boy finds brand new camera in his Christmas stocking
photographs the night sky, Polaroid comes out dark
tiny feet slide inside of Daddy's loafers
tie drags on the ground between chubby legs
there's something hiding under the bed, Dad
never saw anything
said night sky, only saw dark

i know the bites on your neck were wrong i was told not to leave traces of my Self
because i do not belong

sorry for screaming your name
(but i guess it was worth it)
when you choked me and said quiet down

the stain on my ******* looks like the ****** mary
(i think she's mad at me) because i begged you to **** me  
sideways and backwards
digging screaming sweating pounding sighing
the ****** mary is crawling out of my ***** trying to make me
pure

you are the closest tangible thing and you don't even exist

His tales of a place he once called home, now reduced to ruins and smolder, carry a weight he has become accustomed to straining the muscles of his back against. He keeps postcards in his wallet, folded and creased in the center to the point of perforation, pulls them out when he is homesick or when anyone asks about his origins, always tucks them back into the pocket with more spite than he cares to portray. Most observers simply nod their head, "how beautiful it is," –was– "you're lucky to have been a part of it." He smiles, the genuine kind of smile that takes precise attention to detail and years of practice to counterfeit, says "I know." Some bold and curious or ignorant and inconsiderate listeners poke their furrowed brows into his upturned palms, ask him, "did you see the fire?" They want to know –must know– if he could smell the smoke from the next town over, if he could see the sky illuminated in the distance, the red hue seeping into the blue-black night, they want to know how big it was, a house fire or a holocaust, if he tried to put it out or if he stood idle, looked for faces in the flames, if it left anything but charred floorboards and fireproof safes, the combinations written on scraps of paper now insignificant. You can see him fuming from across the room, his face illuminated, the red hue dripping down his neck, his voice becomes victim, tries to keep it steady but you can see losses on his tongue, he trails off into silence, leaves nothing but stubbed toes and sentiments, "I'm sorry I asked." When he talks about the people he knows –knew– there, he always starts with a chuckle, a little grin as if something had just reminded him of them, they were all kids back then, his eyes turn child again while he talks about how they played in the storm drains and then he snaps them shut, remembers the cigarette butts, remembers the lighters they bought at the drug store, how they had loved to see things burn until they couldn't stop it. He talks about this place he used to call home, doesn't know what to call it anymore.

if a tree falls in the forest and no one is around to hear it
it doesn't make a sound but you can feel it shake the ground for miles
feel it rattle the good china in the cupboard

if a tree fall in the forest and no one is around to find use for the wood
it just lays there until the early morning damp soaks all the way through
just lays there until pieces of it start to flake off

if a tree falls in the forest and no one is around to count the years in its rings
it might never have lived at all
might never have been alive in the first place

I told myself I wouldn't write another **** poem.

I told myself reliving the same traumas
over
and over
would not aid in the healing process,
but these are not
the same traumas,
this is not
another **** poem,
there is just
so much ******* material
that it's starting to run together.

She went to a movie with him,
somewhere public,
somewhere safe,
and still he drug his hand
up her thigh,
she kept her mouth shut,
tried to push him away,
wouldn't want to interrupt the best scene,
whispered
"stop",
he didn't listen.

He was in his girlfriend's bedroom,
watched her sit in silence
fuming
when he said
"no"
for the fourth time,
told himself to
man up
when she said
"what, don't you love me?"
He swore he did,
he just couldn't show it like this,
she didn't listen.

She was at his apartment,
told him that morning
she just wasn't in the mood today,
she shifted inside herself
as he kissed her neck
the same way he had
hundreds of times before,
forced a laugh as she said
"I really don't want to,"
he didn't listen.

She was sitting on his couch
when he put his arm around her,
unwrapped herself from him,
he told her to
"just relax,"
became comfortable in a body
he was never invited into,
she got away,
called her brother from the next street over,
explained to him from the passenger seat
that she had said no,
he didn't listen.

I told myself I wouldn't write another **** poem
because I had convinced myself it wouldn't happen again,
had convinced myself that
my friends and family
were not a part of the statistic,

but every sobbing phone call
or hushed condolence
reminds me that
this happens every day,
that pretending **** culture does not exist
will not make it go away,
that 20% of human beings
in the United States
will be ***** in their lifetime,
that 20% of the people I love
will be ***** in their lifetime.

I keep telling myself
I will not write another **** poem,

keep reminding myself
to look at the facts.

Oh, how perfect it is to want you,
how perfect it is to long for that which I know
I can never have, to see
the futility in my desires and to
desire them in spite of,

how perfect it is that you do not love me
anymore,
that we will not fall into mutual complacency
which would inevitably tarnish and blanch,
that the
unknown
will remain
unknowable,
that anything will continue to be possible
because nothing has been tested against fate,

how perfect it is to wish for the infeasible,
to strive toward a goal I will
never attain, to
never lack
something to search for,

oh, how perfect it is to want you;
how perfect it is to want too much.

It is a strangely intimate thing, to touch another person, for your skin to touch their skin, the warmth of blood flowing within two separate bodies to intertwine.

It is a strangely intimate thing, to touch you, for my thin fingers to catch on the callouses of your palms, to trace the scars on your knuckles, for the cold of my hands to mingle with the warmth seeping from the veins in your wrist.

It is a strangely intimate thing, to want you, for your hands to burrow themselves into my cerebrum, for the air in my shallow lungs to flow in unison with the cadence of your voice.