Well, if you're going to rip my heart out,
I hope you plan on washing off
all the ******* dirt you're rolling it in
when you get bored and feel like
putting it back in my chest.

I was looking forward to letting
my hair fall from my shoulders and
spill and curl along the pillow
with such lithe, you would swear to me
that you saw dark lily and poplar
bloom from my tendrils.

and you would have showed me
how your demons had twisted your back
and placed it backwards, forgetting
you weren't a contortionist, asked
of me to push the knots out,
and in melting curls of words,
slurred to me a string of purrs

coated in breaths of gin, how the light
catching my face from the ceiling fan
in the motel room makes going away
feel a little sweeter than you expected,
but it's the feline-like grin I give when
I am trying to be cheeky but meek
with my hands contouring your lumbar,
that gives your spirit a little more life.

and there's a chance I would have
scraped the pride from my teeth,
tilt my head over the end of the bed,
and let you eat my heart
out from my mouth,
had I learned sooner that
even the hungry for adoration
have to feed it, too.

You are urban delight, New York debonair,
and you don't need to be grandeur
to set a trend or flutter a heart;
not when you brush your thumb against
the beard you maintain with apple-pie order,
and quickly flash your howlite teeth
with such modesty, that man has to
stop and wonder if it's really true
that the most endearing, do not have
a notion of how sublime they are.

and I love how the sun still catches itself
upon your burnished, rust-painted
locks, slicked back and parted,
careful not to hide a single fleck of
the honey-gold scattered in the jade
of your eyes that still flicker warmly,
even when we're passing under the
shadows of the skyscrapers that
try to swallow us whole with 8th Avenue.

take me to Amorino,
let me fix the collar of your shirt
while you order me a lemon gelato,
and I'll tell you on the walk
to the carousel on Pier 62
how it's all your fault that my cheeks
have been matching the pink
of your shirt since the afternoon-

and you don't even realize
you're doing that to me,
but I love it as much as I love
reminding you of the reasons
that I could think to adore you,
because that just happens
to be one of them.

And the other is because I would love to.

Well, the bets were placed,
and Hell's patrons are raking in the dough
since I lost your signal some months ago;
the pulse I felt was just my own,
I just thought it would've felt nice
if for once it wasn't mine alone.

I feel with shy hands
and speak from a shy mouth,
and I wish I knew well enough
before I threw myself in the woods
that there's no chance
of being sure as bone
and tough as day, not when
your spine is made of white willow
and you bleed lotus and amaryllis.

I think of the way I felt reborn,
into something a little bit more,
when I heard my name crawl
and curl out from your teeth
and between your lips
as we said our first hellos
when I want to think that, maybe-
maybe not everything's gone wrong
so why should it have to now?

when gravity breaks the wings
clean off your back,
hit the ground running,
and collapse into my chest.