child of two moons
        the harvest wheat grows
        diamonds
        on its stalks

daughter of the broken king
        your carousel’s chained bears and albino
        peacocks scream at night for
        their release

lonely lover
        the keyhole is  rusted since he last
        touched you
        the oil getting rancid

martyred saint
        your doe heart has an arrow of Cupid’s
        skewering through a demon’s
        confession written in fire

weeping widow
        your maid took your cup of tears
        to water the lilies giving
        root at his grave

sanguine seamstress
        do not stitch the bird’s
        wing that has bashed
        out its brains

non-existent soul mate
        your fingerprints stain
        my poems
        with star grease

lover whose number I lost track of
        I feel your footsteps ricochet
        within my bones please
        stop running I’m trying to sleep

You answered just a little too fast.
It surprised me.
I haven't seen you in about a year,
And I am realizing I've missed you.
It surprised me.
The last time I saw you,
And the time before that,
You were intoxicated.
It surprised me.
I haven't seen you in about a year,
And I am realizing what you are to me.
It surprised me.
You are a dress without hems or seams.
I hardly know you but you are beautiful.
You are the bullet in the rotating cylinder of the gun to my head.
You dig through my skull and explode my amygdala.
And force me to love you.
You are the jam in the barrel as I pull the trigger.
I fell to the ground in realization:
You both killed me and saved me.
It surprised me.

he claims to just be blatantly honest.
but he calls me lovely.
and compliments me.
and listens wholly.
and has extreme dysmorphia towards my weight.
and reads my poetry.
and compliments it.
and treats me as if I possess some sort of innate value.
and makes me feel secure.
---
was he lying about being honest?
or am I lying to myself about my value?

there are some mornings
when I feel the weight of my hair
pulling my head down

when I can feel gravity
pulling down the subway when we cross the
bridge between Castle Frank and Broadview

there are some mornings
I don't think I can get out of bed
because the world is too real

the empty space between me
and my fingers is filled with blankets
and the meniscus of my eyelids
is curved up instead of away