to write a poem without haste
to sew your name into my pillowcase
foolish girls should walk home alone
sleeping in beds too clean to call their own

i’d swoon and dance on the curb where you wait
your head between my wrists, i’ve loved you for days
neon signs paint us purple as we make ****** bets
your words too shallow to pay off your debts

denim waistlines straddling a sad boy in the day
black lace on the floor arranged for the love we made
fall asleep in the passengers seat until noon
never eager to leave me, always leaving too soon

we walked by the haunted house
and made out on the front porch

people say we fell in love at first sight that evening,
but i couldn’t see until the morning

and that beautiful birthmark that covered half of your body
i ran my fingers across it
like some kind of seamstress

and you threw my legs over your shoulders
and bit my fingers and i couldn’t stop looking at your birthmark,
it looked like a scar

and i asked you to drive me to walgreens
something about a plan,
what we were going to be

but we got lost and tangled
and my kitten bit our ankles in the kitchen
where i made you black coffee and i rubbed my eyes
too much, too much, i broke a blood vessel
honestly way too much

i was scared of the bruises on my thighs
and i thought  i wouldn’t see you again

“i’ll never see him again”

so i drove to walgreens
and the girl at the counter judged me,
and i bought a donut


you're some kind of cinderella boy
leaving a broken cigarette under my mattress

your birthmark left a stain on my eyelids and my hands
and i forgot to ask your name

i tried to love you last night
with whiskey, whiskey
but you've left, gone west
the morning after, the morning after

your first love is expecting
and I know it is not yours, because that one already
fell out of me.

I have problems differentiating
between what is something and what is nothing, but in my head,
it is a city now – there was no other place
large enough
to hold its beauty. like my empathy, my *******

conscience,
the guilt I take on of other people's sins

none of it ever leaked out from my skin. only dead cells,
I plead to do something for me –
if you must breathe
for another woman, as he did, become bigger
than a town
and make her feel everyone's pain too.