the earth around my skin is more

home than home could have ever been.

my sinking fingertips cut and

bleed into the soil, bleed into

prayers that flash red

on your face and in

my sight. no sea monster could rise

in these black bottomless eyes; the

songs choke themselves to the blue of

our forgotten ghosts - the ghosts of

loss who have forgotten to haunt,

to be real outside of our

abandoned relics, outside our

destitute, neglected bodies.

blinded and uncomfortable,

once by lies and fear, now decrepit

the stem running up my back and

its wretched and cursed flower

wilt sixfold ever since the thunder,

the lightning that you unleashed on me,

stolen rouge, broken plumbing -

trying to be more than the damage you left behind.

no butterflies for this mess

conquered and destroyed by downpour, sunburst;

only a mouth full of ocean -

shuddering waves towards the blood moon -

and the remnants of your solipsism

more real to me than my own beating heart.

now, blinded by formal realism and your belligerence,

crimson clouds against inevitable death,

i know you can now see the light

no blades you need to hurt me

no delicately decaying words of devotion

for i always begin with you

and then diverge, disintegrate;

a mockery, mayhem, a survivor of bedlam

could i ever be more than the damage you left behind?

What was it about omnipresence that appealed to me

so much that I destroyed myself -

one mountain at a time, one boundary at a time -

until the alarms stopped going off at breaches?

The magpies don't sing when they're sad, so what am I

when I laugh at myself for crying?

Who am I looking for when my pillows waft voiceless lullabies

from a bed half-empty? (half yours, half mine,

and I don't know which one's missing.)

What was it about hedonism that disgusted me

so much that my body rejected kindness -

every peace offering, every affectionate touch -

until it could no longer hold itself together?

Metaphors, like escaped prisoners, running for a life anywhere that isn't here,

anywhere that isn't me,

and I fold and break into myself

in muted, nondescript implosions.

I hope she knows what she's getting herself into.
I hope she knows what your heart sounds like after a night of
comparisons between her handwriting and mine.                                                                                                                                      
I want you to know that I am through with dumbing
myself down to fit inside your god complexed hands.

Don't tell me I never tried to save us.
I wrote you songs with knives on my palms
and your ears were anything but listening.

I had a dream about you every night since you told me
you didn't know how to love anything with a heartbeat and hope.
I started sleeping again when you came back, and oh when you came back...                                                                                                                          

I am not sorry that my temper is as short as the lifespan of us.
I am not sorry that your smile is the only one that ever made me
want to wake up in the morning.
I am all pain and long long longing and she has always been
a storm with a heart dead set on your stillness.
Our problem is that I never stop shaking long enough for the dust to settle.

I've been writing with the same pen for four years and
you still only recognize my words when she plays them back.

Let it not be confused, foggy or incomprehensible-
you were the one.
Until the one became none and I stopped being a number when you stopped counting miles.

I hope she loves harder than a woman with dementia, relearning parts of you every morning
in the places you reserved with my first and your last- maybe next time.

Maybe next time, maybe next life will be different.
Maybe I'll be patient, stronger, I'll stop covering my smile. You'll stop pretending to be in love.
I will stop shaking and the dust will settle and her poetry will make you sick.
Her poetry will sprout evening primroses and she won't know that you always fall asleep before midnight
or that you're allergic to flowers that bloom when the sun is down.

my pianos a deaf mute
doesn't care when I smash the keys
I tell it anyways, listen here, you miracle, you conversation piece, I'm going to play you without plugging you in because 1) who makes electronic pianos and 2) I can hear the sounds in my head, just like old times old times old times
I map out a Beatles song I hate because I really just want you to hold my hand
I never take my foot off the soft pedal because it should always be gentle and I should always be gentle to you and God knows you're the only one listening so listen here and listen close
i know im not really alone because we are attached by the red string of fate or friendship or car crash and I know this because you're the only one I can say these things to without getting myself committed
if you want me I'll be in the bar buying you drinks you'll never be thirsty enough to let touch your tongue and what is all of this shaking for
who first felt this feeling and said **** I'm in love or **** I Might be dying because my chest kind of feels like the monkey bars after rain we all fall off of because we're too ******* stubborn to wait a while
what is it about instant gratification that has everyone around me filling up their gas tanks because "it's not gonna get this low again for a long time" and how I wish I could say the same for myself or
how I wish I could say the same for you
I don't know if this poem is a piano or if this poem is you or if this poem is drunk and wanting to call someone who will pick up or listen or want to
But
I once said to someone "I think I really need to talk about this" and I shouldn't have been surprised when I was handed a hotline but maybe you have always been answering the phone "tell me where it hurts, and then tell me again"

they're saying "all you do is drink and cry", "I think you're bad for everyone" and you're not saying anything and I'm saying I love you,
I ******* love you
And maybe I needed something to bring me back to reality maybe these bathtubs are always a little too deep for me but I fit so perfectly in small spaces because I learned when I was 14 that i was never gonna grow into a butterfly
but my aunt still calls me hers and I'd still flutter my eyelashes on yours while the earth turned to ash because I like things ending so softly
and you are a ******* miracle if I've ever seen one I want to sleep with you so badly, on a trampoline in the summer and I want to watch you do bad things and smile so sweetly at you and you'll know that I don't give a **** what you do as long as you're still loving me while you're doing it because baby we've got this one life and I've been loving you as long as I have known what love is and I know it's in the way you whisper and I know it's in the way you say you're my world and if the world stopped turning tomorrow we'd be the only things still moving with excitement you make me so nervous and calm and nervous and calm and deep breath you make me nervous I bet you'll make me nervous when we're older and I'm making you pancakes and I feel your eyes on me and I burn my fingers but you always kiss them better baby
you're an alleyway and the kitten that sleeps there
you're the rain on the windowpane and the water breaking the levee
I'm drowning in everything I have ever said to you so if I say one last thing one last thing,
while you're not saying anything,
I love you,
I ******* love you