do not date a girl
who writes.
she will internalize
everything,
carve poems
into your eyelashes
instead of
kissing them,

she will analyze you,
calculate age
from the rings
your coffee cup
leaves
instead of refilling it.

she will memorize
the way your
lips curl around steam,
but not that you
take it
two sugars,
no cream.

she will read your
palm instead of
holding it
against her chest.

she will not
blink
when you leave,
because she is
already
romanticizing it.

We are critical.

We find flaws in
everything we see
because nobody
wants to write
about perfection,
even though sometimes
we wish we could just stay
staring into that
unblemished surface.

2. We are never satisfied.

We live our lives upon
mountains of
scrunched up
bits of refill and
ideas we gave up
trying to
express.

3. We never forget.

We write words about
eye contact made
three months ago
that we replay over
and over in our minds
even though it
stopped
being relevant.

4. We are fickle.**

Our emotions flash
from one
to the other
like strobe lighting that
disorientates us
until we feel as if
the world
will never be still.

5. We are exposed.

We don't know how
to keep our feelings
to ourselves so
we'll write them
down for
you to find
'accidentally'.

6. We are vulnerable.

We wear our
hearts on our sleeves
and won't lift a
muscle to fight back
if somebody tries
to break it
because we thrive
from the pain.

7. We will never stop.

We will never stop
feeling and
we will never stop
hurting,
we will never stop
breaking and
bleeding and
loving
even though the cycle
is endless
and we know what's
coming next.


We are addicted
to agony,
but we agonise
for the art.

indigo dusk spreads across
inexhaustible country sky
torn wet clouds stretched blue at twilight
a big-chested wind comes howling off the lake
dissecting our immortal kiss
as the pink sun meets her planet-doom
leaking on my balcony like a falling curtain
blessed with an affinity for moonlight
lingering drinking pale wine
we took baths in lukewarm vanity

she is a long legged sorceress smoking a cigarette
half awake because i've got the covers again
goose bumps crowd onto her little bare *******
dewy legs sliding among mine
rousing my bones and heart alert
as the bright sun dances silent
like a new carnation dragged from bed
bringing a giant unscrambled sunrise
across my section of heaven's blue sea
but is mercifully eclipsed by the cream-skinned
breast of a purified failed angel
exploring the feather-soft mountain of my body

we drank cointreau in the early morning
against the collage of saxophones
expanding among criss-crossing body odors
and thin magic on my lipsticked neck
i'm gaining strength over my neuroses
all my fear and doubt disappears into joy
no longer huddled in paper misfortune
reintegrated with ecstasy
in the smoky labyrinth of her eyes
as her fingers light as dreams
draw complex patterns in the flesh
of my back and buttocks
like secrets written on wet paper
none of it       was            real        before          this           moment

Please will
you pull
all my poems
apart
whichever way
you think
is best
I don't care
if you pull
at them gently
or hard
I just
want to be
undressed

have you ever believed
in something so blindly
so genuinely
that the moment you realize
it isn't true, something inside you
changes forever?
i wanna tell you a story, see
seldom do i ever
go swimming in drinks
deep enough to drown in
but when i do
i speak in tongues
about things that none
of my memories
are allowed to talk about
like that christmas
at the isthmus
where my girlfriend
plucked a conch shell
whiter than gods teeth
out of the sand
held it to her ear
and stopped time
that day she was a shade of blue
the could've made the ocean sick
see, she loved to play jokes
when she held
the sea shell to her ear
she gasped, called my name
and said "i want you to hear this"
i said "yeah, right, everybody knows it's just the same old sea"
she replied "no. not this one. this one is special. listen. theres music in this one"
she handed me the shell
like a promise she couldn't keep
and i held it to my ear
with all the potential
of seeing shore
after being stranded
at sea for years
only to hear
a tired dirge of silence
spill from its emptiness
i guess she didn't know
how desperately
i wanted to hear it too
because ever since
something inside me snapped
now sand pours out
of every post card i open
i hear seagulls
in telephone static
sometimes i have dreams
where i bury my hands
in every beach
i've ever been on
and exhume this graveyard of noise
every time i try to sleep
i spit up fishhooks
and i guess i'm obsessed
but maybe
if i hold my ear
to enough vacant things
then i could have back
the time stolen from me
since it happened
maybe they would get it
if they knew what i wanted
when i blow out birthday candles
maybe they'll find me
face down in a wishing well
i watch eternal sunshine
of the spotless mind every day
pretending i can forget too
because this sea sickness
has followed me for years
because yesterday
i walked into a music shop
and all the pianos broke
but the only thing
i can think to say is
*do you know how bad
a memory has to be
that you fantasize
about forgetting it?

I can still remember your voice,
Fragmented as though refracted through a prism
I remember pressing delete on the last voicemail you ever sent me,
You called to thank me for the flowers,
You called me thoughtful, sweet,
You were tripping over your words with joy,
And I couldn't handle it after you left,
Because your voice reminds me of symphonies and plane crashes
And oh God, how it still echoes sometimes,
Like the sound of a child's laughter ringing across an abandoned playground,
Your voice resonated with the frequencies of my heart strings,
And now I fear it would only cause earthquakes

there is one truth of which i'm incandescently certain and that's that nobody can take away a truth as it darkens, a galaxy in a glass; and the truth is that i'd be the only ***** donor in a charity just for you because signals and signs have showed me your soul and you're grander than celestial poles

if i didn't know any better i'd suggest you're the sun and i'm the solar system and i orbit around you and i'm not too sure about humans having wings but imagine:

a snowy cabin some place away from civilisation, you and i and wholehearted communication, you and i and books and fictional integration, you and i and mind blowing realisations, you and i and wings outstretched souring across nations

you are the sun and i am the solar system and although i orbit you i'm never allowed to brush the surface, i'm guessing it's for a purpose so i admire from afar, a gaze stretched over constellations and the sound of your voice bouncing off stars into my hemisphere of tangled webs and ripened tears, the echoing trailing behind merely a souvenir

there is one truth of which i'm incandescently certain and that's this:

the only reason my brain hasn't stopped my heart from beating is because the thoughts of you are giving it meaning and it's hard to breathe with these overwhelming feelings but i'm coping because the broken glass holding my galaxy is healing

THOUGH I DON'T KNOW HOW TO EXPLAIN IT,
MY ANXIETY IS LIKE A CONSTANT *** OF COLD WATER TRYING TO BOIL
AND WHEN IT GETS TO THAT POINT
I WANT TO SCREAM
UNTIL MY LUNGS TURN OUT LIKE A BALLOON BEING TOUCHED BY A PIN
BUT IN THE END, I ALWAYS REMAIN QUIET