i.
to river-
what to pack.
first
line your heart with apathy so that your hands don’t get as ******.
then twenty lullabies your mama sang,
or twelve you found along the way, waiting in the gutter and half inside the oily iris pools
(the songs that see you when it’s dark, and know the curves of your hands.
those. bring those.)
bring your pen. bring a leash, and watch that it doesn’t become a noose. it’s a leash. remember this.
bring a tree. bring a windowsill to sit on and
bring your pile of unsent letters.
bring water.
bring a time piece more accurate than your skippy heartbeat.
the team captain will tell you what to do. how to handle the footprints
and where to go.

ii.
i found receipts on the floor this morning.
receipts for the cost of my ease and peace
in closed eyes and closed palms holding hands.
i still can’t find my chapstick.
i asked you where my chap stick went
please blink back
to at least let me know that you heard.
i am full of everything possible and the bathroom smells like vinegar and fresh paint
brushed along my skin
when will i hear your voice again?
there’s a square of light on my ceiling, a puddle of light on the floor.
is this the lights shining through the windows
or is the sunset reflected in the glass?
i am unsure.
i am waiting.

iii.
from the collection of empty envelopes,
and stamped post cards unwritten,
i can hear your silence roar.
i’m ready.
you sat in the calm eye of my hurricane mind.
she says she doesn’t want me to be tied down to that
but you were my anchor, holding me steady.

iv.
if i could,
i would.
i would speed up the days to skip past the moments that make me who i will be.
i would speed up the days so that the sun streaks across the sky, so that the sun becomes a shooting star, so that i could read all the wishes i don’t bother to make,
but then they can’t break so
it’s okay.
maybe it’d look like the lines on the highway, the yellow ones that have to be broken to let us pass.

v.
sometimes i go out into the night lit artificially from below the surface of a ***** swimming pool.
leaves would float on its surface.
i’d sit on the metal railing, my feet dangling into empty space and i would lick at the smoke curling from my fingertips.
if i held my left hand out just right, i could see the light reflecting and swimming across my skin.
(when will i see your face again?)
there’s a man down on the ground, sitting
on the brick wall holding me in. there’s a shovel in his hand. and a rake. i can see his silhouette by the lantern at his side, like a bright eyed guide. i could hear a radio from somewhere over his shoulder.
i listened to the radio shows with him. the graveled voices talked about death.
i always had the urge to leap down to the ground and walk across the lawn to sit beside him. to tell him stories.
but then i always questioned whether or not he was real.
i sat on my sill.

vi.
do you remember how you drew constellations across my hands?
was it worth the lamp light?
across the fate line and the life line, you would dot
three stars across my palm.
orion’s head at the logic line,
the bases of my fingers became a bow, the tip of my *******, the star.
you liked it when i stuck it up at you. you said you saw stars when i felt something.
orion was a hunter, and my heart is my weapon.

vii.
the team captain looked you hard in the eye and rolled his neck.
our eyes met on the moon.
his teeth was made of bullets.
“my little thing,” you’d speak.
captain, o captain, he’d watch the bus driver drive home alone again.

viii.
i am a UFO.
an unaccompanied floating overture you’ll soon forget about.
an unhappy finished omen swooping in with the Crushing Weight of Reality to smother your dreams.
an unbalanced fumbling orbit, unsure and unsteady.
it’s me.
an unmelted frozen ocean falling.
the trouble with you calling me your snowflake is that i will melt under your gaze and become the water you drown in.
maybe it’s better if you pack
your things and find the captain.
he’ll tell you what to do and
where to go.


**mouse

this cigarette that I press against my lips, will do way less damage to me than you ever did.
the taste will reside in my mouth momentarily, but it will vanish unlike your cherry chapstick that I'm trying to forget.
smoke clouds swirl around me before the wind blows it all away— reminds me of the lingering memories of you I can't help but to replay.
I might have a smokers cough someday, that's still better than enduring constant heartbreak.
the pack in my back pocket is the only sense of relief I get from the agonizing daydreams, I still see how your dress ended at the seams.
I was temporary to you, but you were permanent to me. . . exactly like all my bad tendencies.

I was a strawberry chapstick
And you kept your lips dry
Rough like bark splitting into my skin
A sensation I never attempted to remedy with my balm.

I was a beach wave
Softly toppling across the sand
Rolling over and over until I became at the horizon again
And you were a sand castle
One which I kept pressing against
Never meaning to ruin a master piece but persistent enough to create a diamond of your dirt.

I was the falling leaves
All shades of amber and chestnut mixing together into the golden wonderland of the season
But you didn't like the way I killed your grass
You were a rake
All sharp teeth piercing into my stems
Pressing me together pile after pile lining your garden
Suffocating in plastic bags dying out and colors fading.

I wanted a love made of reds and yellows
Shining glows and warm fires
Everything seemed so simple
Until I learned that your love was made of blues and purples
A soft shimmer of coals burning out
We were thoroughly antithetical.

Yesterday I fell asleep in class
There was a soft humming
Coming from the heater
A girl was chewing gum
And the professor kept talking
And clicking on the PowerPoint

I dreamt of Greenland
How funny was it
That the Vikings fibbed
But if they were here today
It wouldn't matter

I dreamt of my feet
Walking on rusted earth
Warm and arid
Comforting and challenging
Leaving silt on my soles
As the sun beat down
Bleaching my hair


I dreamt of bazaars and crowds within them
Bartering, staring, leaning
Turmeric coloring hands
Cinnamon choking the streets
Fathers teaching their sons
How to run the business

I dreamt of cold fogs
In San Francisco
Sticking under my eyes
And under my clothes
Towering green
On top of steep cliffs
Still yet ready to evolve
Reminders of my hometown
Of loud sirens and higher ground
Prayers for the parking break

I dreamt of snowfall in the city
In the dank steam rising
From the manholes and the sewers
The palms all frozen and weeping
The sea softly still
The beach deserted
The crowds piled into cafes
Rubbing their hands
Fiddling with Chapstick

I dreamt of the broken White House fences
Of small eyes turned downward
Of everyone screaming
Of my conscience ringing
A bell
It was too late for us from the beginning

I awoke
The professor kept clicking
The girl had spit out her gum

i am grateful for stretch denim on days
when
          **** it
is a fashion statement
for lavender laundry detergent
because that smell reminds me of the home i've built in my head
for tea at
2 a.m.
when all the things i've done race in my head
because the next morning, i usually get my **** together
for colds
because they make eating an entire roll of cinnamon buns
completely justifiable
for the mountains that surround me
for NPR and good, rated M fanfiction
for def poetry when i can't find the right words
for finding a pack of cigarettes when it is only
11:30pm on a thursday night
and i am well past drunk in a slightly damp armchair
for harry potter and neil gaiman
for when twenty dollars fills up my gas tank
for my grandma's potato salad and biscuits with honey
for feminist zines that make me want to smash the patriarchy
for burts bees chapstick and jasmine-green tea
for friends who let me cry on their
bedroom floors
for books that keep me entertained
(even if that means me crying in my bathtub while reading them)
for courtney love and joan jett because those *******
have ridden in my car with me over many
heart-breaks
for well-water and sulfate free red wine
for johnny cash and new orleans and whiskey
for salt-- because that **** can wash away anything
for farmer's markets and co-ops
for bottles of water  and for cookie dough
when my mouth
is the consistency of cotton  and my mind is a little bit gone
for warm days in January and cold days in September
for breakfast and for hikes that begin at five a.m.
for summer nights drunk on wine and a little too much fire
for friends who call me 'momma bear' and for friends that call me 'baby bird'
for poems that give you cold chills
and flowers stolen from my neighbor's yard
for skin that smells like the sun and sage
for beeswax candles
and the smell of clean laundry
for days when i wake up and realize
i could have died on a bathroom floor

His name was Adam Chester,
          and I killed him.

He was something early thirties
still built like twenty-two.
His eyes were as green as life
and the corners of his mouth could
shine enough certainly to
photosynthesize.

He was dying.

I was something late twenties,
young enough in Hollywood
to still be exposing my ******* for parts.
My hair still had more red than shame,
and my body still looked like a
parenthetical aside
in all the right places.

I had never felt more dead.


He said he saw me in some room
with some people sometime
and that the spark in my eyes had
restarted his heart,
cause he was surely dead,
just waiting to die.
I said I understood,
and I drank daiquiris.
Later, he would tell me
my skin felt softer than the
Egyptian cotton sarcophagus
entangling our legs,
that my lips tasted like cherry,
my breath like alcohol,
and my skin like so many
     squandered summer nights,
     bikini tops and Tanqueray,
     riding solar flares between friendships
     and not taking no **** from no one.

For weeks and months we were together. He didn't seem to be wasting any way but spiritually, and I didn't seem to be wasting anything but time. He told me that everybody dies alone, and that he would give anything to break the trend. I told him that of course I would help, and that I didn't love him, but I loved the thought of him, and that in me that thought would live forever. I promised I would find a way. He would touch my hair and smile without showing his teeth - either because it seemed too aggressive or too disingenuous. He told me how our lives resembled Moulin Rouge, except that he was the one on the clock, and I just wanted to drink and ****, and that was precisely why he chose me; perhaps if he was never alone, he would never have time to die.


It was the kind of arid night that makes you want to water your plants compulsively.
The air had our lips cracking like sarcastic smiles
and skin too dry like a sense of humor,
unable to turn the pages of our paperbacks.
I asked him to be my chapstick.
He asked me to be his lotion.
I told him that he was gross.
He told me to go to hell.
               I told him...
          He told me...
     I told him...
He told me...
I told...
He...

I woke in the cold embrace of solitude.
She kissed my neck and called me Lover.
I told Solitude to leave me sleep.
She told me she was lonely.
Told me I was breathing, if barely.
More than could be said for some.
She kissed my neck.
My heart stopped.

Time flows not like grains of sand,
but like grains of wood,
back and forth, swaying, dancing,
some ****** understanding within itself
which we have no place in,
no fate with or without.
I saw him laying alone,
saw him stand beside himself.
Saw him wonder
where I had gone.
Saw him go.
Saw him, gone.
When you die alone, you leave even yourself behind.


I went back to bed,
back to my body,

where Solitude could have her way with me.

When I found my Dad, he was sitting at the kitchen table,
hands palms up in his lap, with a look of peaceful release on his face.
I’d expected to find him in the living room, enthroned in his easy chair,
a crossword puzzle open in his lap, pencil in hand, his balding head encircled by his ever-present halo of dust.

I actually jumped when I turned the corner and saw him there.
I thought they said he was dead!
No, this can’t be, he’s only resting, he looks too alive!
But no, he’d gone. He’d left us all behind to deal with life without him. What was I to do?
He’s too important, and ****** Dad! We never got to really talk. O Dad!

I dropped to my knees and put my forehead on his knee – stiff with his leaving,
and felt my fear begin to rise from deep down inside.
Where have you gone, my father?  Where?
So many questions – we’re all talking over one another – each demanding my undivided attention, but all I could do
was look at his hands,
up to his face,
and back to his hands.

Suddenly I knew – better than anything worth knowing – that I was alone and had allowed time, apathy, selfishness, and guilt rob me of my chance to have not just a father, but a friend.

God ******! ****** ****** ******!

I was suddenly angry, then despairing, then angry once more.
Angry at him for leaving.
Angry at those who hurt him bad enough for him to hate faith an anything spiritual.
It wasn’t their right. How could they have done this to this wonderful man?
How could someone have the gall and the bile to point sanctimonious fingers at a man so gentle and kind, and rob me of that connection?

I was brought back to reality by the police officer asking me to call the mortuary.
Who calls the mortuary for their father?!
Well, apparently their children do,
so I stood to make the call.

The somber-suited undertakers arrived, and with practiced ease, began their preparations.
First the stretcher, then the thick, heavy plastic of a body bag – silver zipper glistening like an eager snake.

Then they began to divest my father of the things that made him him:
Sneakers
Glasses
Watch and rings,
and finally his pockets: he had two Swiss army knives, his ever-present Chapstick, three nickels, and finally, a penny.

Sixteen cents.
The most generous man I’d ever known, and the one to whom we could always turn,
was being taken away from us forever,
and I was left with some personal effects,
three silver nickels,
and one penny.
Sixteen cents.
Six-teen-cents.
Six-teen¬-cents!
Sixteen-*******-cents.

F­ive years later, and I have them still.


© 2012 Michael Hunter

You come and go
and all I am left with
is a month of confusion—
half-feelings
and 37 songs on itunes.

I speak not of peaches, chapstick, sunrises or fallen nights.
(K)nights fought over love never found.

A(r)mor rusted over from her tears,
He always like to jump through puddles, watching the wake.

sometimes it woke his fears.




Monsters under the bed.
If only he could cross the room he’d be
      safe (-ly
                                                                                      locked away,
he lost the keys to
  the him he used to be.)


I speak not of burning trees or cherry seeds ( planted down the lane)

I've surrendered to the (k)night
but with one last thought,
I know I can win the fight.

Smoke is filling my bones
The carcinogenic ghosts of an irish ancestory
At war with my german temper
Fueling the fire
To a heart that beats for belonging
Keeping me in step with the frostbitten sidewalks
Of a December morning
Lips moist from french vanilla cappuccino
And your chapstick

Smoke is filling my bones
I'm rolling through my own fingertips
Losing touch with my own reality
Wondering if my knuckles are white from clenched fists
Or the grip around your palm

Smoke is filling my bones
You don't smoke
Yet you fill your lungs with my exhale
Breathe me in
I'll house myself in your capillary beds
Where I'll tuck myself in for the night
Listening to what makes your heart tick

parted lips
i want to entwine myself between them
to breathe with you
to taste your life by swallowing your air

wet lips
i want to caresses your smile
feel the corners of your mouth turn up at my touch
to feel your muscles contract, spasm in laughter with the tickle of my mouth on yours

puckered lips
i want to touch every crack on your chapped lips
to feel every defined line punished by your bite
to be your chapstick for that second tracing the fragile outline of your perfect desperate curves

kiss

I haven’t moved since the first time you kissed me.
Your lips drip laughter onto my chapstick,
filling the space between my teeth,
moving over my esophagus, slowly —
burning beneath my ribs.
This sweet warm wax, honey in my veins,
bubbling, hardening in my lungs —
squeezing the slightest sound of surprise, surrender,
from my diaphragm and I give myself,
relaxing in your arms,
to this feeling in my molten stomach.
My skin stiffens, my eyes glaze, my lips frozen
somewhere between a smile and a pucker.
Stuck in this split second, gazing at you,
encased in amber.

broken hearts aren’t badges
look how lovable i am, and look how little i care

i don’t mind their stains of red and white on my shirt
the half moon crescents i leave on their pillows

born to misplace words and sleep in different rooms
to love any big eyed sucker who returns eye contact
kisses bruises in unusual places, my hand

to fall every night
to sip the sun until i don’t feel it at all
to return to the mouths i once fed with poetry and mint chapstick

perhaps unintentionally
he left a blue service pen
and a tube of chapstick
hidden in the inner pockets
of the coat he gave to me
and all I could do was cry
over lip balm and the
receipt from that teriyaki
place in December, on the
way home, I drove under
25, a heavy heart but two
feet MIA, and I wondered
over and over, over and
over, would anybody, will
anybody love me as much
as he did?

Liquor might be the death of me
But I don't care, it's a part of me
Every time I have an extra 10 bucks, the liquor store I hit
I get drunk and call some girls..in the morning I'm like ****
Why is she mad, what did I say
Fucket, it's another day
Can't worry about what she's feeling
Nobody knows the cards my life has been dealing
It's ****** up, lonely boredom typing on some unknown website
Listening to Linkin Park "In the End"
My words are deeper than "bands a make her dance"
Yet I type in rhymes to make this **** have a cool end
My mind is ****** up
I forgot what this poem was about?
Liquor, oh yea. I have a bottle most people would get alcohol poisoning off of
I can drink it, no problem just wake up needing chapstick
Spent 100s on college books now I'm broke
Man I'ma loner I neeed a *** to poke
Lookin at my tatts glad I don't smoke
Liquor, I drink brown I drink clear
Straight up (ghetto talk) **** a beer

I see it
can't reach it
but almost there
fall out of my chair
get up, gotta keep goin
trip over a book
get even closer
can't give up now
just about there
I got it, i gots
my chapstick.

A fainting pink, the color I have to resist
To stare at as we pass by the textured walls of our hallways

There isn't much he knows about her,
Except for the bottles of strawberry flavored wax
She takes and uses up within months

I dream of what it tastes like.

Not the strawberry scent she lingers on every one of his clothes
But the lips she has to polish every single hour,
Applying and reapplying
Again and again

On my bed, I hold that scent close,
That stain of wax that missed her skin,
Landing mistakenly on my shirt

If I rub it off on my cheek,
My neck,
My lips
Would it be the same?

The same type of love she gives to him,
On 𝒉𝒊𝒔 𝒃𝒆𝒅,
To 𝒉𝒊𝒔 𝒄𝒍𝒐𝒕𝒉𝒆𝒔,
In 𝒉𝒊𝒔 𝒓𝒐𝒐𝒎...

The room that stands next to mine.

I cant help myself.
That artificial sweetness on her skin teases the strings I spun just for her in my heart
When I weave my way to her through the harsh rivers of doubt to get a whiff of what could've been
A future without scented walls to separate us

But hearing her through those thin plaster barricades,
My waxy layers melt off,
As the canister holding my strawberry sacrifice calls from the basin
Of discarded chapsticks that once gave her so much joy

Give me the satisfaction
Of knowing that you're recycling this affection
For what?!
Why don't you enlighten me with capped closure
Instead of covering up essential oils with his favorite perfume

Because even when you force yourself to pucker up into unscented soberness,
You know you can't stand the blank space
Between this balm and your lips

So I'll ask of you tonight, my one and only, to please
Hold me tight,
Lead me on,
And promise to love 𝒎𝒆...
Through your chapstick kisses to him.

[A prose poem.]

I see you’ve got the ropes.
       Somehow you adapted. There, your green tea; you filled your thermos last night, preemptively. Your fingers have always been awkward too. You treat your hands as if they were chubby. And they hold the thermos with strength, like they hold everything-- except for your papers and your keyboard. You hold those differently.  
       Remember the balcony? You had too much wine, obviously. Your rolling on the floor from one end to the other turned legendary. But time rolls by, and so do tobacco leaves on papers, and you hate those two things.
       Listen, I’m not the same. I’m sorry. I now have posters on the walls of my room. And I still pick pieces off my lip, but I wear chapstick too. And I’ve started to drink coffee again, with sugar. I’ve made peace with mirrors. And I’ve also started to learn some french, Je m’excuse.
       What page number were we in? I’ve known you through some invincible years, but I’m starting to see the fray.
       You forgot to take the balcony along. You’ve got the hang of your schedule, where and how to tunnel your way to class; you get up as soon as our alarm goes off. No snooze. You sit down and vaguely remember the journals you wasted your soul in; all the conversations tinted with beer were drowned by fear, and fear by coping, and your coping is scaring me. The ropes are gripped tightly by your fingers, and I might know why.
       And I’m already mourning; I don’t need any more black clothes, any more sad entries. Know that I still love you-- that’s still the same. But, here, I am this. It hurts to know that is not okay, that at the bottom of our wine bottles there’ll be resentments, but I still love you all the same. I’d rather taste your rancour than bittersweet memories, wondering how I’d give you tulips, if you really want to be cremated.
       Maybe we’re tying knots on the veins of a good life– and what for?– the classic problem is, perhaps we’re still ‘too young.’ We lost the children we used to be, but we’re in that grey area between losing and finding something to find.  
       And I’m already missing you. And maybe there’s no point in begging, but,
I see you’ve got the ropes and I’m terrified.
Please,
stay with me.

I used to consider chapstick makeup.
I used to consider using conditioner “doing my hair”.
Now it takes me 90 minutes to deem myself acceptable enough to show my face.
Where did that carefree attitude go?
It used to be that the lengthiest part of my morning routine was brushing my teeth.
Now my makeup covers scars as well as blemishes.
Now calories are not something I’m studying in a small elementary school classroom, but deceitful numbers that bury themselves into my mind and thighs.
The beach used to be a safe haven to splash into and gasp out of.
Now I dread the idea of squeezing into a bathing suit.
I cry at my reflection and shout expletives at the scale.
I starve just to keep my demons at bay, and cut as a peace offering.
I use Percocet as an anesthetic for the pain of waking up in my bed everyday.
I wish I could say I used to make love, but since love was not used to make me, how could I?
I reach out to those ever-growing shadows and I cling to the corners of remembering.
I do not fear death, but I fear the memory I leave behind…

That taste on your tongue
The smell in the air
The hair sticking up on your neck
The feeling of guilt you get texting her
The secret messages
The phone calls
The blade glides
The red river greets the tile again.
Your hold over me is deadly
The lipstick stains his collar
Her lips shine with chapstick
Under the rainy gray sky he departs
To meet the girl with the lipstick.
Don't be the lipstick girl.

There’s an emptiness today
One covered with fall leaves and broken trees
Window half open
Inviting small pellets of breeze to drift into the room
Chapstick broken in the bottom drawer of the desk
Those days, back when I was a kid
Crawling around in the playground outside
Father putting white blocks of sunscreen
On the forehead of my face
Didn’t even know what existed yet
This is nostalgia, isn’t it?
Or maybe it’s a what if.

My foreign friend once went through my bag and found a bottle of ibuprofen. She said I wonder if these are her anti-depressants because if so then they're not working. Once my friend, excuse the bruise, my friend thought the rope in my room was meant for a noose. Once I regected food all day and so she spooned the meal to my face. She said "good girl" when I made myself a sandwich. She used to cringe every time she saw my ****** up wrists. She said her dad ******* when she was a kid and once she took a pen to her own skin. She said you know that feeling when you throw up ice cream? and I was the only girl who got it. Who really, really got it.
So, I remember sitting in the park by the waterfront smoking flavored cigars. It's starting to get dark and your leaning on my arm. I wanna split a cigarette but you're saying how I always get the filter wet. You were both the hardest and softest girl I'd ever met. We got our cards read that weekend. The tarot lady said I'd fall in love, I said bring it on. Well, I remember nights in a used hotel room, wound up on the bed was the only time you let me hold you. I used to give you chapstick every time you asked for it. You said you only missed me when your lips got chapped. and those days we weren't friends were the worst ones that I don't remember too well. I forgot how we both pulled the devil when we got our cards read. What I remember is that you were there for the worst anxiety attack. It's still funny cause you're the only one in the room who was scared. And the next day I'm dead inside and somebody's in my ear telling me about how they're making an effort to be friendly and I'm the problem, I'm not reciprocating. You ask me why I'm wearing a hat, It's so I can hide my shame under it. Today I don't have a voice, I can't talk. Can't say what I'm upset about. And I remember somebody telling me that if I thought happy I'd be happy which lead to break down sobbing in the bathroom and you came in and talked me out. You never blamed me, never thought what happened to me was my fault. And you listened to me spew about what it's like to have no friends and to hate yourself so much. And you didn't ask questions... you just loved. Loved, loved, loved. So much that I saw it building up in myself. That first jump into the pool in our sweaters and sharing showers and drying in the sun. Listening to you mumble in your sleep, combing through your hair with my thumb. And you said the first time you saw me you thought ****! Another girl that's too pretty. I think we should still be... lying on a sun lit deck. You're reading my books, I'm wearing your shoes. We should still be out on the lake, eating lunch in one of those big red canoes. We should still be jumping off the dock, yelling when the fish swim near us. We should still be up on a hill where we can smoke and watch the sunset fall to dusk. I should still be waking up late in your tent and stealing the blankets. We should still be up all night talking politics and arguing semantics.
So yes, I remember lying in your arms those last few nights while watching shooting stars. Those nights I wished so long and hard to never feel lonely again, I realized this summer that's my biggest fear. And this summer! This summer I feel healed! You bandaged me up so the good bye was rough. I felt like child peeling old band aides off.
Before she left she told me what I needed to fix about myself. In our soggy t-shirts, we have our toes diped in the water. She grabs a pool noodle out of my hands and as she bends it in demonstration says I have no back bone she can take whatever she wants, she can just have it. I'm too flexible. But she opens up, tells me about the guys she's ****** and how she's never really been in love. She tells me about her girl crush. She says if I'd told her I'd loved her first, "like I SHOULD have" then she'd of been crushing on me instead. I just wish I could have been the one to drop her off at the airport. I helped her pack her bags and watched her slam the car door shut. It's different when you're forced to be apart, she didn't have the chance to make me hurt. I count the miles that seperate us. Guess I'll just love her from a distance.

I saw your chapstick in the store the other day
I stood there just staring at it
Do I even need chapstick?
No.
But it has the taste of you
And god I miss that
Now my lips feel permanently stained with you
You linger on every word uttered from my mouth
I can't stop licking my lips
Ive never even had a real grapefruit

Kiss me like the stars are crashing around our ankles, burning their stories on our lips as they spiral down.
Kiss me when I have grass stains on my knees and dirt on my nose, tell me I blend in with the forest and kiss me until I feel it in my toes.
Kiss me as your favorite song bangs out your car windows while we're sitting on your hood.
Kiss me behind your mothers back, hearts beating at the thought of her catching us in the act.
Kiss me when you miss me, and kiss me when you don't.
You have poison on your lips and I can't seem to get enough.

you
had a chapstick tube
stowed away in your bag of things you never put to use
those scarred chapped lips
scratching, tearing
crevice of your mouth craved my heart
bleeding, uncaring
and subsequently my mango chapstick would serve it's purpose
on your lips and never mine.
among other things, you had a pair of white socks.
you never wore them,
too pristine
(you'd ruin them as you teetered on slippery suspended logs)

you reminded me of a cracked open window,
always hoping you would be at the mullioned panes
chapped lips, white socks and all
but the only thing that pushed against the glass was the scent of mango air.
and
mango never smelt so bitter.

when
will you come home
replace the mango air with your feverish cologne.
a swaying of the breeze and your tee shirt wraps a cotton arm
around your waist
the bitter aftertaste
your tongue like grapefruit wedged against my teeth

i missed the smell of burnt bread bottom,
when we were in the kitchen
and the gown of silver hemmed water that danced down the roof,
tapping
again and again and again
but, when you come home next month.
I will be gone.

the mango
around our home
had long since
turned bitter
and that brown picket fence no longer bends around my heart
i am somewhere where the mango still smells sweet
and
boys give my their chapstick for i've long since run out of mine.

you were the only boy i let close enough to see the blue beauty mark that’s on my left cheek.
you were the only boy i let ******* cherry flavored chapstick that i used to smother all over my lips. (i can't even use it anymore because of you)
you were the only boy i let close enough to see the scars that are drawn across my body in places that people could only see if they cared enough to.
you were the only boy that told me that there were entire worlds hidden in my eyes, that aphrodite, venus, and achlys were nothing compared to me.
and i was so stupid to think that all of these sweet nothings were true.
ever since you left it feels like the lilac sky that used to hover over us has turned into a deep purple, green and blue kind of sky that only comes right before a storm starts.
ever since you left i haven’t been able to listen to the songs that once were my salvation because when I hear them I can only think of your face. the face that has put me through hell, but that same ******* face that made me feel like I was on top of the world.
and even though it’s so ****** up of me to say this, but if you showed up at my door right now saying sorry for making me feel like a black hole that was collapsing in my lungs,
for making me feel so numb that the only thing i can feel was my heart beating faster than the first time you held me.
i would still open my arms and blossom like a flower for you.
you're my weakness.