Today
I said my last goodbyes. Today I
pronounced you dead.
Today
I told you I loved you.
Today I left you alone. I told you to
come back
when you wanted to.
but I want you now.
I want you now.
Come home.
You don't have to say.
Just let me say goodbye, before I go.
Before I go.
Please.

We sat down together, and she began to ask questions.
"Age, age is a funny thing, is it not?"
"Ah, yes. My lover, my mental cannibal, she is 18. Or was. I think she's dead."
"Keep going, friend."
"About what?"
"The thing that eats your mind away. I have one too. Did she wither away?"

I shift in my chair, uneasy. The pit of my stomach begins to ache.

"She disappeared. She was sick, you see, and one day, she simply disappeared. Oh, I didn't give up there, I try to contact her to this very day. It's the not knowing that eats at my skull."
"What part eats at you, her absence or her presence elsewhere?"
"Her absence."
"Do you speak?"
"Love is too cruel to want to have it again. We used Skype."
"Ah, real person."
"As real as I am."
"That's a statement too profound to mean anything and to meaningful to not mean anything at all."
"In the end, I'm only as real as I want to be - which is to say, a ghost, nothing more and nothing less."
"Everything is nothing. Projection. What did you talk about? Did she love you too?"
"We talked about everything. The universe and life and love and ***. I like to think that she loved me."
"What was she sick with?"
"I don't remember. But she was so beautiful, as she coughed and hacked and still smiled when she saw me."
"Did she name you Goat?"
"No. I named myself that, because I eat everything until I am left alone in a pile of my own filth."
"Is she still there? Do you still hear her?"
"I hear her voice, her laugh, everywhere. I miss her. Every part. I miss it when I did something stupid and she laughed. I miss her eyes when she read one of my poems. I miss hearing her sing out on the stairs. I miss her wild hair."
"Pain- write about that, write about relief."
"The only relief for me is death, and I'm not that desperate yet."
"Ah, desperate to end this suffering? Write about death and write about love and life and addiction and form and state and *** and senses."
"It feels like so much longer than it has been. Everything moment is a lifetime. In fact, it must've been. It's inhumane, this suffering."
"I think you mean too human."
"Perhaps."

is there anything
that separates me
from a common disease
because all we do
is infect
and ****.

I am curtained behind a small stage
humming slowly in bright red colors
into a microphone
that is held not by my own hand
but by that of her
and the crowd stands slowly
their hands coming together
in a crescendo
of applause
to say that I should go on
let me sing more
and they never have to see me
I can be your favorite idol
but don't look at me
no, please don't, don't look at me
just listen to my voice
luring you into the dark
so I can touch you once more
and you never have to know my name
just listen to my voice
low against your ear
with sultry vibrations
to alert you
to those behind you
so you will fight for me
until you return
and I will wait.

how can you expect me to talk you down from a ledge when I'm the one on it?

There is a fine line between obsession and love
and suffocating myself
with a pillow will not solidify that.

pierce my soul
with the heavens help
and no one will cry for me
any longer
they're all gone now, she said
as if it mattered
as if they could save me
when all I wanted
all I need
is someone to cry for me
for its such a lovely day
and I can't help but grieve the loss of you
because you were all I knew
you were all I wanted
and now I know nothing
I am blind in a world of grey
and I prefer it this way.