i hand you your things and flee the driveway,
wind up at the site of a gas leak
firetrucks and pylons and
hazmat suits and me in
my ’85 corolla
declaring
myself
king

the tulips bloomed!

my hair adopts
copper sunlight

i am going to sip on
spiced *** and ginger ale
this evening

i am not going to
feel bad about a
god ****** thing

i ate a tin of cinammon mints for breakfast and
a plate of middle eastern pickles for lunch and
will probably swallow my pride for dinner

i am never sure i know what love is
because
i am always falling deeper into it

i wonder if you see my hand tremble
as i smoke my cigarette and
try to match your gaze

you are saying something different
with your eyes than with
your mouth

i tell you you look like a tiger in a zoo
where they don’t feed you enough
because it is the truth

fight fire with silence
burn me to death
i don’t care

go quietly into distraction
twiddling thumbs in anticipation
of impending ambiguity,
set on saving sirens from substance

i worry about your heart
only now that i have
ripped it from your chest and
thrown it, beating and ******,
onto a seedy vancouver sidwalk
at four am

you come to town and
say you would kiss me
if you thought i wanted you to

i wonder what more i can do
to make you hate me