I don't want
To break anyone's heart.
And I am
By consequence
Incapable
Of mending my own.

I think I've almost written you
One hundred love poems...

And on this bitter and cold
Night in July
I want to tell you a million things
None of which would be fair to say

I want to say I love you
I want to say I want to hold you forever
I want to say you're the light in my life
But I can't

And I can't ever stop
Writing you love poems
Where I say all the things
That I know I shouldn't say
Because no matter what happens
I can't ever stop loving you

And that's the worst part.
That's the worst part
Because I know-
Even as I'm sitting here
Saying and not feeling
That a relationship is no longer
Best for us
I know-
That I'm going to write you
A hundred more
Love poems

Let's get addicted to cigarettes
Together, darling-
And running too,
Because somehow
When I'm with you
Bettering myself
Is just as fun
As destroying myself

But whether I'm on
My third cigarette
Or my tenth mile;
Regardless of
Whatever leisure drive
We're taking,
Whatever joke
You're making-

Let's be together

For that drive, that cigarette
That run, that joke
Because I love sitting beside you
And hearing your laugh;
Seeing your smile:
You bring out the best in me-
Even when we're focusing on
Cigarettes
Instead of running

I used to think that I loved you for
your near-perfection...
But there was just something about
the two of us
Our love was ingenuine, and later,
we realized, impossible

Ironically, it's been the revelations
of your imperfection
That have, I think, made it possible,
for the first time
For us to love- not that we ever
will, not that we ever should
Because, let's face it, it would
probably be awful, it's just-
It's just that your imperfections
Have allowed me to see, once again
Though so much more truly this
time
The possibility of you and of I

So let's get addicted to cigarettes
together, darling
And running, too
In a supreme dialectic of destroying
ourselves from within
While struggling to better ourselves
from without
Something that may be, I think
The ultimate story of ourselves

(Or at least of myself-
I wonder why
I've only ever been truly drawn to
people
By their brokenness...

But perhaps it's better
Not to think about it.)

These people seem
Like a vision of a past
That has yet to
Have elapsed.

All these awful singers
With their songs-
A sick attempt
At righting their wrongs:

They pray to a god
That's so far above
And not to the lake
For it's unworthy of

Prayer
Has guided them so far away
From all of this God
That's truly here to stay

Unless we destroy it
In a war.
Ask your God-
What that would be for.

He won't have an answer.
Because unlike this lake

He dies with you.

the word home
as defined
by a magic eight ball:

try again later

I am equally as invigorated
By the temperance
Of modern convenience
And the dominance of nature
As I am terrified
Of total dependence
Of modern man
On everything electric