this is not poetry.
this is the sound a heart makes when you swallow it whole
this is the taste of bile in your mouth
this is saccharine-sweet cancer
(all razor-edge smiles that catch to bleed you dry)
this is the crack of your spine
this is the ars(c)enic route to hell
this is the twist of your lips when you hold in your sobs
this is a love song in a language you'll never understand
this is a funeral dirge for happiness
this is your blood, or is it mine
this is your heart, or is it mine
this is where we join
forces this is my rib cage plucked out to leave my
chest unprotected this is your cue
to leave me this is a swimming pool of viscera just
like you always wanted this is the coffee gone cold this is
your love grown old and this is
not poetry
this is your requiem.

flirting with death telling her i'm ready
she's caressing my temple my lips and my chest
with a blue steel barrel goosebumps and longing
a short sharp breath and eyes closed tight
i ease and ease and ease the trigger in
click
can't die yet, rent's due tomorrow

my first wedding will be a seance because
there is always destruction in my wake
and my words only make sense in your mouth -
i put a ******* hurricane behind your lips
and went silent when you ripped apart
i slit my throat over your coffee and i
think i understand now
why you didn't flinch
(someone is using you and i told you not to be so ******* gullible
and you said -better to be wrung dry,
better to be used to death
that to leave anyone
alone-)
lypophrenia lypemania lyssophobia i find it fitting that lysis means both
recovery
and the destruction of cells
because you said i saved you every day while i watched you
erode
slowly
i gave you love and told you it was armor i'm
so sorry for all the holes in your chest cause i
set you against yourself you tore out your heart you cut off
your left arm
to make more room for me
(you said to me
-i'm not as masochistic
as you think
and i don't pretend to be some sort of *******
martyr
but everyone has a purpose and mine is to be used-)
i've got mouth full of blood and fading anesthetic i need a distraction i hate
thinking about myself because
(i am caught between conflicting states
of lies
and nonexistence)
burn my fingers on a lightbulb and think of you,
trade numb limbs for phantom pain and try to learn to walk slow
to let your ghost catch up to me,
let anxiety pool in my calves so you don't feel so alone
let panic return to my diaphragm so i don't leave you behind
(you asked why i walk like i'm running from
ex friends ex memories ex selves
as long as i move i don't have to think i'll sweat out one more lie and never think of it again
i'll keep my teeth clenched so my diaphragm is a prison)
oh treachery! fraud!
i say so many words and don't know what any mean,
i take an oath for a god whose face i've never seen whose hand i've never held and whose scent
could not compare to
the smell of you in my bed the
smell of your shampoo in the rooms you haunt,
you lie limp on the floor and tell me stories of
jesus,
love and life
who fed himself to the hungry until he was nothing
-my body, my blood- you say
-my body,
my blood,
sustenance for the weak,
nourishment for the starved-
your hipbones through your skin (maybe you should feed yourself) i say
and you laugh
(someone is using you don't make me say it just don't be so naive
someone is using you i am using you you are the vessel for my violence and
emotional death is less apparent than physical and sometimes
you don't
realize
that you've been dead since october)
my first wedding will be a seance.
we will say our vows through an oracle
i dont need anything but proof that this ghost
will haunt me.
this ghost will remain and their scent will fill the room.
this ghost
won't believe when i lie
when i bleed into your coffee,
do not drink.
watch the ph rise like floods.
wait for my apology.
when the haruspex tells you the future is bleak,
believe them.
leave me.
make armor from discarded wedding bands.
do not be used again.

I miss the heavy static grunge of your music muffled by my walls,
I miss your glasses,
I miss when you showed emotion,
I miss when you would drive me to school and give me cigarettes,
I miss when you would show me new indie bands and unlock a whole new world for me,
I miss our explosive and ordinarily magical science experiments,
But you dived into the blood contract of the world,
Now you are void,
Now,
You are not you,
You are a puppet to a mouth,
I have never stopped at my every intention,
To rips it's tongue out,
No matter how much yours scorns me,
Brother