you said you had never
seen a girl who could drink
***** straight from the
cheap plastic bottle
its slow burn cauterizing
my mental wounds
allowing me to feel
comfortable about my
self, my body
entwined in sticky arms
under
the covers

and i said
i was not as green
as my missing four years
would encolor me
flushing my cheeks-
bare, words bare-*****
on your bare chest
fingers weaving
reassurances
through firey hair

but what i kept
close, behind closed
chapped lips
forbid to let slip
from cigarette-
burned lungs
was that never
had i ever
been nestled
so
close
to another fledgling
and yet
it felt
so natural to me

Tiny steps to solid strides
We wonder why we wander
Everglades that consume the fire
Never waking from my slumber
Twins that vanish from my mind
Youth that ticked at a rate most unkind
Once upon a May I say so
Nothing is
Ever in two neat rows

i warned you about this
i told you, i told you
that loving a poet leads to nothing but heartache and regret
and ringing ears and fingernail scars scoring your chest
and you told me you could handle it just fine.
i warned you about this
i told you, i told you then
that a day would come when i would project everything on you
and you would feel the brunt of my emotional monsoon
and you told me you could handle some crying.
i warned you about this
i told you, i told you
that i hate you and your stupid ******* determination to keep standing even when the wind threatens to break your legs because the oaks that stand proud fall broken
and i hate you and your words that mean ****-all and actions that mean even less
and above all i hate you and your stupid ******* decision to love me because i hate me worst of all
and you told me nothing.
you asked me once before
why i listen to my music loud,
why i let strange men scream in my ears
and interrupt my rhythm with their own.
you asked me why i listen to incomprehensible words,
where’s the aesthetic appeal in
choked screams -
you asked why i let strange men scream in my ears:
it’s better than letting you whisper.
better than letting you murmur sweet nothings -
if the screams are loud enough maybe i won’t hear you anymore.
no lover can’t you understand:
“i love you” isn’t the right answer to “i want to be alone.”
no lover can’t you understand:
your love doesn’t prove anything,
except maybe that you’re dumber than i thought,
dumb enough to waste all your life on a straw girl,
dumb enough to breathe till death do us part into a ***** hurricane.
dumb enough to follow the ghost-lights into the swamp
even after they scream at you to turn back turn back before it’s all over,
but you choke on the swamp gas and the will-o-the-wisps
just scream themselves hoarse.
resolutions make you a better person and anything’s better than murderer -
this year i resolve to die like a sociopath
alone in my room with alcoholic  fumes,
fireworks like
twentyone guns.
this year i resolve not to **** you for being gullible enough
to love me.
i resolve not to **** you  for trusting me.
i resolve to choke on my own swamp-heart,
poison gas and roots.
yes i’m alive but i harbor death -
saprotrophs are my children,
scavengers are my brothers,
and i am just the moth too much like a maggot to be a
butterfly -
oh, but i’m an aurelian
you whisper soft because the screams aren’t loud enough.
pin me to the wall with your thumbtack thoughts
and wonder why i don’t come around anymore,
why i just sit with my back against the door so you can’t break in with your
butterfly net
and your light traps:
oh you know me so well,
a will-o-the-wisp seeks its own,
and my ugly moth wings seek self-immolation.
just leave me, just leave me
don’t spear my wings and preserve me forever.
just leave me, just leave me
don’t follow me into the ***** swamp.
just leave me, just leave me
i don’t want your help i don’t want your love i just want you to leave and save yourself cause i won’t ask you to save me
and that life raft can only hold so many words.
verses are heavy things and you don’t need an anchor where you’re going.
i warned you about this.
evacuate before you’re swept away
and the strange men scream in my ears.