after four straight days in bed
the smell of stale sweat and *****
got to me, i took a step outside to let
the sun burn some feeling into my skin.
i'd forgotten what sunlight feels like
and i finally felt unconditionally happy.
the death of this summer will bring me
brisk winds and goosepimples
cold temperatures that cut to the bone
and a lack of daylight that makes me feel
unconditionally happy.
but i'll look to all the shades of dead leaves
for beauty, to the warmth of storefront windows
i'll look for the hands that brush against mine
and hold them tightly through the winter.

sick!!!!!!!!!!!! shaky shaky
can you hear the paper in my lungs
like i can

i can hear it

i can hear it like i hear
the screaming of anonymous
mouths
in my obsessive
compulsive mind
i hear it like the
cries of a pummeled boy
who cries

do you peel skin off your fingers? do you rock back and forth
on the floor in the bathroom on the floor

why am i in the bathroom why did i lock the door????

you run from this i run from this
we all run from this like we run
from uncertainty even when we
make it pretty in our poetry it's
not pretty we're not pretty
there's paper in my lungs.

cut it up breathe it in
listen like paper breaths
sound like violins
what an orchestra these paper cuts
become when you listen
when you hum
and the paper sits in your lungs.

i can't live in my head
anymore, the clutter, the
cataclysmic canvas of my mind
all around me, pasting
red letters on my retinas,
leaving pomegranate ulcers
on my tongue,
                           demanding i put it
                                               to rest.

i want you to know
when you don't write back
i fill in the blank pages myself
and you say terrible things.
i write 'til white paper turns black and
every word drips with the vindictive
spit that rolls right off your tongue
like it's natural. like you're filled to the brim
with venom, and it spills from the tip
of your fountain pen.
and then i remember when
i receive a letter that isn't laced with
my insecurities, there's not a bad bone
in your body. i see you smiling
and all the venom drains from your teeth.
i remember why i'm so scared
of losing touch.
write back soon.

augustine, what have you done to me?
i should feel wildfires without guilt
i should tremble on the cusp between
wishing i could be entirely consumed
and wishing i could erupt.
we should shiver without fear
of melting retribution.
god can hold the candle that drips
hot wax on my nape,
i don't believe they hate what they create.
augustine, you've made me unclean.
we spend hours smearing acid between two
bodies, don't we erode our impurities?

who knows if the moon’s
a baloon,coming out of a keen city
in the sky—filled with pretty people?
(and if you and i should

get into it,if they
should take me and take you into their baloon,
why then
we’d go up higher with all the pretty people

than houses and steeples and clouds:
go sailing
away and away sailing into a keen
city which nobody’s ever visited,where

always
            it’s
                   Spring)and everyone’s
in love and flowers pick themselves

somewhere i have never travelled, gladly beyond
any experience,your eyes have their silence:
in your most frail gesture are things which enclose me,
or which i cannot touch because they are too near

your slightest look easily will unclose me
though i have closed myself as fingers,
you open always petal by petal myself as Spring opens
(touching skilfully,mysteriously)her first rose

or if your wish be to close me, i and
my life will shut very beautifully ,suddenly,
as when the heart of this flower imagines
the snow carefully everywhere descending;

nothing which we are to perceive in this world equals
the power of your intense fragility:whose texture
compels me with the color of its countries,
rendering death and forever with each breathing

(i do not know what it is about you that closes
and opens;only something in me understands
the voice of your eyes is deeper than all roses)
nobody,not even the rain,has such small hands