Do you sleep on your back
with your heart to the
sky, and your face to the
sun?
Last night, I wondered
as the moon peeked through my window
and the night awoke,
I wondered with my heart to the
floor, and my
face pressed to the pillow.
When I was a baby,
my mother lied to the doctor:
"Yes, she's sleeping on her back,"
but I would only sleep on my stomach.
Still, I turned out fine,
right?
Sometimes I lay out on my back,
and I can see my heart beating
in my stomach,
through the fabric of my shirt,
but I can't sleep.
Is this what you feel like?
Can you watch your chest rise
and fall?
When you cry,
do your tears make two tracks
from your eyes to your ears?
Maybe you don't sleep on your back at all
maybe you turned out fine,
like me,
sleeping with your heart to the
floor, and your
face pressed to the pillow.
Maybe you don't watch your heart beating,
or your chest rise and fall,
maybe you don't cry —
but I'd like to think you do.

Euphoria sewed her golden ecstasy
in the scathing arms of the sun
we knew our world was hers when
the last of the ocean had evaporated
and we had drunk our tears away
with nowhere and nothing to hide
we joyfully traipse through desert heat
like newlyweds, heading towards the Honey Moon
singing dead romantic words
of antiquated crystalline towers
where young maidens once were trapped
'til summer sounded her blissful clarion
and her castle melted into the fallow earth:
this is the beginning of a new era
of heavenly heat
we will all burn together.

The doctor called today
to inform me that I have a
critical case of you:
tears hang heavy in my heart always.
but I never cry,
I never sleep
but dreams dance in my consciousness always.
In the night
I shiver as the dark settles in my lungs
in the morning
I am blinded by the light.
I shattered all the mirrors in the house
in a rage, because
I cannot agree with them.
I have taken to self-medicating,
reading tales of me, in an alternate reality
where I have love and tranquility and a little sanity,
and no you.
But my symptoms are worsening
every day with you,
and twice as much
every day without.
The diagnosis knows one antidote,
a terribly plaintive remedy.
All this is to say,
I think I need your help.

i gathered all the things that mattered most
and made a list.
i traced it in the sand
and carved it in a tree
and stamped it on my skin.
and then you
came, with your fire and flood
your tidal waves
your wildfires
your torrential deluges
you washed away those fickle memories
and i danced in your storm.
i danced on a barren beach,
by burnt trees, as the
ink trailed down my arms.
but your fire did not burn for me,
your rain did not pour for me,
you just were
and i
had the pleasure of dissolving
on your shore.

I lay down on a bed of thorns
to be next to him:
roses are quite romantic, they say,
and they were once my favorite flower.
My skin became sticky with blood
but I never cried, because we
bled together.
Later when I scrubbed my body
and the water ran red, he
was nowhere to be found.
In the aftermath I realized
my scars would never fade
my skin has stayed scarlet and sensitive
and now my tears betray
how my nerves scream at the touch.

I searched for him;
maybe he would assuage this pain —
but all he could give me
was months of bleeding silence.
It was only when I finally gave up
that he camped outside my door,
fists pounding against the wood,
hours upon hours, screaming
that he loved me.
But he looked like hell,
like he hadn't even washed his hands
since that night.
How could I tell him
that he reeked of acid?
That being close to him made my stomach churn?
That he looked like the worst mistake I ever made?
I said nothing;
I locked my door
and listened to him break.

i wrapped an anchor 'round my ankle
and dove into the ocean
in march
when spring blossomed and the
ice fractured beneath my weight
i swam not for shore
but for the ocean floor
the pressure crushed my frozen skin
i followed your map, encrypted
in riddles and cacography
and there, submerged in the fathomless deep,
it occurred to me that
perhaps you did not want to be followed
so i opened my mouth and closed my eyes
i let the water suffuse my tired bones
and i sank, as
gravity drew me closer to
you