You did a really good impression of my dad
by walking out of the front door
and never looking back

and I think that’s quite why
I was so interested in you in the first place

you talk like a man
and walk like a ghost

and you disappear every afternoon around 5 pm
and you don’t show up until a little after 12 am

and you left me home with my mother
and this loaded gun

But they say home is where the heart is
and yours has since run cold

I’m fascinated by the way your faulty intestines
rest on the insides of your ribs when you lay on one side
and the way my spine tries to rip its way out of my back

I want to know why my shoulder blades feel as if
one day they will become wings
and allow me to fly away

I’ve wanted to be somewhere else for a long while now
my feet don’t really seem to fully hit the ground anymore
I am a vortex gaining speed

and they say getting hit by lightning twice is so highly improbable
but what happens when I am struck by lightning every night

what does it mean when I wake up covered in blood
and desperate for something unnamed
something that hides out in my dreams

and all I’ve ever wanted was a few answers

like if there is a god why does he allow hell on earth
because I’ve been burning at the stake ever since I turned 7

and this charred flesh of mine feels like acid
and tastes like asphalt

this little body does not feel like home

there's a buzzing in this spine
and a nervous rattling in this skull

You are a soft quiet pulsing
a slow sip of lukewarm coffee in the morning
the gentle caress of bathwater over skin

you are the rain in summer
the steady hum of an overhead fan

you are the melting liquid in a lava lamp
a candle in a windowsill

you are 5 am sunlight
the gentle wind that blows through hair
the first inhale of a just lit cigarette

you are a day of rest

you put your hand on my chest while you kissed me
and said you felt my heartbeat in your palm
like a gentle orb

and here I always thought I was
a gunshot in a back alley outside of a bar
just another unsolved ******

I am ripped plastic
an open landfill
I am blood dripping on tile

but I find I like your insistent denial

You say-
be gentle with me
and when I am
you move my hips and make my hands a bit rougher

until i am scratching at the skin on your chest
like I am trying to force my way inside you
but instead you’re just inside me

you told me not to pull up your shirt
or touch anywhere below your ribcage
because you have secrets you are not ready to share
and I will be patient of that

because you have more to offer than just
the holes in your stomach or
the bags under your eyes or
the disease in your veins and DNA

you are more than the hour and a half effort it takes you to shower
and not being able to eat if you want to see me

you are much more than the
skin that sticks to your bones

and I don’t know how to tell you that

1- Alex S
You were a rough hit to the stomach
a cold and ***** baptizing
I ****** you twice and never again
because of you I stopped eating
I haven’t seen you since I was 14
and that’s okay with both of us

2- Alex F
Your name still gives me chills
you remind me of a fox in winter
I really did love you like the waves love the ocean shore
I really would have drowned myself for you
im sorry I took your virginity

3- JJ S
It was a drunken hookup on a ***** couch
in a smoke filled basement that I had to sneak out of later
and you were 27 and should have known better
and it was really just too awful to talk about

4- Garrett F
In a Chinese restaurant parking lot at 9 pm
we used your backseat like it had
rose petals and candles
and you were my best friend
and it’s still one of my biggest regrets
and we stopped speaking after that

5- Michael H
Really I just wanted the free ****
and a place to spend the night
so, did you enjoy the taste of my tall black soul
that tends to smell of tar
and the dredges of a coffee ***?

6- Julian R
I don’t know the first thing about you
besides the fact you are from New York
and 25
and play basketball for a college
and you pushed me down on the bed
and swallowed me whole

7- Sean E
It was Halloween
and we were drunk
and we undressed in the back of someone’s jeep
and laid under the stars at 4 am on a blanket in a backyard
the first time you were ever inside me

8- Johnny B
24 and never someone I’d normally ****
but I stayed at your house for 2 weeks
and we became connected on every piece of furniture
and I still never got enough of you
and god I miss you

9- Aaron E
You are the end of it all
and with you I am butter melting
I am grinding my teeth down in lust
I’ve never seen anyone look so perfect naked
and I’m wishing you were the only one in this list

They say one in 25 people is a psychopath
and I think you most certainly are one

I could say you are an emotional terrorist

you bit the hand that fed you

you are like a stray dog that is unaware of its situation;
you still think you have a home

you are a hungry wolf limping in winter-
you snarl only out of spite

when you breathe in smoke
you inhale like you are begging for cancer

you inhale like a rough drag can bring you hope

There is something in your face that
I am unable to capture in pictures
something in the way your eyes change from green to black

something in the bones of your fingers
and the way that I kiss them
the way I can’t think when I’m with you besides

youarebeautifulyouarebeautiful

so excuse the way I trip over air

because I’ve just been thinking of you
and the way your eyes close when I touch your face
and the way your laugh comes out fast and soft

and there’s something in the way you walk
something nameless in the way you kiss me

something about you makes me hungry for you to the core

sometimes you say you’re bad and mean
(and I’d have to disagree)

but even if you were a disease
I’d still invite you into my bloodstream