I put two handles of whiskey on the counter,
and the cashier asked if I was having a party.
I told her I was preparing for a weekend by myself.
She didn't know what to say.
I told her life should mean more than this, paid and walked away.

nights take passion forth
into an abyss
of hundreds of arms
swirling under the weight of
bodies yearning
to connect

your destruction came
in moments, you fell beneath them
and growled, you were
the rabid beast
hiding in my closet
or behind my bathroom door
waiting to spring,

and you and i,
we fell for each other
like children, we fumble in the dark
like teenagers, we talk through every movement
like we've known this dance for years, years, years;

my hands, they're too small
to spread over your heart
like i want them to.
your hands, far too big
to cradle my face between them
like you meant them to.

we make it work
in the darkest of ways,
the black hole in the floor
of our bedroom
opening up
to swallow us
whole.

sometimes you come back,
like the peculiar awareness of finitude
soft footed
after we’d been in that small room together
cold
pouring out in white light
leaning over and smiling gently
with a surety of falling snow winter outside
and you described seattle and kurt cobain
and showed me your jars of sand and jars of honey
and I smiled gently and loved you.
and we went out in the cold and you smoked a cigarette
and everything around us was hushed wet in dark gray
you were something that made me ache
honest human, dark and earnest
opened ahead of me
wise and naive
I felt like I’d known you somewhere before
I held you in my vision but didn’t speak

as you told me what men had done to you
I picked up something that was shining on the ground
and thought about what men had done to me

We are brutally beautiful
We are
The soft red glow of a nuclear sunset
Pooling like blood
From wounds
Like that one time I cut my forearms open

Oh so that’s what a heartbeat looks like

It is sign language after a fist fight
When I’m so angry I can’t speak
So with my hands I tell you
No one should talk to you that way

It is the assbackwards way we allow ourselves to heal

For instance
When I had cancer
My parents took me to church when they could
Asked people to pray for me
And I thought drinking holy water might help me

It only made me sick
And I spent three days in the hospital

This life is *****
It is ugly

We are ugly
Like
Crime scene photos of bathtub suicides
Shortcutting life
And still getting into heaven

How after so many years
Just to make things interesting
Peter takes bribes now

And we are beautiful
Brutally beautiful
Endearing in our passion
Because it’s just a little too conscious to be animal
But we try

It is shotgunning a dove
And the rain of feathers
Even when damp with blood they are still soft

I wanna hold you tightly
You coarse cut angel
Your jagged edges rub
But neither of us wants to fall asleep alone

We will never be perfect
But we were supposed to be

Remember that
When your ugly rears its head
Like a mental mirror showing you only the things you notice about yourself
Know
nobody sees you the way you see yourself

Just remember
To smile more
And laugh when things are funny
Make love when you can

These things are good for you
Balance out the brutal
Because you

Are brutally beautiful