I don't know how to tell you that I have found the love of my life in the corner of my hospital bedroom. He stands patiently. Watches me eager. Feeding me his hand-me-down depression. He could make me feel at home in a roofless shelter, make this rain feel like soft kisses along my skin, he could make razor blades feel like feathers. I have never known the true definition of flirting until seeing the hunger for my soul in his eyes. I don't know how else to tell you that I've found the love of my life. All I can say is that death has been begging me to stay the night, I've been choking on apologies. These days he's the only one who knows how to hold me.

1:26 am
My eyes are burning
Can't sleep
Can't think
But you're still there
Back of my mind
All of the time
1:27 am
Floor to ceiling
I'm down here
You're up there
I can't take the stairs
That would be the hard way out
1:28 am
I could crush the place down  
Take the easy route
1:29 am
But how
Do I know what to say
When you've watered me
To the ground
1:30 am
And how the **** do I stay
Mad
When you're only
Begging me to blossom
1:31 am
I love you
For taking my heart
And planting it in your garden
1:32 am
I love you still
For letting me grow
1:33 am
But my eyes are burning still
Because what do we have to show?

my eyes opened to find
the thin lizard dawn gleaming
after the gutter drank its' fill
of the moon last night
the tambourine
buried in my lungs still
vibrating like these walls
papered with cheap roses

last night i found comfort the
only way i know how
in situations like this
beside a girl wearing
a pretty ribbon
twisted around her waist
pomegranate lipstick
wet clay & tragic glitter
smeared across her eyelids

we spent the night
roped together by
half-removed clothing
& my fingers third
knuckle deep
counting the pulse
of the heart
of the universe

while the wild fox
barked on the hill outside
& the mockingbirds
played riffs in the lilac bushes
her ******* ran tight
around her shins &
she sputtered the dark
lyricism of bees
twisting her tongue
backwards around
itself in my ear

our bare bellies
slapped together as
my tongue found her
tooth enamel &
the trees formed
a tight center loop to
harness the sky
for us & i
held my breath
waiting for her
to breathe first

i can feel her chest
& plump **** now
quietly throbbing
against the tight young
flesh of my back but when
i roll over & see her
eyes darting
green like a thin
ocean laser avoiding
my dynamic gaze &
her pouty mouth emitting
a pink yawn i can tell
she's unhappy & ashamed
of me

i tried to run
my fingers through
the butterscotch tumbleweed
of her hair but she just
popped her gum
& sent me
high stepping through
the soft warm mud
& chest high cattails
of her driveway
callow under the clouds
stuck like gnats to
the fly paper sky

Throughout this expedition to my peak, the most hindering obstacle has always been the wind of another's breath.
It takes only a sensitive receptor to see the top of the mountain.
That seems to be enough, until you first slip.
I must maintain a certain numbness about me to make it, or a way to cut between and slip through.
I do not yet know how to go about this, but I can no longer stand in one place,
Lest this all disappear.