i would give everything i am to feel
settled in my own corporeal form
tied down to my organs and tethered to my body
intertwined in a reality that
others can access
and isn't their acknowledgment proof enough
that i am of the world
and here
here
her
that burning girl dancing in the
flames of my own house fire
since i doused myself in gasoline
and lit a match

look at me
burn your eyes out of their sockets

look at me
and remind me that i'm here
right here
with you

tell me you're not going anywhere
as i watch you drive away
in the smoke of your absence
so i light a cigarette
maybe the blue smoke curling from
the smoldering cherry
could recreate our life together
but it keeps me standing on that curb
and watching you disappear into the distance
to the horizon
where you fall off the face of the earth
my face
with gorges carved out by
sea salt tears
and i scream for punches
and slaps
i ache for raised bruises
slowly falling into the bluish purple of twilight
and lingering in the verdant green grass and
yellow morning sun
so i can't forget that pain
finally made evident
physical

and i scream into another dimension
so no one sees my anguish
i bottle my message and send it to sea
half hoping some caring soul discovers my secret shame
half hoping it is consumed by the tempestuous oceanic depths
but all i want
is to show it to you

i want to give you
everything i am

i want to share with you
an authenticity i have evaded
truths and reality i have run from
so maybe i know that
you can handle me
that your calloused hands can
grasp my flaming unbridled terror
without sublimating into nothing
and leaving me with
the inevitable culpability that
as always
implicates me in
the destruction of all things
and the death of all hope i had
lashed around the idea of you
and the naive thought that you
love me
and

everything i am