someone's in the next room over
having *** while we
are weeping
what a way to mark the occasion
the day my fingers found a wound
you let someone else doctor
it's upsetting see
the bible in drawer next to us
the way our hands still
fit together
like the torn halves
of a love letter
the way you got
all dressed up like the rain
and how we couldn't tell
the difference in the shower
it was the longest hour and a half
spent crying
the hot water wouldn't give up
so why should we
right?
even though it was scalding
neither of us touched the ****
we knew this was supposed to hurt
your hair
a black mess against my shoulder
my fingers
oil in the vinegar of your hands
our bodies
the great divide
all the sobbing
a river runs through it
without the courage
to carry or **** us
so we step out
and drip dry
down to a mute breakfast
composed of quiet
and last nights liquor
as we came back in
there were people in our room
at first i thought them detectives
dissecting things
to see who had died here
i had forgotten this
was a hotel
and they were only
cleaning up after us
i wanted to stop them
plead
that the sheets were still perfect
that if they clean the bathroom
no one will know
what happened here
someone has to remember
"please
i know
these cigarette burns
by name
i will bury the faucet
let me take the tub
i don't care how
if i have to
i will drag it home by hand"

If there are ghosts in this place I think they're of me and you
Not of everything we were but of everything we were meant to be
You've always been the girl who's astounded she can't breathe
When she's spent two weeks filling her lungs with water
What a dangerous person to love
But I still remember what it meant for me
To drape my sweatshirt on the back of your desk chair
Light from your tv in the dark shines bright in my mind eye
Even though I've tried so hard to keep it buried under this garden
But how can I expect to be happy picking flowers that make me bleed
And I swear to God if I could face the guillotine to be rid of them I would
But ghosts seem to thrive in the dying fire
*~W.C.

For a second the world was silenced and freedom mourned.

i wonder if the doors in the house you grew up in
started slamming themselves to save your father the trouble.
i wonder if you can remember the last time you prayed,
and if you had trouble unfolding your hands.
i wonder if your mother knows
about the collection of hearts you hide in your closet,
i wonder if she could tell mine apart from the rest.
i wonder if your shoes know the reason why
you keep them by the back door and not your bedside.
and sometimes, i wonder
if you ever think about that night when i told you,
you wouldn't need to drink so much if you had me.
but it seems like we only speak when you've got body on your brain,
whiskey in your glass,
your judgement is overcast,
and you know i'm too weak to ignore you.
i learned how to translate your texts
from drunken mess back into english.
i am fluent in apology, but i don't ask you for them anymore.
this is just how it is.
it's not enough for either of us
but ******* it we are not above settling.
so i will ignore her name on your breath,
and you will ignore the fact that this means something to me.
i always thought the first time i kissed you,
it would be on your mouth.
i just wanted to be something warm for you to sink into,
something that could convince you to stay a second night.
but i sneak you out in the early morning,
and you take a piece of my pride with you when you go.
i am left to nurse the hangover from a wine i've never tasted,
wondering how this is possible.
waiting for the next drunk call,
for the next time i get to pretend we are lovers,
the next time i get to live out the fantasy i am most ashamed of.
it is the one in my head where you want me when you're sober too.

- m.f.

have you ever believed
in something so blindly
so genuinely
that the moment you realize
it isn't true, something inside you
changes forever?
i wanna tell you a story, see
seldom do i ever
go swimming in drinks
deep enough to drown in
but when i do
i speak in tongues
about things that none
of my memories
are allowed to talk about
like that christmas
at the isthmus
where my girlfriend
plucked a conch shell
whiter than gods teeth
out of the sand
held it to her ear
and stopped time
that day she was a shade of blue
the could've made the ocean sick
see, she loved to play jokes
when she held
the sea shell to her ear
she gasped, called my name
and said "i want you to hear this"
i said "yeah, right, everybody knows it's just the same old sea"
she replied "no. not this one. this one is special. listen. theres music in this one"
she handed me the shell
like a promise she couldn't keep
and i held it to my ear
with all the potential
of seeing shore
after being stranded
at sea for years
only to hear
a tired dirge of silence
spill from its emptiness
i guess she didn't know
how desperately
i wanted to hear it too
because ever since
something inside me snapped
now sand pours out
of every post card i open
i hear seagulls
in telephone static
sometimes i have dreams
where i bury my hands
in every beach
i've ever been on
and exhume this graveyard of noise
every time i try to sleep
i spit up fishhooks
and i guess i'm obsessed
but maybe
if i hold my ear
to enough vacant things
then i could have back
the time stolen from me
since it happened
maybe they would get it
if they knew what i wanted
when i blow out birthday candles
maybe they'll find me
face down in a wishing well
i watch eternal sunshine
of the spotless mind every day
pretending i can forget too
because this sea sickness
has followed me for years
because yesterday
i walked into a music shop
and all the pianos broke
but the only thing
i can think to say is
*do you know how bad
a memory has to be
that you fantasize
about forgetting it?

Put your mouth into mine and hold me like a tomb does. We've shared our bodies and our badness to the point of decay, we might as well keep washing our hands with each other's filth.
On the one night I slept for more than four hours, I dreamt that you had derailed a train with your your bare hand
it crashed into my front door and ran into my bedroom to see me, it pulled me atop it and the train was you
now i need you to cut up your passport and give it to the wind, I need you to set your past on fire and return to the ground with me, to consume with the only fire that will out mine out.
The fine line between you holding me and you holding me hostage is  wearing so thin that I can hardly see it, wearing, like the clothes I had on, the clothes I tore off in hopes of finding you somewhere beneath them, like a stupid girl does, like a stupid girl does, like a stupid girl does
I remember when you told me that I'd never see the good side of you,
right after you told me how easy it is for me to see the truth. And those words tasted nice , they tasted like power
You put dominance into the hands of submissive like an orphaned child into the hands of a widow, and you watched her run with it
I make a bet with myself that I can abandon you for more than a little while
I made a bet last September that I would hate you this September, but you keep slipping
into the arousal of the hatred you provoke in me and I keep saying your name into a hole in the ground like a song into a microphone. So listen. So listen. So listen.
A language is just the way the tongue falls in love with the body
I miss the days when I ached for you to put yours to mine.

It’s one year later now
And all your pictures are gone
It’s two girls later and yet you’re still the one
That I’m writing about and I don’t understand
Why I can’t let you go
There was little to nothing that was so special
About the week and a half we shared
You’re not the only one I’ve stayed awake until
3 A.M. for and you’re not the only girl who has ever made me smile
I’ve had more empty promises than the one you made
To me concerning backpacks and hospital beds
Maybe it’s because you’re the only one who has used me the way you did
I guess I was like medication for your anxiety
You insisted I didn’t have to be here and I told you
I knew what I was doing
When I took the class the next semester it almost killed me
Because I had to do it alone
And I felt so lost
When the doctor asked me if I was on any medication
It was all I could do not to scream your name
*~W.C.