i knew you were the one when you were just another
pretty girl in my bathroom mirror
thigh gap and eager-to-please smile just a
golden-lipped canary of the serene morning

and now your arms still go limp when i kiss you
your soul still whispers me to sleep
and when i see you so open in the morning
watering the indoor plants you are my
whole world in baggy sweatpants rolled to your knees
as the sun comes up and sprays golden sparks across
the imitation wood floors of the kitchen
and shatters over the mountaintop

just as summer birds sing symphonies
and bees hum at the window
you too were awake fresh and early
like a lily of the valley petal
glowing in 6am sunlight
beautiful flesh tumbling out
of an old plaid workshirt you wear
on sundays because you say it still smells like me
and you say i'm beautiful with funny looking ears
as i watch you make breakfast from across the kitchen

in this intimate environment we are dancing
like a bubble rising out of the dishsoap sink
halo'd in refrigerator light flowing together
as the morning coffee percolates
i am behind you pushing into you
burying my face in your neck and breathing in
and gently biting you on the shoulder

the sky breaks into veins of yellow cloud streaks
and you run screaming onto the porch
pelvis giggling out into the mellow morning
and of course i follow obediently
undershirt flayed open by a knife-like fingernail
the smell of fresh hay in both our noses

we are taking a summer journey
on feet full of the good earth and eyes
intensely warm under the bleached
colors of this april morning sky we're connected
and still dancing with my hands on your stomach
and your gentle fingers raking through my hair
making the giant white muscle bulge and throb
hosiery being shed like old skin off the snake
of your sun-kissed calves yes my fantasy
is finally made of flesh and colliding with the
soft green velvet bedspread underneath and
your feather-point tongue tickles the
outline of my abdomen shining thick and wet

until the record clicks and asks to be flipped.

taste me, oh, i taste like god—
upon your tongue and we spoke a new language,
together.
waiting for
that apple
to fall.

i swear
but i'll sleep under your bed if you'll let me &
eat the dust in the crawl space between your kitchen walls
when you're entertaining guests &
only come out when they're in another room
or you ask me to

i'm not stalking you
i swear
i'm actually on this ladder fixing your neighbor's gutter
yes this same spot has been damaged for three years
& deserves a complex solution arrived at by
strenuous deliberation

i'm not stalking you
i swear
i'm not wearing the cologne you bought your ex
for christmas last year & threw out
into the aluminum trashcan six months ago
because that ******* didn't appreciate you
like i could

i'm not stalking you
i swear
i don't know how your mail gets mixed up with mine
at least twice a week the postman must be dyslexic
& also trade his mailbag with the guy who delivers mine
for five dollar bribes

i'm not stalking you
i swear
it's just funny we go to the same dentist &
you have such white teeth my mother would love
you if only for them

i'm not stalking you
i swear
this idea hasn't been growing in my brain since
i was an innocent boy spurting his essence into
a gym class knee high sock at night after
watching baywatch reruns

i'm not stalking you
i swear
i don't spend my days wondering if i should get
****** piercings
because you seem like the type to enjoy them

i'm not stalking you
i swear
i walk home this way too but instead
of a third floor elevator ride in a gated community
on the next block i'll continue three more blocks
west take the train back south four miles & finish
cutting through alleys for another mile until i
arrive at my own cellar apartment

it's not out of my way
i don't mind taking an alternative route

i'm not stalking you
i swear
but your cheekbones are stealing my sleep
& when i do dream you turn your ***
toward me not in surrender but
defiance that vicious
dilated ******* and heavy flesh
taunting me in my own
fleabed forever

every strand of your hair is another level of
complication. the tangles are lathered with a devotion
that has bent me broken.
my story is one of splintered wood
and nails made of toxic metals.
an ocean of surprise swept over me,
and the splashes didn't hurt me this time.

ice-cold fingernails keep calm when the moon
is up; there is an effervescence underneath my covers,
and tonight i will love myself.

******* for
turning out to be
nothing more than
two wasted months of
maybes.

It’s like you’re a pair of headphones—
coming in two different ears, and I’m bouncing
between one beat and the words that fall from my mouth
like ransom. I swear to god, if you’d just let me fall into you
the wreckage would be small, you’d just have to cradle me
like you do all the other bits that land in your lap
during the so called “suffocation” of your busy schedule.
I get that I’m too big to fit onto a calendar.
I get that sometimes I wear green just because it’s your favorite color.
But picture us together, and not with my clothes in a puddle
on the tile floor while the shower runs. Not with your hand
playing itsy-bitsy spider on my legs as you let your tongue
linger on the dips in my neck. Picture us on the sidewalk
with a lucky penny between our shoes, and how beautiful
our reflections would look even in that tiny surface area. Then,
imagine me in the stands with your over-sized t-shirt
and you could pick me out among the crowd. How about
our hands? Just picture them tangling together, your thick knuckles
knocking against my mother’s old ring. Or even take those circles you draw
on my hipbones and practice them on my palms.
I promise you it’s a lot prettier.
I promise you I know the route, I’ve been around that elliptical
that is your I’m sorry laced with every interpretation that is
YOU JUST DON’T FIT. I know I don’t fit,
and that you think we’re just too misshapen, but do you ever remember,
in that tipsy mind of yours, how slender my body fits into yours
like we’re two half-moons just making a sliver? I just wish you thought of me,
if at all, a little bigger.

bodies under a light
  nothing on our feet
green tea past midnight

lips spell catastrophe
  I reek of calamity
speech drops out slow

fogged-up glasses
  crackle of a packet
of chocolate biscuits

soft fingertips
  seconds swallowed
stuck in traffic

pathetic
  catch her eyes
self-induced electric shock

burnt tongue
  there sing the clocks
she lets me in

after a moment, i see you glance across
the black lake; a symbiosis enriched
with mud.
i create a sculpture engraved
with her last breath. all of it.
calling out from beneath the torn branch,
a shade a fog becomes my own mask.

danced into a puddle
of rain that condensed too quickly.
she caught me. every last whisper
and sound and grievance
was heard.