i dreamt of holding your hand, i dreamt of hating you; i am hansel & gretel sharing halves of a sexless edgeless soft young body together sitting in your home and waiting with folded hands patiently, quietly, to be devoured. look i am telling you — it's fine. sink in your teeth, i like the feel of them. today in the trees i saw mary magdalene's shawl-framed face written in shadows between the branches, today i saw the ***** of babylon's hands at my window and i wept. today you kissed my barren chest with the mouth of judas, today i am nobody's child. tomorrow i am yours.

i dreamt i poured you wine from my mouth, i made you bread from my flesh. all i ever did was miss you even when you were right here. you cradled my hand like a mother and later the bones of my fingers like a lover; the walls were stainless peach and the sun was setting and filtered through the window the light from behind made your hair glow, your face was so dark i couldn't find the colour in your eyes. i cried now for what you made me feel until you kissed me quiet, your breath so warm and my voice lost within it, lost like a sailor all at sea, and i felt so safe with you then even knowing how this story ended — you drew away and in my mouth from yours had slipped charon's obol, slipped all down my throat with no resistance. through the suffocation i laughed a little and through the laughter i said to you "yes, that's right," only glad that you had remembered.

look i am telling you — i died perfectly happy because i had not died at all. i watched you from the eyes of the wood-pigeons at your window and i know you burned my body and i know you swallowed the ashes and still! still then all you ever did was miss me, even when i was right there, right inside of you. silly boy.

i dreamt of hating you and by the end i only loved you again.

i
you are dreaming: dreaming about your brother in spirit, brother in arms, you two sides of the one coin, him without his name but in every other way all the same. oh my brother, hiding in a hotel room with no windows, speaking in tongues, speaking in nadsat—dreaming of bowing your head to him, bearing your neck. if it is dissatisfying to you, cut it off.

ii
here it is perfectly silent. your mouth moves without a single sound and the fish clean away every trace of your blood: their gills tremble, inwards, outwards, endless; their scales shine like the moon upon the surface. you are born today into a monstrous world, a better world, and Lilith's womb ends at the shoreline—seaweed entangles itself round your ankles, the last despairing traces of an umbilical cord, sixteen years late. if it is dissatisfying to you, cut it off.

iii
serpent, sink your teeth into the apple of Adam; his throat wields to your fangs like the tired breath of a lingering lovers mouth. his hands are rough but your skin is rougher. today, Eve laid down asleep under your bones, your heart beats its last. everyone you have loathed is forgiven. everyone you have loved is not. but forget theology for a moment. you are dreaming. you are dreaming, and the rush of a thousand years of rain around you is your wakeup call—in your navel collects an ocean, in your eyes is painted a storm. civilisation on fast-forward sets up between your bones. sorrow makes a home of your heart. ashes to ashes, water to blood: if it is dissatisfying to you, stand and let it die.

I'm not feeling regret or bitterness
I just wish you'd stop embarrassing yourself.

And if this will only make you sad, for God's sake do not read it.
I miss the way I thought of you before I really knew you.
I miss the way I perceived you to be.
As this beautiful, mysterious, intelligent thing.
I don't miss how you turned out to be.
How you were all along.

And if this is making you sad, I beseech thee; do not continue.
I miss the way your hair smelled in my mind, before I ever smelled it.
I miss the way I imagined your hands touching.
The soft elegant strokes would run across my back and neck.
I don't miss how they turned out to feel,
only how they felt before you ever stroked my skin.

And if this will only make you angry, avert your eyes, please.
Because I do not need you.
Least of all angry.
I need to do this though.
I need to put these words out there.
Just as I did before I met you.
Just as I did while I had you.
Just as I do now that I lost you.

I am in love with a boy
I can only really love when he sleeps.
Once he wakes and starts to speak
We run into trouble.

The way he uses spite is appalling and
(quite frankly) impressive.
At the end of the day we are equals of the worst kind-
Weaknesses targeted
and terrorized.
Bent on destruction
of both each other and (most certainly) ourselves.
We pick and choose the rules.
Common decency means nothing.
What is common?
What is decent?

Why can't we just find a way to love each other that makes sense? (I frown)
Why does it have to make sense? (he pries)

But when he sleeps
It always seems rational and reasonable and
even sometimes doable.
Every movement, every whispered word, every muffled thought
dulled by dreams and expressed by snore.

Your breath is never regular.
You are never regular.

leave it to me to awaken
with guilt and embarrassment
oh ****
what did i write
which words did i fumble
how often did i repeat myself
what did i direct towards my family
what did i withhold from my lover
who did i hurt
when did i stop
why are my pillows wet
can i be forgiven
even by me
maybejustahairofthedog

fixed.

20
seems like the end of the line
to me.
Car crashes, bad habits, white rabbits
will reduce me down to just a spec of debris
chillin' in a petri
                               magnified
                           by                   a giant
                        eye        st           aring
                             wi                 th
                                   disdain.
"Helicopter pilot? Yeah right"
hit me like the last thing through a bug's mind
when it splats.
                           Its own ***.
Switched my postion from
                                                s
              ­                                  t
                             ­                   r
                                                a
              ­                                  i
                             ­                   g
                                            ­    h
                                                t
A student

                                 p
to drop out flying u
Eyes down. Laying          to keep on track
                                  low
blinded, cataract, stepped out in traffic
                       splat
like that bug again
or maybe more like promotion
Brand New Adventure
                                                I've seen the way the world
                                                turns
     ­                                                      I don't want any p a r t

when i think of you, i think about tracing scars and telling stories of the time when we swallowed fireworks, just to see if we'll both laugh or both cry or both kiss and lick at the wounds that are still there inside our mouths.

when i think of you, i think of stealing moments in the dark when i'll wake up and you will be there and i won't panic any more.

when i think of you, i realize that i'm a sap, and that i wouldn't want to have it any other way because i started as a love poet and i will always be a love poet, and i want to make poetry out of you and i.

when i think of you, i remember waiting and waiting and miles and miles where each one feels like shrapnel in my heart. i'm afraid that when i hand it over to you, to let it sit in your hands, you'll see just how small it is, just how weak. you'll wonder how it even beat, how it even raced at all. i see you taking my heart and kissing it, and it'll take all my strength to keep it beating in your hands. there will be holes where blood leaks, and it'll be messy. but please hold onto it. i want my heart in your hands, and i want you to keep it there. i don't know what i'd do if you thought to give it back.

when i think of you, i think of counting down days.

when i think of you, i think of driving down roads at night, accelerating too fast and feeling like i can't possibly stop giggling or else i'll just disappear. i think of wind and air that bites at my skin and warms my stomach because i wouldn't want to be anywhere else.

when i think of you, i think of the written list of all the places i want to take you, all the things that i want to do with you. in the end, we'll probably do some of those things, but not all at once. we can't do them immediately, because then we won't have a list. we'll have to keep adding, keep writing new things to do, and then we'll both have to keep secret lists, ones that i won't tell you and you won't tell me, and when we do them, we won't tell. for excitement. for more. we'll just keep it all locked up, so we can consult these lists while the other is asleep, or in the shower, or just not right there right then. little lists to keep everything okay.

a lot of the time, thinking about you hurts. because you're far away. because i can't see you, or kiss you, i can only say things over webcam or text or skype but then i think about not. about just… not. and then that hurts even more so i try not to think about that.

**** the distance. **** the time. i'll be seeing you soon. and that's a fact that makes everything better.