I take off my summer skin,
peel back bronzed afternoons
and cleave through
those muggy mornings
you were still here

but not for long.

There are holes in my brain          and I shovel words to bury
                                       that emptiness

I look for laughter                                          that's not my own

I search my hometown graveyard
                     the spaces of your affection

I'm flipping through the oldest books
                     ******* in the autumn air;

I cannot find the thing                                                  I lost

There are holes in my brain but I kept you,
                                       Heart,

                    perhaps a different way of craving
                                     wholeness

Crow's feathers like
The exoskeleton
Of a long-nose weevil,

The color of
Mom's grease-stained
Pots illuminated in moonlight.

They're a mind
That's gone dark
With a tunnel straight through,

Like a billion
Ants all piled
On- throbbing

Can you hear
Them *******,
Hear them slurping?

Those oily wings
Writhe in air like bodies
Launched from 90-story trade buildings

They close their eyes;
Sleep forever
Bathing in crow's feathers.

There's a certain wraith
in the cleaning of kitchens
scrubbing of floors
ringing of towels til
the fingers puff up
and bleach seeps
beneath your fingernails.

There's a certain wraith
to all these quiet burdens.

I've been collecting words
for years- cataloguing

feral and oblivion, catharsis and
iridescence. I keep gusto

in the drawer beside my bed.
I put visceral next to the broken

mirror you left. I've hidden marrow
next to vastness as if they are mine

alone. See how they slip out of me
like a ****** nose at just the wrong time.

The word of God
Is neon now-
It screams odious
Love to the silent
Collection of limbs
Beneath it.

Iridescence
Falls in irradiated
Waves, reaches the
Sedate, the wanderers
Of Asphalt Nightmares,
At last.

They can hardly hear it
Over the mumble of voices.
They shift, leave by way
Of saturated, naked streets
Steeped
In weariness.

The new God is
Neon- but all the same
Unheard; It's violent lights
Looking to the morally
Righteous; finds
No one.

Years ago, I limestoned
my way through girls,
cool and completely solid.
As they swayed,
sweet and sweat-inducing,
glossed in a perfunctory pink
at the foot of my bed,
I could feel them sinking
all the way through me,
swaying between
my synapses.

But now I'm crepuscular.
I'm seizing as girls
prism in front of me
like sequins,
like fool's gold.
They leave the door unlocked
behind them.

I was once told pyrite
isn't a lie if you know
it's pyrite- if it shows you
all its sides
individually and with care-

but I still wanted them to be solid gold.