I am much too alone in this world, yet not alone
    enough
to truly consecrate the hour.
I am much too small in this world, yet not small
    enough
to be to you just object and thing,
dark and smart.
I want my free will and want it accompanying
the path which leads to action;
and want during times that beg questions,
where something is up,
to be among those in the know,
or else be alone.

I want to mirror your image to its fullest perfection,
never be blind or too old
to uphold your weighty wavering reflection.
I want to unfold.
Nowhere I wish to stay crooked, bent;
for there I would be dishonest, untrue.
I want my conscience to be
true before you;
want to describe myself like a picture I observed
for a long time, one close up,
like a new word I learned and embraced,
like the everyday jug,
like my mother's face,
like a ship that carried me along
through the deadliest storm.

I'm not quite sure
when the dark thought
first came to me;

it crept up softly
and quietly, like a black cat
in the garden of night;

like a light through a crack
in a door opening slowly
and too soon; or perhaps

a drowning man in the deep
waving back at the moon;
too far over his head.

I like pens that bleed
Ink that smears
Girls with scars
Broken parts
***** clothes
Stained sheets
The hint of blood
The taste of lust
The smells of love
Nights through morning
Mornings to night
Suns that sleep
Moons that dream
And all the pretty
You hide underneath
Those pretty
Pretty
Pretty things

Honestly, my three favorites are
Puerto Rico, Nevada, and Texas.
I follow you through your souvenirs,
stuck fast to my refrigerator door—
mementos of places I’ve never been.
You always did that,
traveled without much warning.
I envied your ability
to cut loose from all those undesired ties
and just fly far away to somewhere else.
Merciless adventure that begged to be tasted.
I missed you when you left,
more than most things, but
you’d always come back
with a little something
to decorate my modern-day ice box.
“That’s your thing,” you’d tell me,
handing me the magnetized treasures.
You'd help me pick out a spot
for each of them, and
it made me feel a bit better
for being so god ****** unworldly.
They’re all there, you know,
varying shapes and colors,
with eyesore typography
spelling out awful puns that I love.
Somehow, they fit together
and make a sort of perfect sense
that I can’t explain.
My three favorites are still
Puerto Rico, Nevada, and Texas—
pieces of your completed journey
radiating childlike wonder, fervent hope,
and plenty of open-ended questions.
Completed, with the exception
of a single, naked, white space
that I will wait my lifetime to fill,
because, like you said,
that’s my “thing,"
and I'll keep it as such,
I'll keep you as such,
until my sand runs out too.

we would never know the stars existed if the night wasn't so dark