i strip metaphors off my skin
the feeling of you, something i never knew
i drink similies like they're gin
wishing and wishing and wishing,
i wish

i try to stop loving you —
how does one stop loving you?
you're an august rainstorm, though
summer's so faraway
i died the first time
you touched me;
your voltage and my vulnerability
hurricaning like houston does,
flooding my eyes like the torrid streets
last may
what i wouldn't give to be struck by you
again, just one last day

i'm all broken pieces
you looked at me like my hair was
dessert *** dripping down,
a dream, your eyes tearing through me
tears raising my exalted
sea
floods shattering my precipitous
strength
like my body was porcelain, i'm the
doll you lived to love and to hold
but never did
oh, brush my hair the way you’d do
just put me together again,
i beg of you

i'm going mad, sylvia
  sylvia, save me
    from the psychopath
my writing's bad
  but i'm a scientist
    i won't lie, it's
true that my own
  words evade me
    and non-truths persuade me
i found a love, he's faraway, he
  loves me too
    but i'm a writer,
not a liar;
  i'm not someone he can call his
    in this
world or the next
  my writing's bad but i'm alive
    i'm getting sad but i can write
about it, i suppose
  sylvia, i'll be a crying rose
    that dies when the words rain
because water doesn't suit
  me
    but i'm a swimmer, i'm the rain
so words will always
  choose me

maybe I could drive away, drive my way
towards you
get past Tennessee
and through
watch the flowers die and bloom
maybe if I lose my mind—
come closer to the truth
maybe if I look for you
in mountains you’ll be carved into
them just the way
I always do—
you’re in my mind
you’re in my room
I see you in the phantom blue, I
fall I drown I look for you
I close my eyes, don’t wanna lose

I close my eyes;
the flowers bloom