i can still feel his hands around my neck.
the fingers like words and “i don’t love you” and it stings although he wasn’t the first to say it, i can’t breathe.
she haunts our hallways, our floorboards are cracking
beneath our feet, our home is crumbling
between our fingertips and
i can feel her weight on my chest. sometimes
i think that she should just go by the way that her footsteps echo after she’s gone. i remember
a wall full of holes from where his fists
kissed ever so gently.
i think that wall is what my heart might look like but lately
i’ve had trouble finding my pulse.
i can still feel his hands around my neck.
does he know
why i can’t look him in the eye? does he
know
the blue makes me feel like I’ve swallowed too much water, does he know i can’t breathe?
i think I’m still trying to understand why
beautiful things die in my fingertips and why he stomps on every rooting bulb my wilting body tries to plant, why he ripped my roots from beneath my feet and why my hair started to fall out why
he put his hands on my throat and how i still feel them there.
has he figured it out?
does he know that lemon scented bleach would taste better than
her on his lips and the *******
they splatter?
i can still feel his hands around my neck.
i was born into light, into pain, into love and
he wasn’t the first man to leave a mark on my body and i feel like he is the works with the universe to watch me fall
things fall and shatter without you touching them, things break while you’re sleeping and
everything about him and her stings like saltwater and everything about me
bends for him like light.
i can still feel his hands around my ******* neck.
he crashed into her hips like his hands to my bones, like fists to walls, the walls
rattled, my ribcage
rattled, he was
rattled and i can still feel his hands around my neck,
pushing, like me trying to ******* make this work.
what is this?
his hands are like ghosts around my throat,
the memory of her wrapped around his body instead of me
wrapping, holding in place
icanstillfeelhisfuckinghandsaroundmyfuckingneck
i am not stupid you know.
i can only see that he moves like these words write themselves, and he
speaks like music bleeding through a closed window,
i swear, i am still cracked
though i still have tattoos left from the tips of his fingers from those heavy-handed nights,
i swear, they didn’t even sting.

***

I see thine image through my tears to-night,
And yet to-day I saw thee smiling. How
Refer the cause?—Beloved, is it thou
Or I, who makes me sad? The acolyte
Amid the chanted joy and thankful rite
May so fall flat, with pale insensate brow,
On the altar-stair. I hear thy voice and vow,
Perplexed, uncertain, since thou art out of sight,
As he, in his swooning ears, the choir’s Amen.
Beloved, dost thou love? or did I see all
The glory as I dreamed, and fainted when
Too vehement light dilated my ideal,
For my soul’s eyes? Will that light come again,
As now these tears come—falling hot and real?

after five
times the poem
of thy remembrance
surprises with refrain

of unreasoning summer
that by responding
ways cloaked with renewal
my body turns toward

thee
again     for the stars have been
finished in the nobler trees and
the language of leaves repeats

eventual perfection
while east deserves of dawn.
i lie at length,breathing
with shut eyes

the sweet earth where thou liest

of evident invisibles
exquisite the hovering

at the dark portals

of hurt girl eyes


sincere with wonder

a poise a wounding
a beautiful suppression

the accurate boy mouth


now droops the faun head

now the intimate flower dreams

of parted lips
dim upon the syrinx

the truth is no one ever taught me how to fix a flat tire or how to ask for help or what love was even good for in the first place

and the truth is that the cookie was good but the lemon icing wasn't and the truth is baking should be done without any kind of lemon at all

and the truth is i wish you'd hold me close enough that our skin fused together and i could burrow into your spine and learn all the things you won't teach me

and the truth is you were never good at making eye contact but i dare you to look at me long enough that i can trace the line that connects your iris to your pupil and count how many shades of black a person can produce

and the truth is i don't know if the grass has fingerprints but i know that yours are cigarette stained and no better at letting go than mine

and the truth is i am a dump site and you are an inhale and i am clockwork and you are a melody and i can't keep my teeth off your eloquence

and the truth is my feet are covered in acrylic paint from leaving smudged footprints in sparkly things

and the truth is i don't want you all to myself but you can pretend i'm yours when i'm engulfed in the ocean and making it hard for you to breathe

and the truth is i'm looking for a different kind of intimacy from you

and maybe it's just some teenage girl talking but the truth is that i want to drown with you. i want to burn with you. i want to scream with you so violently that the body that crushes my lungs crumbles and i become a balloon for real this time

and the truth is, if you hadn't called me beautiful, i would have mistaken last night for a paradise i don't believe in

i like my body when it is with your
body. It is so quite new a thing.
Muscles better and nerves more.
i like your body.  i like what it does,
i like its hows.  i like to feel the spine
of your body and its bones,and the trembling
-firm-smooth ness and which i will
again and again and again
kiss, i like kissing this and that of you,
i like, slowly stroking the,shocking fuzz
of your electric furr,and what-is-it comes
over parting flesh….And eyes big love-crumbs,

and possibly i like the thrill

of under me you so quite new

i will wade out
                        till my thighs are steeped in burning flowers
I will take the sun in my mouth
and leap into the ripe air
                                       Alive
                                                 with closed eyes
to dash against darkness
                                       in the sleeping curves of my body
Shall enter fingers of smooth mastery
with chasteness of sea-girls
                                            Will i complete the mystery
                                            of my flesh
I will rise
               After a thousand years
lipping
flowers
             And set my teeth in the silver of the moon