/ I was spotted covering my eyes by a dentist whose childhood had stopped disappearing.  how big is your family and who wears the mouth?  is it true your dad sold to a city gargoyle a spray-can of ****?  that your mom had no baby tired of being born?  that their suicides filled a madhouse with cubist maids?  

/ year nine:  your birthday spider is put on film for biting.  your sister takes one look at my brain and remembers what to feed and how to clean a cricket.

/ year eight:

I like to know how you feel
Set my eyes on your heart
You love my words
I love your night
Make the day your hope
A soul trying not to hurt
A soul lost in pain

It's just rain

Think the way of light
Remember my song
People's minds make bodies cold
A reason why I drink
Smile a little darkness
Sleep in the arms of the sun
Broken I suppose
Tears are gonna fall

It's only rain

4/7/2016
tw, suicide

you were five eleven
i thought it so elegant
you hated it though

i still see you walking down the
linoleum, sad halls
with your gown

and though you swore you
were ugly i thought you reminded
me of one of those pre raphaelite

girls.
you're dead now,
so i heard

i knew that the system
had failed you before
you even knew

you were defective,
you felt the need to be recalled
back to the mill

before you even knew that.
i saw you for a week
that's a funeral i wont be invited to

but i can't help but
think what your last
thoughts were

if there were any
i wonder if you said
goodnight to your

sister before
you did it
but i also

don't want to think
about it- the fact i
know a ghost

didn't sleep. instead I found
a wall in a cave & grabbed a
chipping hammer & tore it down.
finally broke thru to starlight
at 4:12 this morning.
***** bruised fingernails.
discarded piles of red clay pain
swept into outside corners.
spelunking ever inward. steve knows.
shed some tears, dave, he says.
shed your fears.
warmer in the new cave.
less damp.
room for a rug.
room enough to grow a plant.
room enough to grow.
self-perpetuating seeds.
dawn was a stranger I welcomed inside.
sleeping stalactite makes back tight.
I will wake & stretch when the sun is high
overhead like a cat in a woven basket.
mountain water trickles underground.
do yr homework.
yr body is yr home. put in work.
my body is my home. work is work.
yr body is my home. input work.

I still don't know if
I've ever "made love"
but if I have
the first time
was definitely with you:

******* on the ***** carpet floor
of your best friend's house
in Tallahassee. we knocked
tattoos against the coffee table
both our knees red
rugburnt from scooting the length
of the living room + hallway.

we moaned into each other's mouths
as our friends passed out drunk
not seven feet away
we tried three positions & your
body told me the last one was your
favorite so we bumped bellies
pulled each other's hair
your chest on my chest
your shoulder blades
drenched in moonlight
small in my careful hands
stars camped in our eyes
you bit my
lip too hard.

I'll never forget the wet way you kissed
my salty forehead as we
climbed connected onto
the couch, but the most vivid
memories from that night
are your legs
still quivering but clenched
ankle locked together at the
***** of my back, & falling asleep
inside you because it
felt like the right thing to do.

hell is a book.

she reads it
in a room
that’s alive.

attic or no, I want
to miss
my father.