How do I find the words like you? Last of the letters went lost as youth sped away. Zero to sixty the opposite direction in my rearview mirror. I'm afflicted with a carcinogenic lust introduced in verse, first between teens and twenties, still, locking my swollen lips below thirty's unwashed neck hair. I love the scent too much to leave. I'll breathe the fumes too from the edge of death, but how do I find the words like you? Fed to the limit on apathy, too many buffet meals in the houses of broken bones, bitter spirit cages. You know what? Could they be preying on me? I've never been the prey. But if this position suits me, I assume the condition is voluntary. How do you say, your distorted image is an idea I like? In you I see a small world containing the realm of reality folded in on itself, plus practical beauty separate from else. In the day you fill my dreams so when I wake in the night, a body I'll never touch is the flame in my mind, the dissipating smoke in the ash in the back of my eyes. Soaking in Scorpio showers with the window slid open, ******* mashed on the screen, I place my aching fingers on the trail of hair down my navel. Pretend that you'd know me, pretend that you'd replace my hand.

Petals
Decorating my bedroom floor.
Lit candles
Flickering upon nightstands.
Our favorite gentle music
Dancing into my ears.
And you're there, too
Waiting upon bed sheets
Silently
Bidding me come.
And as passion befalls me
Cold, frigid water
Rushes down my naked skin.
The warm water exhausted
Brings me back
To sitting in the shower
Alone