omo Fitutu
nureba ya Fito no
mieturan
yume to siriseba
samezaramasi wo

Was I lost in thoughts of love
When I closed my eyes? He
Appeared, and
Had I known it for a dream
I would not have awakened.

it's not that
you claim it

rather it
claims you

it's not the box
on a customs checklist

it's the island
calling you home

She said she liked her coffee cold and dark
like the seas separating her bed and Denmark:

harsh and bitter and brown in the largest
cup we own, so when drinking it
your nose would drown
into an abyss of cheap-coffee-granule-
buy-one-get-one-free ****;

and delivered with it upon the stolen tray,
taken from that shop's Kitchen Must Haves display,
was a plate with two triangles of lightly toasted
toast laid out like the ankles of my late Grandma
(but we weren't together then so, to you,
it just looked like some toast arranged nicely on a plate for us two);

also on the stolen tray from that shop's Kitchen Must Haves display,
was a lovely array of cut of up fruit arranged liked
canapés at every cheap-wedding-buffet:
grapes cut into unfathomable shapes
and slices of kiwi our fingers could never negotiate
and avocado which was there just to cure invisible
weight gain and bad morning breath,
but that's what Google told me so
I can't take it as a guarantee;

and in all of this I was apparently making a fool of myself
because serving you a delicious breakfast
to the sound of Frank Sinatra's Moon River
is not what we discussed, ever- even last night or last week,
in fact, we never talked about this horrendously
unique breakfast.

Happy Anniversary.

1

decide not to hurt her. but don’t decide to pull her back. if she wants to go she can go. I do not plan on stopping you. it’s not my choice. nonetheless I must warn you; I do not pick up phone calls from numbers I don’t know. if you don’t plan on showing me your scars I don’t plan on showing you mine, I will live inside myself without your help. stop pretending you’re in control.  your presence does not make me a better or worse person.

2

drink beers, sliding your sleeve over the x on your hand. sway like you never stood so still to pretend you were just a charicature so no one caught your scared stench. you **** the stench. you grab it and rip it right out of yourself. **** your rules I will ******* fly, I will ******* dance, I will ******* love. you cannot stop me. you are not my guilt, so stop.

3

look at his eyes as he says it doesn't really matter where you go anymore. safety is not a cold room, an exorcism, or a catechism. mushroom clouds are dancing like rotted sugarplums and fairies with crippled wings in my head. through continuous trial and error life has taught me you can run but you can't hide. don’t take off your coat until you’re two drinks too deep to care if anyone sees the dried blood. laugh at the people who stare, laugh at yourself, laugh at their ******* social rituals. always remember not to let them get you. you are not paying any debts.

4

think about tasting sweat and his pulse. search for it. find none. and you do not require just any pulse. ask him if you are scary, let him touch your open wounds, let him lie and tell you he doesn’t think you’re depressing to be with. even still, you let him win. know that he would gladly take on a less complicated girl. feel like target practice. feel like a faulty product with no receipt. feel like a body, always, you are feeling like a body. it consumes you before you can consume it, filling yourself with holes. This bleeding is further beneath the surface. split skin doesn’t let any more sunshine in. go back to bed sweety. don’t believe in humans. don’t believe in love. they are equally transitory. they are equally fragile. they are equally hungry.

5

think about the fear. think about it. ******* choke on it. do not deny it is there. they never really cared. you don’t really need them to care. So this is what getting older really means. remembering the streets you grew up on before they painted limbs into the pavement. It's hidden in the exhale at the end of the way most people say tired. when what we really mean is, the way things were still lives in my head and i can't deal with the present because it's just a ribbon wrapped around a nuclear bomb. Humming. You tell him you don't think running is worth the effort. He calls you a liar with affection. You are choosing your bus tickets. Like a car driving from a tornado. You just want to see how far you can get. before...