is december and the sun is too bright
to look anywhere
but your feet.
it is december and you're waxing poetic
about the boy who broke his neck
falling in the forest at night.
you look me in the eyes like you're trying
to crawl through my cornea.
you make eye contact an act of violence.
[do you
dream about me?]
you ask,
you're trying to be poetic.
i don't tell you about when i dreamed
you snapped your neck
while we walked in the forest,
and i left quickly,
quietly,
lived peaceful and alone.
i don't tell you about when i dreamed you moved on,
or that reoccurring dream where you spread my legs so far,
they snap out of the sockets.
i tell you i don't dream.
i tell you i don't sleep.
i tell you
i wear boxing gloves to church
but jesus never shows, and really,
i shoulda known he'd run from this fight too.
i tell you
i wear boxing gloves to bed but i just end up
chewing on the laces,
boxer's fractures never visited me.
bar room fractures on the nightstand.
[i dream about you,]
you say,
and i take another hit.
you've been in my air for six months.
under my skin for five,
and it's been three months
since you stitched our veins together.
sometimes,
i fall asleep wearing your scarf
and dream of garrotes that smell like you,
dream of strangulation
and bruises on my throat.  
i don't love you like a motive.
you don't love me like a person.
you told me i had a clean heart,
you told me i was an innocent soul,
you told me you would corrupt me, don't
flatter yourself.
your touch doesn't have the power
to make me sick.
only i can do that to myself.
i'm not a virginal sacrificial saint
for you to build altars to.
lets see if we can cut our hearts out with our fingernails.
i bet that they'll look just the same:
****** and red.
the same size as our clenched fists,
guess it's not your fault
you never learned the difference between the two,
you keep trying to fight with aorta and arteries
while my knuckles bruise your gut.
here:
i taped my hands and i'll tape yours too.
this will be a fair fight-
don't break your wrist
when you break my nose.
i'll teach you i'm more solid than a saint.
i'll teach you i am bile and spit and ****.
i'll teach you to love me human
or not at all.

Be careful sharing your heart with me.
I fall in love with those who open up.
Like a levee breaking
my love with flood in to your heart.

It will be beautiful and it will be fierce
and the currents will be of a Biblical magnitude.
So please be careful;
you're far too pretty to hurt.

I cannot fully explain to you
How perplexing it is
To be a 22 year old adult
But to still have the fear
Usually reserved for a young child
The fear of the dark
And not in a way that one is afraid of death
Or lions or tigers or bears
Oh my, my fear is much more irrational
You see I find I have bravery in real things
I’ve rock climbed mountains
Ridden roller coaters
Held a poisonous snake by the tale
You get why that’s braver right?
But what makes the hair on the back of my neck stand
What makes my skin pucker into tiny little bumps
Are monsters born of my own imagination
You see my imagination is wicked
And I use that word both ways
In the slang sense that it is awesome and powerful
And in the literal sense that is it evil
That when I imagine a monster
I give it ten hands with 20 fingers each ending with teeth
And eyes so black they sink into the monsters head
Making them look like empty sockets
So deep, they touch his brain
I am forever afraid
I’ll be honest with you
I sleep with all the lights on
And my closet doors wide open
So I could see exactly what is going on in there
I years ago threw out my bed skirt
Convinced they cloaked crooked
Teeth crawling critters capable of decapitation
And were all considerable stronger than myself
As you can imagine I have a lot of nightlights
Mobile ones I use to walk to the bathroom with in the middle of the night
I have to buy so many batteries
The clerk at Walmart can only reasonably assume
I have deviant private life
Because grown *** adults shouldn’t be that scared of the dark
Because at some point during or after childhood
I won’t assume it happens at the same time for everybody
Your imagination takes a backseat to logic
And you understand that monsters aren’t real
But death is and maybe that’s a better fear to have
That didn’t happen with me though and I think most artists
If they were to be completely honest with you would tell you
It didn’t happen to them either they missed a step
In the development milestone department
Though I think they would tell you too like I’m about to tell you now
The fear is worth it there hasn’t been a single monster
I’ve imagined that hasn’t had an equal
Beautiful thought and I can see them better with all the lights on.

I've always felt that those I love are most beautiful in the morning
When they first awaken, their eyes puffy and their hair disheveled
Red marks from the blankets sketched across their skin

In those moments
They're confused
Disoriented
Unaware of their surroundings for a brief moment
Newborns to the day

Before they put on their faces
Before they put on their clothes
Their identities to the world

You get a glimpse of this sweet, innocent child living inside of them
A glimpse of this person, in their most raw state

That's how I know I love you,
You're beautiful when you're vulnerable
Adorable when you're ugly.

It’s what we do.
Kisses are the flowers of love in bloom.
Count on joy,
The sun will shine again.

I remember the smell of her apartment, burned popcorn and a new teal green leather sofa.
An awesome smile of achievement is what she wore.
American Express and Visa’s credit card applications are fanned out over the dinning room table.
Jodeci plays in the background, as we slow dance, nice and close.

We laughed on how high I jumped when her grandfather walked in on us being naughty.
Laughter is the air of the soul.
I move in closer to seal my fate.
Phone rings.

How soon we forget, that we’re all shadows on the wall of time.
It’s very clear I got to make that move.
I motion that I am leaving.
She blocks my exit, in an attempt to make me feel her touch.
Lost in love,

The lover wins every time.
Entre vous et moi
I promise her that I would return.
We both know it’s a lie.

If I could I would write letters to the wind and ask for lessons on how to blow you away

If I could I would take a star out of the sky and put it in a ring and ask you to be it’s replacement in my life

If I could I would keep you between my second and my fourth rib, so they will tell you they’ve missed you.

The first time I saw you, I smiled with my mouth open to let go of the crickets I buried in my voice box so I could say hello

How else can I explain to you that our stories are God written guitar solos to the keys of our DNA, and I’m more electric and you’re more acoustic.

On some days you look like there are lingering pieces of a boombox etched in the framework of your spine. In simple terms your body speaks volumes.

On other days you feel like there are too many fault lines on the rail track of your spine

Those are the days I want to tell you I’m a pretty good conductor

Your voice sounds like an unfinished love song stuck in the throat of an ’80s jazz musician and I’m more of a hip-hop kind of guy, but I would make kissing you the perfect symphony.

I’m more like the odd boulder on a sandy beach and you're the entire ocean but I've drawn coastlines on the chambers of my heart

With you I could build sand castles in hourglasses, cos I wouldn’t feel time pass.

If I could I would write this poem on the wings of a butterfly and say to you “Here I think this belongs to you, I found it in my belly”

I'm frightened when the phone rings for the very first time,
And every ring after that makes me just as nervous
And angry
As if I want to yell for silence
But no one is there

There's one good thing about the house phone ringing,
If they leave a voicemail, they get to hear my dad's voice
I haven't heard my dad speak in fifty days
He was fifty when he died,
fifty days ago
fifty doesn't seem so old to me now

There are nights that I get to see him,
But only with my eyes closed
While I sleep on his pillow
Because it still smells like him
Sometimes I hear his voice
And my stomach drops and I grin
Until I realize...

I'm frightened
And every ring after that makes me just as nervous
And angry
As if I want to yell at someone
But no one is there

There's one good thing about depression,
After you leave a voicemail on your mother's phone, you'll be put to sleep
In fifty different ways,
with fifty different pills
because fifty doesn't seem like so many to me now

Fifty just doesn't feel like anything to me now
I just don't feel anything now

my sister thought my mother
had died on her lap;
she walked to the bathroom
inside that depthless hospital hotel.

the putrid smell of life and death
all through-out this concrete heaven
and hell.

at the age of fifty-four
my mother's bones would
carry no more weight.

her gentle heart
her forgiving mind
her words so strong

but mine,
they are forced out
by constricted wind-pipes
and angry words

i glanced down at the cot, where my mother died
as I made contact with my mother's pale-blue eyes
she looked at me with the most helpless,
childish face I've ever seen.
as if to say:
"he isn't here.. where is he...
where could he be?"

she lived thirty more minutes.

he arrived a few hours later, asking:
"how's she doin'?"

never take for granted,
someone's borrowed time.