you take me to the ice cream shop where i used to work
i don’t know how to tell you that i’ll never learn
i don’t know how to love if it doesn’t hurt
i don’t know how to love if it doesn’t **** me first

you take me to the fire station where you go to work
i don’t know how to tell you i’m already burned
because i don’t know how to love if it doesn’t hurt
i don’t know how to love if it doesn’t **** me first

but we take the bus in the morning as it's been rehearsed
you always keep your hands near mine
in case i become ready again
to ignite myself on fire again
this time with your light
this time maybe
i’ll learn just fine

The sky cries in fresh water
and my eyes write letters from the sea.

notice how I don’t shrivel at your touch
the truth is I’m not scared of love, just
scared of being happy

the news calls for predestined stormy weather. truth is I don’t want to fight with you, my love
though if I’m being brutally honest I’ll say that I want you in all your seasons
I want you in december when the rain turns cold on your skin and the gardens begin to run grey. I want you under the fresh air of arizona sun rays and in the autumn as the memory of june fades.
please listen, I don’t want to have to watch you cry
only to kiss away your tears when you ever do—
I want you when the skies are glaring red from your view, when you do and don’t
feel right I want you to let me love you
because that’s what I think
that you would do
and I’m starting to think that you‘ll take me in all of my seasons
despite all these reasons I give—I’m
straying so far from perfect but please
let me live in the twilit gloom until I see the light in your eyes again, I promise I’ll
be back soon
swear you’ll take me in all my stormy seasons, love,
I swear that
I’ll vow to take you, too

this broken thing, we used to call it love
well it f*ing tore me to pieces and it still does
choking on air where the skyline floods
I wanna unlearn you
untrace your kisses from my hands,
forget the things you did
that made you an unloving man
I wanna have one day
to just wake up and not think of you at all
you awful creature of habit,
wretched love gone bad in every facet
some day I’ll wake up seventeen
again and unloved by you
one day it will be true
one day I will wake up and be
myself again, having
completely
forgotten you

The poetry of long grasses at my bare ankles
Whistle June winds through their green
Your favorite color; the honest shade of evergreens
Today was Friday—I spent it
With one of my two cats freshly muddy on the rocks
The weekend sun sweet out like lemon drops
Last night rendered a nonflimsy vinyl upon my mind
Your hands gently bearing mine
Lips closed in cerulean light
There’s a poem in the way they graced my fingertips—
Sunlight for my weekend mind

In mid April the evening is an eternal air
Sometimes I can feel you there
Wresting me halfway in mock spring tide
Wresting me back by my locks at my side
I still see you standing in a motted bitter blue
My spartan dying warrior with a spear straight through
And even though I’m facing southward
I can’t help but look at you

Like Picasso you must’ve been born dead
You’re standing still in tableau contrapposto
I stand squinting through an endless April snow
Still dreaming of the acid blue that you call home
And even though I’m facing southward
I can’t help but look for you
You’re graven in the April violence

Just the way you always do,
You’re wading through a fit of silence
Standing in the April blue