i:
Yellow jackets have their nests in the ground so they can
give their stingers to everyone
below three foot tall & never feel alone.

ii:
When I die
I want to be cremated to make room for another
five foot, four inch tall girl to live.

iii:
The woman who shall love you second
will not have the same size anything as me, not even my
heart.

iv:
when will there be more people alive
than people who have
died already

v:
You breathe 25,000 times a day
& only expect to
love once in your life.

I built a home for you, out of me,
when the bricks break
it is because I have been raided. The blue sky's
not even immune to cloudbursts
the humid air lifts
to resemble some form of heartbreak.
Call it
a mushroom cloud, I go off almost nuclear.

The truth loves me enough to reveal itself
the truth loves me
even when you do not.

I've decorated the staircase with it
and discovered rope-burn,
calluses like children wanting you to just watch
what they can do
watch a ceremony. What fathers create.  

I've padded its feet
with snow, the whole summer leaks with December
and my kneecaps are rotting wood.

Creaking
using garland as a noose
you know when I walk and when I sit, the truth
cannot stand for not knowing.

I've not let it lay down either,
this ****** affair. My
walls stay white and unheard of, untouched
yours are only
the cream of glue, I should have kept the doorway
shut and tied to you with a string.
Not even the truth can dissolve over a lie
(but I can, I can, I).

But
when God smells fear, he makes it happen
and God can be
a man, a woman, a lover.

We parked down the street, passed a bunch of signs
that gave directions like "move on" "slow down" or "stop stop stop"
and when I remember this
you are telling me a story about how you
miss the woman who raised you, and I know I did not
listen to the road signs for some reason. This is it,
this is why I cannot move on (I've been left, too, more than twice).

sorry, honey, but
she is not invited to
your birthday party.

I wonder
would it help, could I fix us if I just turned the lights down
and we drown in our former selves
have *** with each other
and ourselves -

the
relationship worked better when there was more
than just the two of us.

I never wanted a man
but when I did,
his chest had to feel as soft as mine;

our *** was to be the kind
that made buds
blossom and petals fly.

Thought

he loves me
he loves me not
it doesn’t matter, he is still hot.

I could not be reminded
of a gun

when a man wanted to press me up
against a concrete wall,
I wanted
to think of bubblegum or

August rain;
soft, warm, moist things
keep-me-close sort of things.

I never wanted a man
until I met you

who had me the wettest of all things
mimicking hot tea
on the very small of your thigh

dropping leaves for

summer storms to pick up
and love us, love us not, love us.

Our arguments have begun to sound like musical notes
on a guitar that needs fresh strings,
there is nothing new about them. I cry about the same **** thing.
You look better now that childhood's run past you,
the round cheeks remain
but heartbreak means more than pouring sand in a girl's eye.

For every twenty things you would like to say,
there are a million that you already have. I listen to your
song crescendo and wane and the
rhythm of your heart seem to fixate, on itself, no longer on her,
I think it must be the most beautiful kind of hurt.

The worries did you well,
took their form in lyrics like a group of deep-settled wrinkles
aging the process, aging wine, can only get better
when you read the ugly things I write.
And although you look good
wearing the "about thirty-two months ago at five o'clock" shadow

I will not miss
the year you turned twenty-six.