attacked me like
a rabid dog
eager to taste flesh

bit into me like
raw meat
(because really that's all I am)

tore me open like
wrapping paper on a gift
you weren't supposed to see yet


I shut down like
a restaurant with health code violations
infested with rats

fell into you like
pavement
from thirty stories

poisoned myself like
a carbon monoxide car garage
falling unconscious long before death

Your car is a pressure cooker for sibling combustibility and
you sound pretentious when you call me pretentious so
I turn to look out the window and not at
your smug face but I know that
soon I will turn back and you will not be there.
In your mind
anything that isn't inherently evil
deserves a high five
and it always leaves my palm
stinging,
so I leave you there
with your hand raised
and know that
soon I will raise mine but you will not be there.
You say "I love you" every day
and it always sounds like a joke,
sounds like you're teasing me with the fact that
I have to love you back but even so,
on the days when I refuse to say it to you I know that
soon I will tell you I love you and you will not be there.

I have watched you changed
shoe sizes and
heights and
dreams and
hair cuts and
best friends and
priorities, and
You have been by me through
moving days and
funerals and
breakups and
marriages and
sobbing nights and
cheerful mornings, and
I know that
you are a part of me,
and I know that
soon I will look for that part but you will not be there.

Adding apologies to artillery shells does not amend the action,

And

My brokenness betrays me when it bellows that I have beaten bruises black and blue into your back

But

Crying is a catharsis much too commonplace to convey these casualties.



My doubtful disposition has denied you deliverance from your daring endeavors

Because

Emptying myself to entertain someone else's enormous sense of entitlement

Is

A feeling that frightens my already fragile sense of forwardness.



Glory from a god who glances generously upon us growling ghosts

Is

A Heaven that hurts like hell because happiness is heresy

But

Isolation is an independence I never intended to introduce here.



Juggling jokes and jealousy between juggernauts is jeopardizing my judgement

Because

Kindness is to knowing the truth as kissing is to your knuckles,

It's

Like living life as a lamb but loving a lion.



Missiles gone missing are making me misunderstand my own memory

Yet

Needles have never seemed so necessary as when you're near,

And

Ownership is not an option so we have both become orphans.



Praying to people seems more plausible than pleasing a perfect being

So

I will quantify rather than qualify the quaintness of this quarantine

And

Respectfully reply that paying retribution to a ***** is ridiculous.



Soon something will surface that sends shivers down your spine

But

Today there is only turmoil taking its time to taper off

So

Understand when I utter the word "unify" that I mean us.



Vain and vindictive as you have very well verified being,

If

We worship with what we wish, not what we will,

Our

Exploitation will exemplify an axis on which oxymoron is expedient.



You and your yearning will not yield to yonder threats,

Because

The zeal of this zephyr will carry us to the zenith.

I do not want to talk about love today.
I do not want to mention
affectionate contact or semi-regular ***.
The newspapers are bringing forth
welcome divisions between mankind;
fault-lines of irreconcilable differences
to justify my half-hearted attempt at solitude.

I do not want to talk about sobriety today.
I do not want to bore you
with those nervous hours between cigarettes
and how I fill each moment spent inside myself.
******* offers a ladder of perfume and hair
for me to ascend to some anaerobic bliss,
towards an isolated unity between myself

and the woman stretched out on my astral bed.
I do not want to talk about much today.
I have over-thought all that is worth a mention.

1764

The saddest noise, the sweetest noise,
  The maddest noise that grows,—
The birds, they make it in the spring,
  At night’s delicious close.

Between the March and April line—
  That magical frontier
Beyond which summer hesitates,
  Almost too heavenly near.

It makes us think of all the dead
  That sauntered with us here,
By separation’s sorcery
  Made cruelly more dear.

It makes us think of what we had,
  And what we now deplore.
We almost wish those siren throats
  Would go and sing no more.

An ear can break a human heart
  As quickly as a spear,
We wish the ear had not a heart
  So dangerously near.

1680

Sometimes with the Heart
Seldom with the Soul
Scarcer once with the Might
Few—love at all.

Tried to
hold onto you,
to plant myself
in the fertile soil in the
creases of your elbows,
tried to breathe in
when you exhaled,
to fill my lungs with
your leftovers
but
there is not enough
oxygen here
to share
and I have told you
that I cannot
breathe,
told you
I think I need to
get out of here,
I'm feeling claustrophobic
but you only
hold me closer,
bruise my ribs
like rotted fruit,
kiss me with
no desire to
heal what you have broken,
and I am trying to
survive
but I cannot live
in the vacuum
you have created in
your chest cavity.