it's been too long,
since I've seen you
and I wonder
do you still find my hair?
on  your sheets, pillow, sweaters, and cushions
or have they all been picked up
and let drift into the waste bin
when did you stop finding them
when did I need to come replace them
when did it start being too long
since I'd seen you

do you have some time to ****
to leave ****** on the floor
while my bare feet will dance around it
avoiding the pools
or stepping in them
to make art on the hardwood
out of happiness and the touch of my skin

do you have some time to rot
to bury in the backyard
where we lay in the grass
and I play with your hair on my lap
and the sky cradled laid upon my thighs

do you have some time to spend
the clink of quarters tumbling out of my laugh
as I shake pennies from my hair
leaving copper on your pillow, your sheets, your floor
the sheen of a dime in the light of my eyes
your skin, soft as a worn paper bill

do you maybe,
have a little time

My body is falling apart
I crack my right-hand pointer finger
And it gets sore, each time I do it
Crunching, more than popping
And aching as it does

The fingers on my right hand
Don’t type right anymore
The pinky, ring, and middle
All tight and unforgiving
Clumsily stumbling across the keys

My jaw,
Pops and cracks on the right side
Always sore
Always an aching sort of pain
That clicks when I chew gum
And think about talking too much

The bones
On my right foot
Don’t look quite right
They bend in the wrong places
The skin above them blue
atop sticking calcium, where the skin should be smooth

my body is falling apart
and that is a metaphor
the right side
is falling apart
and that is a metaphor
because my body is falling apart
the right
is falling apart
and it is a metaphor
it is a metaphor
god
It is a metaphor
A broken metaphor

how do you bury the hatchet
but save the woodsman

Why do I insist
On steeping myself in melancholy
On sleeping atop tea bags
And in jars of coffee grounds
Then wondering why the sky is dark
And the taste bitter

You tell me that you love me
and I wonder,
if it isn't that you love me
but rather
that you don't want to be left alone
but it's so much easier
to say
I love you
than
Don't leave me
and I get it,
because it is
so much easier,
to say I love you
than don't leave me
because I said
I love you
back
when I meant
Don't leave me

and today I feel
so very tired
of feeling so very trapped
so very locked
in tiny bird-cage cages
that I am so very very tired of