Only when steam encroaches upon
my reflection, do I undress
making a ***** pile of underwear
and esteem at my feet, this ugliness
just a sweating blur in the mirror.
I break a nail trying to scratch you
out of my naked skin
as I step into the shower.
Against raw wounds water is acid,

burning like your scathing indifference.
Just an hour ago,
I had put my hand to my chest
but before I spoke, you
just unbuttoned my Levi’s,
said, “Never mention it.”
You took me in your mouth
feeding your hunger with my body,
****** me empty.

I cough up my disappointment
as the steam strangles me;

unlike your hands, leaves no bruise.
These tears were not joyous
yet you lapped them up, thirstily.
This is never the me I want
to give; it’s all you
ever take, laughing as you
spit
me
out

Black water always spirals
down the drain after being with you.
What is it that keeps bringing me back—
your filth
or the catharsis afterwards?

This is not the first time
but it always feels as such,
always feels like the worst it could ever be.

It’s been so consistent lately
that I go to bed with the light on
just so I can see Death coming.
I stay up expectant of his arrival
like a child waiting for Santa
except I didn’t bake cookies.

It’s not that sort of visit.
But he’s not really coming, is he?
I’m not really dying am I?

I just don’t know anymore.
Logic has taken a vacation,
my heart has been left to the helm.
But he’s so preoccupied
banging furiously on the walls of his enclosure.
This ship is behaving erratically.

And then the alarm,
that **** infernal alarm.
A new days begins
when the previous never ended,
they just overlap, blur together
and I don’t know what’s really going on
or if I can continue living like this.

Don’t interpret that to mean I want to die.
But isn’t that what’s so awful about this?
You are just ripped from nothingness,
birthed into creation, never
allowed to make the choice to exist
but on days like this
you have to.

You can love the art,
but not the artist
and she says she is fond of
everything I write. She is,
perhaps, even my biggest fan.
But what she really means is:
“Tell me again how I’m beautiful
in ways the other boys won’t.
Tell me again how you’ll be here,
no matter how much I hurt you.”

Unrequited love is the best muse, right?
If I can’t be what she wants,
at least an extension of me can.
Some days, though, I trample through gardens
hunting dandelions with heavy breaths
wishing for nothing to say.