I can still taste
oranges on my tongue,
tropicana from tampa,
extra extra pulp in my mouth.
The orange groves are
dying, frost encroaching, and I
can do little; I'm at the
supermarket searching for
coconut oil and lavishing
honey straight from the bottle
onto my tongue; empty
bears litter the linoleum and
the taste of your ***** still
evades my fractitious memory.

my whole mouth tastes like metal,
copper pennies from before
The Great Zinc Switch
filling my warm wet mouth.
cigarette smoke hazing
my sinuses like a frat rush
and I'm desperately in need of an Advil.
let me place my coppery lips
on your bronzed skin,
Amman to Atlanta,
nails like knives and
The Book of Biology
teasing hormonal touches and hydration.
iron oxide keeps flaking off my
skin, eczema and psoriasis in rust, and
the guitars in my ears are ******* furious.
and still:
sweat and *** in the sheets, your love
lingering on my palate like a
too sour wine; you fermented and curdled
in my mouth, and
to taste you now
is agony.
time is dilating around me in ripples;
I cough until the gas in my stomach releases itself; crystal abrasive.
it's all drugs and
tinder matches these days,
****** kids...
total sunbeam, in my opinion
there's still enough for
a couple more
hits, it's still rolling,
words cloud around my head like
so much weedsmoke, Storm clouds
on the horizon of my parietal lobe
and I feel fine.
I am fine.

liquid crystal display
glimmering salacious self-imagery at you,
your lips parted and breath
staccatoing along, flitting just
behind the beat, like your aunt's
first dance at the wedding reception (before
she's had enough to drink) or
her last (when she's had
too much)
she was in the passenger seat
on our drive homeward, leaning in
to the driver's seat conspiratorially,
oblivious to your beauty splayed out
exhausted in the backseat.
"she's my
baby niece, and you better not
**** with her
heart, you hear me missy?"
and I assured her I wouldn't as you
laughed and laughed, bell peals
in the backseat and church bells
echoing in my ear, past and possible
future, sodium vapor lights
slipping away along the highway as
your aunt slid back into the passenger seat.
"so"
"so"
"she's quite a
character," I say, bemused, and your
eyes crinkled at the corners like
newspaper redesigned during crumpling as
kindling for the fire, blue and blue and blue
in the backseat.
"that's true"
"just like you"
"just like me" you agree,
crossing your legs, legs that go on
for dynasties in thigh highs and
your dress riding up too high for my eyes
to focus on the taillights ahead of us when
paradise is in the rearview:
love is
cold lobster bisque
in a big bowl in bed in the morning,
two spoons and a carton of orange juice
arrayed on the covers atop our
entangled legs.

put your hands on me:
I'm squirming, *******
enamored with the thought of
your hands on my stomach,
my wrists bound to your bed,
my toes acurl in the sheets.
I love being naked for you but
I get so cold; you laugh at my
complaints, lay yourself
atop me,
whisper, "is this
better kitten?"
in my ear before letting your tongue
lap at my earlobe and your teeth
clamp down in their place.

I remember:

you, in black lace ******* and
little else, crushed close
by gravity,
weak winter afternoon sunlight
streaming in and out of your car,
HD Netflix in your backseat.
my fingers drumming insistently
upon your collar bone,
my mouth pressed against your shoulder
as I sing so softly in your ear,
a concert for one.
((only you're invited))
your hair all over your bare
back and black
lace wedged up tight against your
muscle. your lips are
cold against my skin and our feet
are ******* freezing and the heater is
all the way up but not nearly enough.
I let my fingers parse through your
vertebrae, Dr. Lecter planning
a meal; slice here,
cleave there, remove viscera, season and
cook: magnifique.
time and history are
mercury in my clenched fist;
my nails are biting into my skin, and
liquid silver moments gone by are
flowing freely from my slackened grip.

the carpet is orange with little gray and white specks
like television static
the ceiling is off-white with the occasional stain
like snow the neighbors’ dogs have ****** on
I’m filled with the sound a plastic trash bag makes as it’s being *******
suffocating out on the curb in the ***** snow

car exhaust staining the ground
oil dripping in little rainbow pools
they look like tiny universes, cosmic filth
the rings of saturn are only flecks of dust
each of my eyes is a planet for you to explore
each of my hands is a nation for you to invade

the stars are visible in every glistening patch of snow
the sun and moon are the eyes of god
the solar system has lent me its gaze

every breath tastes
rancid on my tongue;
fun fact, if all you eat is
raspberry yogurt and
hypersaturated strawberries,
your ***** looks like
Jackson ******* plus
Picasso's Rose Period.
has anyone ever told you
that drunk texting you is like
standing in front of a Caravaggio;
it's dusky and dark and sensuous and I
******* adore getting lost in
translation. Cezanne draws solely in
molecular geometry, tetrahedral,
trigonal pyramidal, octahedrons
scrawled across the canvas and doused
in living color. Thursday night already
seems so intangible,
a bad dream that didn't dice up my liver
like a ******* sous chef. Thursdays
have come and gone, the weekends
ever-beckoning, and the scent of Smirnoff
stays in my sinuses.