you are inches away from me
i can feel you
i can hear you

i can taste your thoughts
and swallow them whole
delve into your mind
and read you like a book

when you're inches away
which you are

i can smell your lovely scent
of cigarettes and cologne
it fills the space between us
which is only inches after all

but inches means miles
and miles means away from me

and away from me means--
you aren't here

i've got to stop looking
at these maps
they will ruin me

it's one thirty six am
and i am no closer
to sleep
than i am
to you

you start off with a structure
the bones
and the bones are covered
by flesh
and flesh is covered with hair
and freckles and things like
ears and eyes and a mouth
for hearing
seeing
and breathing

and then you get into deeper things like
the lungs and heart and various organs
and the brain somehow controls all of this

every thought you've ever thought
every dream you've dreamt
it's all happened
inside of an ***** no larger than your two fists
put together
so when they say that it's all in your head
they're telling the truth

when i was little
my christian parents
would tell me not to be scared of the thunder
because it was only god moving furniture around
making room for me in heaven

they told me
that the lightning was only angels
accidentally dropping pieces of gold to earth
sometimes i would sit outside with an umbrella
hoping a piece of gold would fall on our driveway

but angels don't exist
and neither does god
and the thunder is only echoes of the lightning
and the lightning is only columns of electrons
at approximately fifty thousand degrees fahrenheit
vibrating the surrounding air like a tubular drum
causing the sound of thunder

i won't ever forget their reactions
when i told them i didn't believe anymore
my grandmother gave me a bible the following christmas
but i sold it to a used book store the next week
and i used the money to buy a pack of cigarettes

i remember that day well
because there was a thunderstorm
but it was probably just god
moving my furniture back to how it was
because he knows i won't be getting into heaven
anytime soon

It took a mountain top of drugs
and a cabinet full of alcohol
to numb the obsessions and the cravings
for the perplex taste of the spittle
that always collected in the corner of your mouth
and for the protruding veins which gathered
in the crook of your arm
and freckle at the base of your spine.

It took a mountain top of drugs
and a cabinet full of alcohol
to numb the obsessions,
and the cravings
and the infatuation
with calling you mine.

You often told me that
I was your Queen of Silk
and Maid of Lavender Island
and I would tell you that
you were my King of Chevron
with kisses as sweet as
Cyanide
infused with a bout of
Ethanol
and sweet Cherry *******.

You kissed me once
and I prayed that I would die
for I would love to die
wrapped in the taste of
your bad habits
and
King of Chevron sway.

I feel you in every way
I see your mistakes
And I hate you for them
And you fail when you try to ammend them
Because failure is all you know
That's why mirrors are a no show for me
Because the hopeless face of your enemy
It's in truth a reflection of your own