i:
i find space between us
even when you are inside of me

ii:
it would take me
two hours to fall to the bottom of the ocean
and two days to get to you

iii:
floorboards creak
i sing

you get so close
my ***** breaks like a guitar string

He plays on me like I were a fairground,
I am sun-stained
he is hard.

To me,
there is being dead
and there is being alive twice --
give me your pulse, give me your alive --

I am either empty
or full as a ferris wheel at night.

I don't say that sometimes I cannot fit in
the carousel rides
or that sometimes the carousel rides

won't fit in me. He
takes my heart and puts it on the swings.

(when I forget to take my pills)
everything round becomes a gunshot, a bullet

your freckles fall off
one by one
and shoot down the road towards me ( as fast as bullets go
still I never can catch them)
I can never paste your freckles to my face

of everything I want to put my mouth on,
kiss, then never touch again

pillows shrink to the size of gumdrops ( I will never
sleep again)
and I swallow them, cushion my heart

say it is okay
baby baby soul baby arteries
everyone hurts when the pupils still have to grow
it takes time to snow, to become

quiet.

There is a face at the very bottom of this sea
coral, shells cupping her cheeks
loved the beach
so much she wanted to put waves in her hair, wanted
to be part of the universe that
                                   requires no legs.

For all we know, the oceanfloor
could be the sky
of some other universe
and swimming fish make up the cosmos.

                                                   Saltwater burns


                       the sea
                               so you can see.

things that rhyme with you --
***, coma, three meters of ribbon that are your veins
the emerald sea
any other gemstone-like thing, girls
boys, angels with wings,
pasta noodles with big gaping holes, curls, frizz
buckets of saltwater,
honey, fingertips, promises in two different languages

you exhale softness, and
I have cold hands
the moths have to gather under my nails.

it was once supposed that
swallowing gum would make your intestines
stick together, that
is why I shared my piece with you
one day.  you said you had an idea, soon
we both smelled of cinnamon.

wet, sticky cinnamon
please glue your insides to me, I thought.

I threw up in July, exhaled
you.

I needed to, so I could write about how I get
so sad sometimes
so empty
my hands are cold but my
heart almost always has a fever.

I am so tired, I need to get wasted
but I am pretty sure
any alcohol would curdle in my stomach —

the trashbag I keep under my
clothes, use my intestines as the
drawstrings. I get
anxious, my body is hot and heavy and
moist, everything slides off
my skin and never stops coming back.

I need to get wasted
but sometimes it feels as if everyone I
know is an alcoholic — mother,
sister, uncle, dad. It could happen
to me

and maybe I would finally be happy if
I always had something to
use to drown my body.
Having blood is not enough,
it won’t even stay under my skin. I
am so awake, I could drink
a river

and then another and another
and all my nerves would still feel open.