I had never seen the truth turning into a graveyard
until it passed through my tombstone teeth to
sit in your ear like a ghost

These aren't sweet nothings
my sweet nothing

And you deserve much more than  the devil
living inside of my cheeks

This is the way truth sets us free

The same way a suckerpunch leaves us winded

I imagine that is how our souls leave us

But you try and explain that to a nurse
who is busy checking your mouth to be sure
you've taken all your medication

You know how you're supposed to live like you are going to die tomorrow
I say
How 'bout six months from tomorrow?

I really have tried everythin
including ******* down the backwash of a sunday baptism

It only tasted like fear

The kind of fear I don't need right now

We bought a casket

Plotted a plot

I got a tattoo of an expiration date on the bottom of my foot

No day or month
just this year

And you've been brave
saying
You are saving your tears for when I am not here anymore

And I honestly never saw how the truth could turn into a graveyard

Til we both started talking to each other

Like ghosts whispering all the things we never got to say in life

No matter how you look at it
I tell her
*The truth always feels like it's arrived too late

Dear Devil,

Thank you for sin

Thank you for beer and bad decisions

Thank you for encouraging me to steal that twenty

The old man dropped

It paid for pizza

Thank you for my first arrest

Thank you for my second arrest

Thank you for my ****

Thank you for teaching me how to make bad decisions

And how to be happy I made them

Thank you for selective hearing

When I know someone is begging for help

Thank you for my father’s fists

And my mother’s manipulation

I have taken both with me

And they serve me well

Thank you for inventing rock bottom

If I could fall forever

I’d be in hell already

Thank you for nooses made of bungee cords

I only blew out my knee when I hit the bottom of my dry well

And I gasped at the choke of where I found myself

Before I shot back out

Thank you for self inflicted sand paper refinement of my soul

The grass is always greener after you **** it

I am thankful to see it grow back

Thank you for showing me what not to do

So I can decide to be better

Dear Devil,

Thank you and,

PS

You are a really ****** friend

Being drunk is not cute

Drunk texting is not cute

Vomiting is not cute

Waking up next to a homeless man you were cuddling behind a bush in order to keep warm is not cute

Homeless men are not cute

Stealing a stranger’s phone so you can sneak away to the bathroom and take a picture of your ****

Is not cute

Drunk *** is not cute

But it is awesome

Crying after drunk *** is not cute

Crying during drunk *** is not cute

Crying is not cute

Despite whatever I have set myself to believe

I am not cute when I am drunk

I’m not even cute when I’m sober

And when I find myself

With head hanging halfway into a gutter

While leaning out of the passenger seat of my car

Looking at the chunks of red-orange

Sour and burning

I know it is just my body

Trying to rebuke my ***** mouth

That’s what my mouth looks like

When I say the things I do

And it is definitely

Not cute

Your lips tasted like smoke
From the buildings you watched burn
While standing dead center

Our bodies are practiced in the art of
Collapsing

If these walls could talk
They’d be livid from your laughter
And semi-suicidal for paint thinner
To cause just enough wither so the broken glass can finally fall out

I will gladly buckle at the backbone
Bulging out my belly to
Reveal all that beauty inside

If it means you’ll forgive me
You can take it

Because I am sorry seven ways to Sunday
Just seven days till Sunday
Seven chances not to **** up before
I have to beg for your forgiveness again

This is the church of falling apart

The church constructed of the things
Tempers make
I am one baseball bat bash away from being broken and saved

You might’ve told me you were trouble
I should’ve noticed
After I saw you smash a
Cinderblock through a car window
Just to take a pack of smokes from the dash

And you could have called my bluff
After I ****** your best friend behind your back
For the fifteenth time

Lemme catch your deer in headlights again
Because our last conversation wasn’t ****** enough
Lemme bend willingly into your bed
And fall into whatever mess we forgot to clean up the night before

Stop quaking my fault lines with your fingertips
I know laughter when I hear it
I can see your sneers in the dark

And I can light a match
Light a cigarette
Burn a house down

This is the church of falling apart

No one ever asked forgiveness while standing

The church where the shape of prayer is a ball
Hands clasped behind neck
Head between knees
And morse code  shivers

Signaling

I don’t really know why you hate me so much
But Please
Forgive me

My love looks scintillating on you my blue

With just a hint of black

When my rough love meets your tough love

And the two wear us smooth again

I mean

There has to be something to justify how ugly I am

Be ugly with me

And grind sandpaper skin

Til we can shake the shavings away after the sheets dry

You’ve always wanted to know what it looks like when ugliness leaves you

It looks like dust illuminated inside beams of light

After you’ve decided you’ve collected enough

How good did it feel

When you notched my bedposts with your vampire teeth

Dulling them down so that you couldn’t draw blood anymore?

Not even with your words?

You said that becoming human never seemed easier

Let me second chance

Your too tough tugs

With my lizard tail laughter

And I have two cheeks to turn if you need a third

My shoulder is only cold

Because neither of us know how to hold the other

Being

Beautiful

And Nice

And Capable

Take practice

So I am sorry I rub you the wrong way sometimes

Just that

This kind of black and blue

Looks good on you

And these faded bruises means

We’re healing

He knows he will never be smart enough

To do much more than lift heavy things

He is eighteen and struggles to read

And walks like the earth wants to stand him still

And always smiles Jagger lipped and crooked tooth

Regardless of the reason

He just likes to smile

And knowing all of this about himself doesn’t stop him from trying

Everything was born with the desire to be better

Haven’t you heard of squirrels trying to grow wings?

They can be seen gliding between trees with the hope of a true takeoff

Or birds that prayed to be human?

Birds that live as long as we do

And then they learned to speak

Or small brightly colored frogs that wanted to be as strong as giants

So they made their own skin poison

And other creatures learned to fear their beauty

He is afraid of his own reflection

Once threw a television through a window

While watching the reality show COPS

He watched a police officer be mean to a woman for no reason

I found him after the crash

Staring at the broken glass saying

“People aren’t supposed to do that to other people”

He knows he doesn’t know much

And is confused when everyone isn’t nice

He knows

You can keep a loaded gun and still trust everyone

If

Keep it in your heart

And

Use is to fire off adrenalin when you need to be fearless

He knows he is going to feel like a real man some day

Despite his everything

Nothing’s going to stop him from trying