what a bore, to be corporeal

i want to be lonely in the way
that stars are lonely -
bright and purposeful in their distance.
i want to have beautiful isolation
the kind that people paint
and take pictures of.

i want to be any poem
that is not my own.

this poem? *****.

in short,
this time is wasted.
it is breathless and dim
and it dies
without audience -

my loneliness cannot have audience
because, then, it would simply not be.

stars are millions of miles off
and yet are still visible,
still spotted with a camera on a hill
while two photographers hold hands.

if you are close enough to take
a picture of me,
it is implied that
perhaps i am not as alone
as i thought i was.

and perhaps you
should get out of my house.

ephemerality is derivative.

i’d rather live forever
with beautiful pain
than for approximately
twenty three more years
with whatever the hell this is.

i have chewed this gum,
once mint,
until it rather tastes like metal
like blood

and i worry.

can i ask you a question?

if it came down to it,

would you **** me
if you were certain
i'd never know it was you?

i'm stealing the rain, tonight.
i'm putting it in a big metal bowl,
and i'm carrying it on my hip.

i'm going to water my plants with it.
on my own terms.
to show them i love them.

HOW MANY KEYS DO YOU HAVE ON YOUR KEYCHAIN
HAS IT CHANGED SINCE WE LAST SPOKE

my bad habits do not heal.

they disappear for a moment,
stepping out of a room as if
to take a call that they're certain is bad news,
and they reappear,
wearing a different suit.
brighter.
worse.

i bit my nails,
i found peace and stopped.
then, two months later,
i found myself eating paint.
the kind for nails.

clearly they are linked,
one i wear on my fingers
the other i wear in my teeth.

one is in a tan suit.
the other threatens to burn the tan suit,
and dyes it green instead.
ghastly green, the kind he knows i don't like.

my bad habits do not heal, as much as i wish they would.
they take the call in the hallway, and they cry,
but they do not tell me they cried,
because i assume they don't think i know,
and they re-enter
and sit in the corner,
take a drink,
and they start again.

it behooves you (me)
as you write this (I)
to maintain an air of transparency
to build a connection and yet stay opaque
to watch them move and speak and act
so many times that it becomes all you know (I)
until it's all the words you have left (I)
until you're not sure if it's even you anymore (I'm, I)
but it makes your words, less serious (my),
and your fear, less powerful (my),
when you say, (I)
"i am terrified of your attention because,
if it should continue,
which, by God, i hope it does,
there will be an expectation for more than i am right now,
more than i can handle, i think,
but i am not sure who i am anymore.
i am terrified of intimacy because it is a language i thought i knew,
until perhaps the tenth time i tested it out -
of course, i say tested as though i wasn't sure,
which i'm certain i was.
i am terrified because the words i say are part of the script,
my thoughts are not,
and your responses are not,
and the control i have when speaking is not the same control i have
when you reply.
do i have control when you reply? i hope not.
and yet i do.
but yet i don't all the same."

you shouldn't say that. (I)
it isn't appropriate.
they'll figure it out.
there's no time.
it's getting late.
you should rest.
(I)

i, lonely, sit in empty rooms
a lost cause to convince
for i am just a ghost, here,
and you do not exist

and i can float, my sheet, my gloves,
you clack and clink beside -
a pair of simultaneously
silent, noisy guys

i sit under the showerhead
so viciously aware
that I've been writing poems to
a quiet gust of air

the man to which i rhyme to,
to which my life i owe,
my love in life, my groom in death,
my garrett jacob bones.