I stand on the porch
& it overlooks the road
& it is painted white.

I smoke a cigarette
with my left hand
in my pocket.

I exhale & enter
a daydream
where I am yours.

I close my eyes
& I taste your lips
& I touch your thigh.

I open my eyes
to peer into the desire
lounging on my tongue.

You're a flower-child,
spread on the bed with
flowers stuck to your little
head,

with Ginsberg & Whitman on
the shelf & feminine mystique
dripping from the
ceiling.

Moon-lady,
Venus,
tides rising & crushing
the shore,

while I snuggle
my flannel for warmth,
trying
not to be a bore.

Framed pictures as you
reminisce on when we
were younger &
untamed.

"We can still be untamed,
we've been framed
for uninsanity!"

But you call me a fool
& put your
porcelain head in my neck
& I feel foolish.

In the damp light of a cloudy day,
muscles aching, waves
crashing,
uncontrollable urges.

Stranded in the pregnant
belly of a ***** secret city
drawing
the red rose of secret union

& we are sheltered
in the ****** warmth of the
blankets,
cocooned like little monsters.

The calming ocean
& the calming whispers
& the tiny kisses
surround me, blot out my thoughts.

You sing me to
sleep &  run little
fingers
through my knotted hair.

Your tiny dollar store
Buddhas belch incense
over
the backdrop of your perfume.

The wind chimes
twinkle & whimper on the
porch where the swingset
rocks in the rain.

"I wish you weren't
engaged but I don't mind
breaking a few taboos."

You laugh like a soft mad fairy
& look down
at your phone & I turn over
on my naked side.

You laugh a funeral
giggle & I know I should have
worshipped you sooner
at the pillow-altar.

Show me Heaven without
death &
the Garden of Earthly Delights
devoid of sin,

show me your sharpened fox
grin &
the way sunset ripples
at your breath,

I will show you sacrifice
& the hidden light
of our lives
in the damp of the night.

All these silly stupid
little trees
dripping wet with
awkward leaves,

while I drip with
smoke & write my
loneliness with
eyebrow pencils,

idle in my idiocy
& thinking of nothing
else but thee,

a banquet for the bony
dancing boldly in the
silence,

made up with
pale make-up &
trafficking in tall
tales,

all these stupid
ugly little people,

they taste like disease,

but even in a crowd
all I see is thee.

flayed unto deaf ignorance,
leave me here
in my opensky sepulchre,
skyclad & open,
arms spread upon an iron
cross, feet drenched in
blood (it pools on the ground
like rust) to die in the
pregnant sun, to turn to ash,
to be reborn in dust,
to leap across the earth
carried by a stranger's wind,
into unknown territories--
beyond here lies nothing.

I don't like the way
you criticize
the Smiths, or your
gentleman callers,
or that I will never
be good enough, but I
don't mind the way you
look at me,
or the way butterflies
infest my stomach
and then my throat when
I try to speak to you.

I don't like the way
you skirt around the issue--
you beat around the bush,
but I'd rather
burn it down.

I don't like the way
you live right down
the street, as if we were
put here for a reason,
and I lie awake at
night, thinking of
you, talking to
you, knowing that
you might just be
listening to the same
breeze that I'm listening to.

I don't like the way
you might be using me,
manipulating me,
opening me up and looking
at my bare soul
like a roadmap, and then
you use it as a welcome
mat.

We hear the same trains
at night, we see the same
cars passing
by our houses, the same
leaves fall in our yards.

I've torn my heart out,
opened up my rib cage,
and let the blood
spill out, and now I've given
it to you.

You can do what you
wish with it--

but I would appreciate it
if you would lock it away
and throw away the key,
and please
please
please just don't step
on it.

My head swims with
confusion (so does yours,
but you're so afraid
of your emotions that
you can't bear to see it,
so you say)
and you make me feel
stupid.

So look at me again
and open your lips
again and speak to me,
that's all I need.

I'll try not to think
about you, while you
go off in your confusion,
and try to sort out your
emotions.

Fear is the heart
of love.

In the end,
you will accept the
love that you deserve,
and the only love
is mine.

There are those little
odd moments when I
would catch your eyes
staring at me
from across the room,

like you knew me.
You didn't know, dear;
not then. But you would
& we both knew
it, even then, locking
eyes like circling
buzzards.

I've got my love
on the tip of my finger
& I'm holding a drop
just above your
halo,

waiting on it
to soak through to
your clothing.

There's purity
in the streetlights,

innocence in the dull
sheen of the water
still wet on the streets,

and love in your
breaths.

Your chest beats
slowly in the thickening
fog,

slowly and heavily,

you shouldn't have smoked
that cigarette,

you desolation angel.

And we pass the
gas stations and the
cornerstores and the
neon OPEN signs
flash and blink at us,

telling us something
gravely important,

inviting us
into their jeweled
corridors,

their zoo.

There is a light
in your eyes that
never goes out,

looking up at me
in the meager light
of the urban decay
(lights are still on in the
highrises and the section 8
houses & they burn &
we wonder)
trying to find
an answer trickling
from my lips,

like saltwater--
but I can't say
anything.

I've been too stricken.

Stricken by the sudden
sound of pealing bells
in the distance,

stricken by the lightning
quick flash of silver
from when our hands
lazily touch,

like a hard tap on the
spine & a hard tug
on the tail.

My insides roll,

my throat is dry,

can't stop fidgeting,

what price cigarettes?

I feel faded like my
old blue jeans,

& speckled in baby
blue paint,

walking sideways
down a dank alley
where a bicycle sits
propped against
old mossbricks.

The smell of the rain
clings heavy on
our clothes, the taste
of the rain seeps
between my cracked
lips.

& you clutch my
hand in yours (I
can feel the heat, I
can smell your
butterflies & taste
the sewage from
rusted vents) and kiss
me ******* the mouth.

Left hand meets your
waist,

right hand holds yours,

just below eye level
& I can feel you smile
as my kisses deepen you
& open you,

I can feel your teeth
brush my lips soft
like a paintbrush,

I can feel your nails
like chalk
on the smooth
back of my neck,

& then we step out
into the nightlife,
smelling like cigar smoke
and a drunken day.