Sleeplessness is a lonely kingdom.

I could promise myself discipline with the daylight,
but what if I told you that I lied under the moonlight?
Sinners never sleep,
sinners never sleep.

They lie awake and talk
with the wings of Gabriel.
They don't shut their eyes;
there are stories in the picture houses of their own.
Of lie and deciet.
And guilt and anguish.

They'll never sleep.

They'll howl with the night
and forget why they were meant
to darken their hearts to match the sky.

They'll never glow. They'll never beat.
I'll never sleep. I'll never sleep again.

Kissing you was like swallowing
the salty, salty sea:

I have corals for ribs,
and seaweed limbs;
my bones are ship-wreck saves
and wishful pennies.

My heart is a sea-shell:
if you put your ear to it,
you’ll hear me screaming, shouting,
pining
for you.

We will forget the times I breathed your name into the sky
and made it rain.

The thought of you will become a ***** verse in the anthology of
apologies I figured in my sleep.

I will forget the touch of your skin
in the way you forgot how to love.

I could tell you of romance,
I could tell you of Sicily
and sanctity,
and what cold-blooded loving is like.

You can touch me like an iron blade,
rusted, perused;
and carve into me stolen serenades.
Jigsaw my dreams into sense,
I’m a little too tired of waking up alone.

We can do a give-and-take of hands
and we can go look for things we lost.
I could tell you how to love,
if you can show me how to stop.

Love someone who you cannot even
look in the eye:
it's not the demons in their self
but the way they make your heart
skip two beats instead of one
and maybe the realization that
they need not more than one look to know
you have already decorated a heart shaped room
in your ribs for them to find their home.

That's all they'll need to know
how once they let you in
you'll overstay
and lose your mind every time
their footsteps echo in the silent soundbox
of your conscious.

We don't talk of storms when they aren't already there;
if they can't fix you up,
they'll teach you how to ache instead,
and perhaps I'll learn to forget how to
give myself away in my smiles
and scribbles.

and scribbles.