you smell nice in the shape of a question mark
and your kisses ask me "will you stay"
usually blue, your eyes are dark

glass room
a pharohs tomb, so
everyone on the outside can see

these hearts too restless to ever ignite
say yes when he asks to stay the night

taking you home after a gin and tonic
a flash every few
not from cameras, but from zeus

we sleep parallel
and fit so well
you snore and cough and i don't mind
my hand reaches over and finds your broken spine

the stars sing their only lullaby
he doesn't love you, won't say goodbye

a question mark
a spark

a friends couch, faux fur was your gauze
as you clench your mouth

you're the best, you're the best ever
wipes a bead of sweat, you're my temporary lover
sleep until it is time for brunch
alarm clock is a phone call from your mother

i'm sorry i even tried
i thought i was different, that our spark hadn't died
i'll see you next time
in the shape of a heart

but next time, i won't let you sleep
i'll tear you apart
leave you, grab my things
"until next time,"
in the shape of a scar

Takeaway Chinese,
best friend's leaving me alone
for good. What's new, kid?

somewhere i have never travelled, gladly beyond
any experience,your eyes have their silence:
in your most frail gesture are things which enclose me,
or which i cannot touch because they are too near

your slightest look easily will unclose me
though i have closed myself as fingers,
you open always petal by petal myself as Spring opens
(touching skilfully,mysteriously)her first rose

or if your wish be to close me, i and
my life will shut very beautifully ,suddenly,
as when the heart of this flower imagines
the snow carefully everywhere descending;

nothing which we are to perceive in this world equals
the power of your intense fragility:whose texture
compels me with the color of its countries,
rendering death and forever with each breathing

(i do not know what it is about you that closes
and opens;only something in me understands
the voice of your eyes is deeper than all roses)
nobody,not even the rain,has such small hands

An orange Canadian city shines
outside beneath frostbitten sky.
It's almost January, I'm
               locked in with you
in your parents' house and the basement lights
gleam bright off your brown, wine-soaked eyes
          we're singing loud
          all alone in here
          on this frozen 3/4 night.

And outside
     all the voices ring out
     at the turn of an hour,
out of freezer-burned throats
     while they clutch their coats closed.
In here we've
     got each other and your speakers,
crowns of construction paper.

My drunk American smile shows,
we watch 2009 approach.
Your maple flavored laughter rose,
               stars in our eyes.
Hear the tape tear, glue flow, scissor cuts
and our separate fibers folding up;
          these paper hats
          we made together
          fit a flawless size.

A long farewell to sad goodbyes,
to Leaving Day and "cheers" to eyes
as big as mine on the River Walk
and firm footing on thick ice.

And outside
     all the voices ring out
     as the year greets an hour,
out of freezer-burned throats
     while they kiss out in the cold.
In here we'll
     kiss each other by the speakers,
crowns of construction paper.

Oh god.

There's far more gin than tonic
in this
and far more him than sense.
I'm just a mess
crying on the bedroom
floor.

I'm just drunk. With
one euro fifty reading glasses,
spewing out nonsense
to my friends and they
don't even care.

I'm so ******* lonely.
I'm the perfect venn diagram intersection
of the sets named "self-loathing blondes"
and
"narcissists"
and I have no real problems
so I'll just call it art.

**** it.
I'll drink some gin and read The Bell Jar.

How do you think
I got in to this anyway?

I can't talk, so I can't work.
The higher register of my voice
is just a squeak. A dramatic dog call.
A whistle on the inhale.

I thought it was tobacco,
but my friends caught the heavy head
and burning skin. So I'll go back
to inhaling slow suicide soon.

Do you think it's ****? The yellow
teeth and hands. The putrid smell.
Signing over your geriatric lungs
to a devil that lets you breathe for a moment.

The chef whistles tunelessly, infuriating
and constant. An asthmatic making music.
I think the rumours are making me ill.
None of it's true and nobody cares.

Today is grey.
It's raining in August and nobody is here.
I'd bake a cake but I can't make cake,
I'd take a drink but that would be silly.