a lonely heart
thinks of the girl with eyes like diamonds in the rain,
and her eyelashes that float like dandelions.

thinks of the day
she ****** the warmth from the sky,
and watched the sunset down her throat.
her tongue broke like waves on the shoreline,
“I don’t know if I love you.”

lies awake,
up late, on a yearlong night
pouring alcohol,
trying to put his pain to rest,
only to watch his wounds erupt into fire,
and give birth to
a child caught in a trap of burning bones,
waiting for someone to hold him and say, “I know you.”

he wanders a desert,
chasing mirages, that are only clouds of text messages,
that swarm like nagging mosquitos,
before vultures pick him apart.
and he knows
no one wants to adopt homeless shadows
before the dawn.
and now,
deep behind the ribbed gates of his chest,
his veins are snakes in the garden.
looking to eat the end of
a lonely heart.