how can you tell me you love me?
you know i know you don't mean it
            i know you don't mean it

just like i knew you didnt know–
            couldnt read the lovesick poetry
                        etched onto the curvature of my pupils
            when you laughed and said "you love me"
because–
            no ones in the business of truth here right?
                        i know whats going on
            we're just pushing jokes real close to the boundary
                        but still no one could trammel up enough evidence
                        to make a case for one or the other

but god if
if you meant it

if you really do love me
then
            i dont think i know who i am
i dont think any of me is left
i think
            i am all evaporated tears by now
            and spent ink

please i hope
i hope you dont mean it

because

this doesnt feel like love ...

id have to forget about you
forget that i ever believed id have it someday
tear down my hope banners and polaroid fantasies
            lists and plans and dreams
because

you told me that i
already have

what i thought i wanted

i guess i had hoped you
wouldnt give it away so easily
            even though i used to wish you would

i hoped id feel enveloped in it
thought id never have to bandage up another frostbitten finger
but i

god
why am i still so
cold?

can i ask you–
            my last request
            ill ever ask of
                        anyone
will you
            **** everything i was
            leave no molecule of ink or
                        inkling of madness

burn all my poetry
            and swallow the pathetic pride
                        escaping in the fumes
scrub my skin
            boil down all the feathered hope you can find
                        it is the only half-decent detergent for tear-stains
            scrape until i glow
wash out my throat
            bleach the mold with indifferent silence
                        if you lay it thick enough
                        the words should lose their sticky grip on the walls
            and drown my lungs in perfume
use forks and trowels fashioned from steel apathy
            to pick out the overgrown weeds rooted deep
                        in every crevice of my brain
            dig out the parasitic seedlings of poetry never written
                        plans never executed
                        fantasies never realized
                        words never understood                        
                        storie­s never told

            **** them all
superglue the shards of whatever is left
            so she
                        will never know enough
                        to care
and bury me
            in the clothes she touched
                        when she told me
                        she loved me

”yet the fervent flame that fuels her will flatten her to bodilessness” — bodiless by Christina Weiler

her blades like
shiny silver roots
            dug into
cold white soil

shaped thighs and calves
ankles forged from steel
firm and strong
            s    t    r    o    n    g
know their frictionless home
            better than the restrictive
                        ground for mortals
she learned to
            skate
                        before she could
crawl

the chill that
            penetrates
her
does not freeze–
it
            charges her body
                        fizzles in her blood
fills her lungs with
            red hot molten
                        fury

each powerful
            gut-wrenching
            scratch
          ­              scrape
            sharp            edge
carves
   ­         echoing prayers into
the heart of her
            unforgiving god

ordered
            by a world that doesn't
            understand where she came from
                        (whether heaven or hell no one really knows or cares)
to shatter
            the ice dreams that saved (or cursed) her
to obey
            the ground
to pretend that she will find that thrill—
            find herself— in
            something else

but through the aches she knows
she will never
forget

im always
boiling over

always at
            the b r     i       n            k
of somethin
                      g
on the verge

always breaking
tripping            wires
falling            over
shatte­r            ing
            some
                        thing

­everything
is
always             mo            vi            ng
time
            changes
         ­               things
stretches some            things
compresses
            other
things
no matter what
            things
you fill the minutes with
            like little microwave hot-pockets
even if you leave them
            em            p            ty

if they are
            cooking for
too long they
will boil
over

im always
boiling
over

always being
pushed up
            the mountain skyline
                        past heaven
where the linear flow of time
            morphs into
                        infinitesimal infinities
and the sky blackens
with thick
            st            ick            y
suspen
         ­     se

but im never
boil            ed
over
just always
boil            in
                        g

never brok            en
just perpetually
break            in
                           g

never fallen just falling
never shattered
only
ever
            shatter
                        i­
                                    n
                          ­                      g

i dont even wish for
whole-ness
anymore

static-ness
empti-ness

or to start over


i wish
for entropy

to finally
take over

for time to finally
change

me

for boiling

over

for my cracked spirit to finally
break all over

and to finally
turn

to dust

i want blue eyes
glistening like moon ripples on
mirrored lakes

i want blue eyes
burning like sapphire flames
in the furnace of half-baked
dreams

blue eyes
that churn glittering snow
and overflow
overshadow

blue eyes
like
liquified winter skies
dripping, seeping sorrow
wings of iridescent dragonflies
fountains in secret grottos

blue eyes
like yours
lost
            in their own ocean labyrinths
            in thought
            in other dimensions
where brown eyes
            cannot follow

sometimes i think
that maybe
if my eyes were blue
too
maybe you would

take me with you


            take me with you

i thought i was special
i thought she went home and
            spent hours combing through my irises searching for
            colored flecks that match her own

i thought she was hoping so hard that i felt
            her wishes dissolved in tears
            seeping from her palms
                        when she cradled my cheekbones

i thought she always knew what i was thinking –
            that if i let her stare for too long,
            she would find the hopeless poetry
                                    brimming with bitter-tasting imitations
                        that i etched into my retinas
            and the thousands of tattered fading photographs
                        i plastered onto the walls of my mind
                        – a record of all the moments when she
                                    let me go

but really
i've always known she loves you more
i know because i can see your name
embroidered in the fabric of her spirit
and mine is
only
fading in temporary ink
it will be
g    o        n                e
soon

when i am faded and forgotten:
i hope you remember how special she is
i hope you
            tell her everyday ...

            while i cry,
                        missing her,
                        desperately clutching
                                    the skin she touched
                                                now peeled into open wounds
                                                burning in the cold
                        and waterlogged, bodiless papers
                                    covered only with
                                    bitter-tasting imitations,

i hope you
listen as her words melt through you
            as her laugh sparkles in the empty air
fill your cracks and gaping canyons with the gentle blue
            she pours from her irises in silky ribbons
etch the feeling of her delicate fingers through your hair
            onto your retinas
                        maybe you will be able to immortalize her
                        and everything you see will
                        glow
let your pained tears drip silently into her cupped palms
            as she holds you in her sweet rose-colored warmth,

and pin just this one moment
                        onto the blank walls of your mind
            the moment when she held you and
            when, inside, you knew
            that
                        she would
            never
let you go

i want to pick myself up
            head in pinched fingers
pull my tired body out of reality's
stone walls and
            blurry vision
aching steps
            and charred black worries

crumple me up
            melt me down
and pour me
into the tiny orange flame
of a tall white candle

let me hover over
life
crackle softly
rest peacefully
and
burn

slowly