crescent nail between bottom teeth,
weak enough to bend with the tongue
and fidget with until fracturing
into something invisible
and perfectly sized to swallow.

it picks things off its body
to feed itself with.

its cells, its scabs,
its nails, its spots,
its hands, its eyes,
its touch, touch,
touch, touch, touch,
searching for so long,
for so long, it says,
and gropes the corners of the room
feeling across the floor,
through the dust, tracing grooves of wood,
for something important.

it picks things off its body until there's
nothing left to search with.

it wants a friend, and it wants more

and i want more than more than more than that.

i spill the words like coins into the couch cushions.

you look at me.

i say, hello,
in that way that people say hello when they
really need an answer now,
before panic, ideally,
before regret.

you look at me.

you look at me.

you look at me.

is anybody in there?

is anybody in there? i joke,
because i'm joking now
because that is how to salvage things
or, at least, it used to be,
pretend it's humor,
pretend it's a misunderstanding,
pretend it's anything other than what it is,

but you're grabbing my face
and your nails are sharp
and you're pulling me into you like limp cloth
and my hands are out to the sides like limp cloth

and you're calling me
idiot, idiot, idiot
and i'm saying
sorry, sorry, sorry
and i feel the metal of my cents start to warm
under the bodies we've got

rest assured
you taste
exactly as
i thought
you would

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