when i was 13,
"if your friends jumped
off a cliff would you?"
was an effortless,
"no"
because when i was 13
the cliff was a tall,
intimidating
piece of land
with a neon sign that said
"impending doom"
lit up at the edge,
but now im 20
and the cliff
comes in glass bottles
and the cliff
comes in thick syringes
and the cliff
is drawn beneath
my skin
in india ink
and down below it,
i can see my home town
and i can hear the patient voices
of the kids i grew up with
that never got out,
shakily shouting
"come down here;
it's easier at the bottom"
and if im being honest
im stumbling toward it
with an alarming
lack of fear

the clock is 2:07 pm
and my heart is bleeding
because i miss him so much

Reconciliation shots,
Grey Goose and Ciroc,
pouring one by one in chipped glasses
on your microwave with the door locked.
Shabba remix on the stereo,
your cotton boxers and my lace underwear
contrasting in the ****** overhead light.
I pursed my lips after the first,
you slapped my *** and said
Don't be a *****! Take it!
without a chaser and without
hesitation you once again
pushed me fearlessly into fate
like all the times before,
when I'd wake up from a graphic nightmare
with resonating touch and hallucinations
from an LSD-like perspective
and you'd hold my head into the crescent
of your neck and tickle my spine
like an instrument
just long enough to calm me into sleep again.
Or when I didn't want to go to that party,
or I was afraid to give that presentation
or I lost all ambition due to past lost confidence.

You kicked the back of my knees so I'd fall
straight into uncertainty,
but that doesn't mean my fragility
has been numbed by your persona.
You're standing in your dress clothes,
but I'm the one fixing your tie.
You get an A+ on the paper,
but I'm the one telling you what to write.
You're the one upset,
but I'm the one who ends up hurt.

So we take our clothes off and apologize
for being whatever we were that day
with reconciliation shots,
cheap Grey Goose and ****** Ciroc.

i didn’t know she
existed outside my dreams.
i’d never been good at keeping
my hands empty, or
my cup watered, or keeping flowers
alive, until my knock-knock jokes
bloomed and ran over the edges; until
I became more
forever than
funny.