Faltering declarations of love
Floating like incense on our fingers
Like slime on moribund monuments
Like filth lingering on the dead
Like wasps on an infected wound
Like babies of bats
Kissing your gangrenous feet
Like hollowness of two hearts
Enclosed in a horrid infinity
Like lungs filled with black water
Like bones intertwined with each other
In a discomfort so immense
Like a cat choking on her mother's milk
Like a scar that heals and still exists
On our bodies like a curse
Like an air balloon that bursts in our chests
But doesn't **** us
And still the pain of our dying love
Is greater than all the ghastly metaphors
And we know we can't save it
So we have to let go of the dead fishes
We have to let go of the dead wishes

and here i am again
at the intersection
of pedestrian language
& old wives tales
swallowing gum
like 7 year memories
opening umbrellas inside
cause i can't seem get away
from all of this rain
i ******* with my left hand
cause i was told
back in highschool that
"it feels like someone else is doing it"
it gets me wondering
about the difference between
losing you and finding out
that some one else found you
or my sleep
or lack thereof
its starting to tear me apart
i keep having this dream
where you are in
an unfamiliar body of water
trying to wash my poetry
off of your hands
or the one where
something happens in my chest
every time you sit
on someone else's bed
i'm tired of feeling like something you've misplaced
but don't have the heart
to look for anymore
tired of you saying my name
like you're trying to bury it
i'm tired of wondering
if you can tell the difference
between the absence
of my voice & silence
the other day
i almost started sobbing
at work when a woman
asked me about
our equipment
i was explaining how
things come apart
and almost mentioned your name
it made me think
of how you used to say
things like "what would you do
if i showed up on your doorstep
one day?" now, i haunt
the windows in my house
i don't leave for weeks at a time
i sit on the porch like the dog
you didn't shoot behind the shed
the one that refuses to die
until you come home again
i told somebody once, that
you didn't even know
what my voicemail sounded like
i wonder if they thought
it was because you
are so important that i never
let it ring that many times
before picking up
or if you dont know
what it sounds like
because you've never called
you can't be the ****** weapon
and the search party
i'm tired of all the seats
to the ferris wheel in my chest
being empty
tired of your voice
being the one i look for
in abandoned places
that one sound i beg
to bounce back
down vacant hallways
i just seem to stand there
in all of that quiet
like someone looking for a mistake
on an eviction notice
so i guess the hardest part
isn't letting go
it's forgetting
you ever had a grip
in the first place
and since you've been gone
i wonder if when
you pushed yourself away from me
you used your left hand
so it felt like someone else did it

Each lover has some theory of his own
About the difference between the ache
Of being with his love, and being alone:

Why what, when dreaming, is dear flesh and bone
That really stirs the senses, when awake,
Appears a simulacrum of his own.

Narcissus disbelieves in the unknown;
He cannot join his image in the lake
So long as he assumes he is alone.

The child, the waterfall, the fire, the stone,
Are always up to mischief, though, and take
The universe for granted as their own.

The elderly, like Proust, are always prone
To think of love as a subjective fake;
The more they love, the more they feel alone.

Whatever view we hold, it must be shown
Why every lover has a wish to make
Some kind of otherness his own:
Perhaps, in fact, we never are alone.

You make me feel the plasticity in my blood
It resonates through my words
It resonates in your world
It resonates in your fake convenience
And if I could, I would run away
From myself, farther away that I've ever been
Farther than your touch
Farther than your "I love you very much."

The laments of little men, little hearts
Ashes to ashes, lurk beneath
Fear of breathing supersedes
The joy of longevity
The madhouse is filled with them
With these little men
With endless dreaming
With fumes of kerosene
And unpleasant breathing mouths
And uncouth, torn linen clothes
In dreams of dying with hopeless love
With promises of dreary kisses
The laments of little men, little hearts
Dust to dust, float above

I stand quietly
At the precipice of this world
Questioning how thick the
Abstract existence of these clouds is
I looked at the possibility
Of touching them
As if they were tangible
Corporeally soft
And then I looked at you
As if you were my cornerstone
My valley oak
Every fragment of meaning
In this corrosive place
And I was scared to say the words
That cancel out all that is ephemeral
Words like forever, always, eternally
Words that mean nothing
Cause we haven't felt them
Like we couldn't touch the clouds
Like we couldn't touch the soft breeze
And I was terrified
Of what I felt
I was terrified of feeling nothing

don't undress my love
you might find a mannequin:
don't undress the mannequin
you might find
my love.
she's long ago
forgotten me.
she's trying on a new
hat
and looks more the
coquette
than ever.

she is a
child
and a mannequin
and death.
I can't hate
that.
she didn't do
anything
unusual.
I only wanted her
to.