To you,
I am the clean yet illusory interweaving of poetry.
A dream made abruptly real,
wreaking havoc and complexity.
To myself, I am lost to a gruesome ******.
I tear apart everything I have built,
because there is no hope
in the act of conservation.
Solace in acceptance is all that there is,
and in between the long breath,
there is a sheer exhilaration of power.
I gift parts of me to people who care so little, they do not remember my name,
just as I do not remember their face.
I do remember the sharp sting
of your flesh against my palm,
and in concentration-
the luxorious scent of your ***.
It is the slow death of an ******.
There is release in giving away
the ****** meat of our life
for little more than a placeholder.
And there is relief
in the thought of taking from you,
whatever I desire.
I speak of emotions,
I barely can feel--
too entrenched in the wild.
This is my father's home,
and it will be my home as well.

Two young boys in corduroys
             were playing with a ball.
Two young boys heard one strange noise,
             coming from the hall.

The boys stood still, well, still until
              the door swung open wide.
And a ghostly chill and a real ghost, Bill,
              were heaved the heck inside.

The brave boy stood, as the brave boy would,
             and said, "Hey, listen Bill!
We're here to hear you, not to fear you.
              Tell us what you will."

The other boy wheezed and sneezed then seized
              and vomited on the floor.
He shook his brain. He felt insane.
               Nothing was real anymore.

"Ghosts are real?! They're ******* real?!?!?!"
               he cried and shook and feared.
For nature's laws were gone because
               a ghost had just appeared.

And on that night of fear and fright,
               the brave boy had his thrills.
And the other one was ******* done
               and swallowed fifty pills.

I have to use words sparingly now. Things used to be different. Before surfaces there was depth. Before identities there was self. Words go into words; wasted breath, white noise, mute hum.

We camped beneath the stars ten billion summers ago, the park down from your house. We fed the horses with grasses we picked, our hands soft with dew and lust.

I miss every inch of your being. I miss your wretched shadow spun lugubrious in Sisyphian recurrence. The slow burn of your love as it fled black char, the whole ******* forest dead.

I’m sick of spitting smoke, but words elude me. I lack the form of your departure. I’ve been trying to flee for years and now it’s happened. I’ll die astride the world immaterial and worthless.

What’s holy is dead. I swallowed it up with the branches that lay beneath you the day we kissed in the forest after school. The last trace of eternity passing into myth.

Eternity passing in a moment.

Ask me something
say it like you mean it
How was my day, and close the curtain, come here
The traffic was a nightmare, you wish I could've seen it.
I tell you I did

What's great about this whole situation
is how easy it is
to fall back into old habits.

A subtle benefit to male privilege:
being able to have anorexia
without anyone batting an eye.

No matter what I say,
  All that I really love
Is the rain that flattens on the bay,
  And the eel-grass in the cove;
The jingle-shells that lie and bleach
  At the tide-line, and the trace
Of higher tides along the beach:
  Nothing in this place.