I can ******* heat on your breath
I let you retreat again like the swift pull of the tide from the moon
Hoping you'll mistake a passing car outside the window for my sigh of pleasure
I cannot muster authenticity
Because I'm too busy wondering why
you told me you aren't scared to die
you told me you're scared of being something you're not
you told me you're lonely.

I thought I was coming here for a quick release
To be, for a moment, one of your better girls.
I came to forget a love, quench a thirst
To leave with stories at the tip of my pen, and notches in my belt
I thought we weren't going to care about each other.

But where do we stand now?
Pinkies entwined, floating side by side through the night.
Keep our balance, "Darling."
I won't be the girl who puts on a happy face for your parents
Or the one who blushes at the sound of your name
Or the one who says "I love you" and means it.
You were the last person I expected to want these things from me.
But your disappointment is tangible each time I reclaim my shirt and walk out your door.
And that's how I know we went wrong somewhere along the
Line

All night it was off. We were off.
But maybe you couldn't tell

You were glowing in an instant
I could feel you trying so hard
Whisking me away to quiet piers
Dancing your cigarette lips across mine
While we strolled through the rest of beat up, built up, Brooklyn.

That was the first night I felt beyond you.
You with your big heart on your fair trade sleeve
Affection sewn into all your fibers.
I grazed your chest with my fingertips
Only to organize you into stanzas and scenes
syllables and scripts.

"I really like you."
"I really like you too."
But it wasn't the same thing.
"Even though I'm a Cancer?"
"Even though you're a Cancer."
In so many more ways than one.

She sat french kissing strawberries until all the good bits were gone.
Tapping *****, chipped nails against granite
Waiting to fall out of love.

Is it still ok to think of you when I'm all alone
and I just need someone to touch

Or what about when I'm exhaling sobs into pillows
and you're the only one who'd understand

My mind is my own
I'll imagine your hands, arms, and heart wherever I please
In my favorite dreams and fantasies you'll come back to me

The rims of his glasses were pressed to my inner thighs
Warm, desperate breath
Sweet, smug eyes. "Pug eyes" he says.
And no, I didn't think of you.

Black and white, tame and tentative touch
Nothing to share, least of all eye contact
A charitable caress. Stiff salutation. A bound to the exit.
But no, I didn't think of you.

Churning head, stomach, tongue.
I mirrored his goofy smile
My insides mirrored a washing machine
We were a tumbleweed of bones.
I did not think of you.

Alone with my reflection
Flaws glow infer red; eyes sting with tears.
I still did not think of you.

Old basement. Old Building. Bland Sandwich.
"I just want to get to know him more," she says. I feign interest.
"I want someone to notice the little things about me. I want love"
I stop I freeze I drain
My throat is tight and full of blades
I think
I think of you

The loosing fight
I sit alone on this dark night
And try to win a loosing fight
I try to stop myself I swear
To tell myself I ought to care
But even now I'm reaching out
And very careful not to shout
As the pain shoots through my wrist
I know full well I haven't missed

These poems do not live: it's a sad diagnosis.
They grew their toes and fingers well enough,
Their little foreheads bulged with concentration.
If they missed out on walking about like people
It wasn't for any lack of mother-love.

O I cannot explain what happened to them!
They are proper in shape and number and every part.
They sit so nicely in the pickling fluid!
They smile and smile and smile at me.
And still the lungs won't fill and the heart won't start.

They are not pigs, they are not even fish,
Though they have a piggy and a fishy air --
It would be better if they were alive, and that's what they were.
But they are dead, and their mother near dead with distraction,
And they stupidly stare and do not speak of her.

I have no wit, I have no words, no tears;
My heart within me like a stone
Is numbed too much for hopes or fears;
Look right, look left, I dwell alone;
A lift mine eyes, but dimmed with grief
No everlasting hills I see;
My life is like the falling leaf;
O Jesus, quicken me.