You've become
Simply a trophy of someone's hunt
Just a notch
Carved in the end of a lover's knife
Take your skin
Lay it down over the splintered floor
Use your blood
Coat the walls over with rusty red
Break your bones
Wear them in jewelry around your neck
And remind yourself
Of what it once was

I won't love you
Like the bee loves the flower
With mindless attraction
I will think of you
Hour after hour after hour
With countless and conscious devotion

I won't love you
Like the desert loves the rain
When it falls after months of waiting
I will long for you like it
When our distance is too great
And preserve every moment in a timeless memory

I won't love you
Like the volume of the ocean
Fading from blue to abyssal black
Your essence will engulf me
Encompassing every aspect of my being
Still holding dear the shimmer of your hair in the sun

I won't love you
Like any poet has ever scribed
Or dreamed of loving anything
I will simply hold you close
Take one deep breath
And whisper in your ear all the things they wish they could whisper

I won't love you
With the devotion of a man of cloth
In his compassion for a Greater Power
I will believe in us
As many have for centuries
So much so that our love will be worshipped

Use me
As you would a napkin
To remove excess mascara
As a blanket
To warm you when the heat is off
Like a chauffeur
To drive you to the edge of the atmosphere

Use me
Like a bandage
To heal your wounds
In a cocktail
To achieve that buzz
In a sentence
To appear more hip

Use me
At all hours
As I never sleep
With no remorse
As I am heartless
With caution
As I am flammable

Use me
Like poison
For your enemies
Like a gun
When it seems bleak
Like formaldehyde
To stay young forever

They call to our conscience
Believing lies of which they constructed
Speaking of the end
As if they know
Why we tick
What we stand for
And how we were built

They engineer misfortune
The pain of a swollen stomach
The heartache of a lover's leaving
The absence of warmth
They tell you how suffering is key
To your happiness
To Enlightenment

We abide by laws
We are taught how to love
To live
To die
To endure the smell of the twisted essence of affliction
And for what?
For whom?

There is no governing divinity
Morality is out with bell bottoms
We suffer
We'll endure
You'll wash your hands

Dial me on your radio
That way I'm not too far
You can hear me singing songs
About good times and how
I miss you so

At one hundred Megahertz
I'll sing you all the songs
You've never heard me sing
And read you all the poems
I've never read

If you tune in late at night
Put your ear up to the speaker
I'll whisper in it
All those explicit things
I always said

Though.

The speed of light is not
Quick enough to relay my words
And wavelengths to shallow to convey
All those unsaid words
To you in the past.

Dial me on your speaker-box
I promise only to say
All the words you want to hear
All the songs that I should sing
To make you smile
With nothing else to cloud it

That's if you want to listen
And if you use the radio
I built with our connection
My passion the transmission
Your body the antenna

Look at those stars
Take a deep breath
Think about old flames
Dance with the dead

See in new colors
In luminous greens
Speak in tongues
Only you understand

Ramble on about nothing
As you often do
Apologize after
Hope it's excused

Breath deeper this time
Let it all fall
Don't think too hard
Unravel space and time

Take shelter
Find comfort
Keep saying to yourself
You aren't alone

Panic when you realize you are
Stumble
Try to find who you've lost
Fail

Cry as loud as you can
No one can hear you
No one cares to
You are now dead to everyone

If there is one thing I've learned
In the past few weeks
It's the only encouragement
You are capable of giving
Are those kicks to the ribs
When I'm down on the ground
Or
It's horoscopes and fortunes
Only grant truth to those
Like pipe dreams come true
Because we are all searching for something
Deep inside the plumbing

If there is one thing I've learned
In the last few months
It's hope is not hope if it's broken
That evanescent idea in my head
Of happiness being at the end of the tunnel
And not inside me is wrong
Or
It's everyone has an agenda
And regardless of their philanthropy
They are in it for themselves.

If there is one things I have learned
In the past few years, it's
Love is both existential and theoretical
It is not for the faint of heart
It is for those who have had theirs made strong
Through scarring and wounds
From having their ventricles punctured
By cherub's arrows and constantly having them removed.
Or
Love is a war
And only those in its wake of misery
Will truly understand it
Once they have its warmth
In their arms.

If I understand only one thing
Throughout my entire life
It would be "I love you"
Should never be an obligation
Nor a recursion
Nor a simple statement
Said to make one feel better
Or
When trumpets blare
And violins sing
And such crescendo swells
Until such music leaves you
Breathless and without thought
Only then will you feel like I felt
In your arms