she rambled through midnight,
shoes more white-tar *****
than black leather,

avoiding destinations,
washed palms
not unfamiliar with
stakes being grounded
near the wrong type of hearth.

standing half-drunk,
on scorched oxygen epilogues,
her cheeks deserted,
feet knuckling homeward,

wrists unveiled by calamities,
she’d pour shrapnel
into her scrapes,
wrongs cast in iron,

and
he would trace
her scars like
a roadmap,
but always left
by morning—

twilight strangers
in a cold, perfect sunset.
freckles holy,
lights heady,
moon painfully
indifferent.

The poet has collected the thirty-seven words which appear the most in his previous written poetry. They are depicted here in descending order. There is no man behind the curtain.*

Like love,  
just know
I feel way happy,  
really.  

Away time:  
mouth, skin,  
beautiful eyes carved,  
******* **** want  
lips, hands.  

Hate,
left warm girl,  
words meant matter,
memories, sun,  
loved felt --   
throat, 
moment,
face;  

maybe home?

gritty electric pulse,
trench-veins, headaches
grime and polished wood,
scuffed shoes jostling,
sweet honey whiskey, **** that
i want pain. give me burns
under my pulse and i smile
and sit
by the window,

take a cab home
in lucid stupefaction
her legs draped
on my lap,

and we laugh
and laugh and laugh

It felt different this time.
Final. Punted into oblivion
For our own safety,
You are static freckles
On my neck radio silence
Thicker than apple moonshine
That warm moment of forgetfulness
Between wake and sleep
Where you are still mine,
That’s gone too.

Just. Dull. Dull. Pain.
Creases in my mouth
Cut and blistered,
Smiling, as it turns out,
Does not go gently.

you were
saltwater
through pores
in my lips
stinging bliss
hanging like lack jawed
freewheeling masterpieces
anonymous thick gummed
arteries pressing
life into one another
one gulp at a time.

the beautiful irony,
of course,
is that
I would have fallen for you

if I hadn't
still loved her.

freckles clung
like manic-pixie stardust,
spackled whispers
an unfolding fractal
of brimming dresser drawers
old pictures and mix cds,
we could only ever do
what teenagers were supposed to.

smushed crabapple handholds,
moxy and sadism hard-won,
no crash course in platonicness,
our stained glass eroded
into a beach
frozen in unsummer,
opiates dull senses,
a synesthetic void
exchanging echoes of echoes,
a cacophony of empty
distilling as it leaves
in whisks of 2 a.m.s,
honey-laced whiskey,

if the sky murmurs one
last love poem, it isn't
to us but our
moment of infinity,
of blind faith
irredeemably lost,

that forever of apex
where the line between
falling and flying
blurs.

A rippling glance
comes before a smirk,

my face had carved
well worn grooves
for all the knowing ones

I flashed your way, pregnant
with bright-eyed
amusement.

They meant,
I love you.

With her
my eyes do not ripple
yet my face
slides comfortably
into that same smirk

the roil of my waters
no calmer, just different.

I have learned not
to love so easy,
something brews
nonetheless.