It’s a crime
to paint such flowers
with so crude a brush.
Your skills, my lord,
confound me
and I present myself
to you humbly.
Your fingers are
calloused
and jagged, their edges
can cut if you’re not careful.
You touch so soft
your skin to mine
and I sizzle in your grasp.
You are the warmest
part of me and
even you are now
embers, but it is not
my duty anymore
to stoke the ashes,
as deeply as I wish
you would burn again for me.
A flick of the eyes
and a trick of the tongue
are welcomed warmly
by my singing heart.

This vessel is not yours,
But the wheel will still turn
Under your hand.
She creaks at your step
As though you may break through
Her soft Swiss boards.
She is stronger than you.
And she is still yours in part.
Do not forget that this
Is the only reason you do not
Crash below her decks.
She may turn for you,
But you are not welcome
Under the floor you let rot.

There is always a moment when you pull away from a hug. That is the moment when a kiss would occur, should the situation call for it. It is the moment when only your heads and torsos have pulled away. Your feet stay in place, tucked between each other in a pattern on the ground, and your hands stay where they are, but draped loosely instead of holding on tight. For a breath of time within this moment, you are in middle school. Your date to the dance sways across from you, your hands around her waist and hers around your neck. Neither of you know enough to hold on to each other, this is just how you dance. But you know to hold on now, in this hug. In this moment. There’s nothing you want more than to hold on. To lean in and make something count just a little bit more. The hesitation lasts longer than any breath you’ve held under the surface of a chilly lake in late May. It takes more air than you could win back in a lifetime. Hesitation rules for a synchronized blink of your locked eyes before it pushes them away from each other and your hands lose the grip they finally learned, giving up on what they longed for. Maybe your cheeks are pink. Maybe they’re used to this. And maybe you’re crazy, but you didn’t think you could miss the smell of someone’s spit.

It is me
that is destined to
be spilled across
the muddy ground.
It can be
no one else’s pelt
that warms your foyer.

Did you hunt me yourself?
Or did you find me
as I left myself
take me in
and dub me your ****?
Tell yourself it counts,
an accidental shot.

Stretch your toes
on my back
as you sip your morning coffee.
Beat me in the garden
in the spring air.
Choke on the filth
I’ve collected.

I bought a slingshot
from a cartoon ad
at the back of my comic book.

I made a target
from a piece of wood
and it kinda looks like a person.

I collected rocks
from the school
but only the ones that are sharp.

I waited for the mail
with Mrs. Kliven next door
whose son is in the military.

I got my slingshot
from the ad in the book
and all my rocks fit in it just right.

These words
Are neither alone
  Nor my own

Having found their way from eyes to ears
From ears to mouth
  And down

No thought original
Ought to be originally found
   When it comes to expression out

We speak
And what we think to be our own
  Is found

Crushing progress is my only prospect,
so internally placed into my very lungs.

Listen here for the old man wakes,
so bedazzled by the black bird that sings.

The bird screams the cries of a tortured soul
Yet the man unknowingly knows the soft tune.

His mind blissfully enveloped in this tune
Underlined by a fate of inevitable doom

Is this a lie?
Or a simple life?

The man stands upon his crooked foot,
Ready to begin, once again.