I won’t let my eyes meet the edge of your lips when you speak.
Or hear melodies in your voice,
Or
Won’t hear my heart through stereo.

It’s only happened once.
Maybe twenty-two times
That I’ve imagined a kiss from you to be...

Sorry.  

Maybe she does -
maybe,
Maybe I stopped eating because I only crave your fingertips tracing my collar bones.
If they show again maybe I’d love myself.
Maybe you’d love me too.

Maybe I only crave safety.
You
feel like safety.

Your fingers lose feeling from picking apart your brain.
Grey.
Pull out loneliness and an awakening.
The stars you wish to bathe in,
the melodies you live in,
the lips you dream of crossing - all fiction.

Strings of letters,
Ink soaked memories,
pale lilac wishes to reflect skies,
Green irises built from pine,
Nonexistent.
Intangible.

The planets don't owe you,
Not in prediction,
Not in stability.
They are content, home, radiant.
I keep time with my heel, below,
desperate,
passing.

I’m getting sick, yes.
Again, bleeding out in ink.
The loveliest death.

- a haiku.

I know now.
Every thought of weakness was preventive,
call them weak and you'll stay around -
so I’m learning to lie honestly
learning to lie for her.

I learned of a love for treehouses,
And 8 mile.
Both the Detroit and Farmington sides.
I gave up deepthroating and cigarettes for New Years.

I developed an attachment to bridges.
Morrison, Hawthorne, Burnside, Steel, Tilikum
All pacing my afternoon runs.
Ambassador.
My favorite thing about traveling is coming home at the end.

I met another soul mate, one I don’t kiss.
We read our poems between English classes,
Scrounge up quarters for midnight subway runs,
Bond over an old love of car rides and vampire weekend.
She says
Life is excruciatingly painful,
And as your best friend I’ll let you know
“I only smoke **** with you, on tuesday evenings.”
(“And I only cry in public bathrooms at noon.”)

I learned home is where the heart is,
And my heart is always with my mother
I inked our love onto my skin in June.

I know now, that ******* is less scary and more of a sad college kid thing.
(But ****** is just as scary as it seems on TV.)
I met the pigeon man on 6th and Yamhill,
Swarmed by hundreds of grey flying rats
Kissing each one on the head before setting them back down.

I finally lost my father.
It didn't hurt half as badly as I imagined it to.

I invited too many girls to stay the night.
And one too many boys.
But I never regret holding you all close because friendship is ******’ magic.
Thank you my little pony.

I learned no, you can't flush toilet paper in Asia
And yes, elephants are incredible.
That spinning on a pole makes you an artist before anything else.
That embarrassment is worth it.
That therapy is worth it only sometimes.

I learned a language where I can finally be quiet.
Admitted to
Guilty pleasures
In pop music
And fried food.
My body is a temple that can handle some mac and cheese.
And beauty is much more loving your current state than anything else.

I love my current state.
Rain, and no sales tax,
and a candlelit home.

…..And if a girl is a gun, i’m so ******* sorry.

She’s lonely on my sixteenth birthday,
I do not exist
in her world of thin skin,
freckled with scarlet beads
and conservative laughter.


I’m late meeting her.
In the name of hesitancy,
in the name of powdered armor.
Her laugh is a match box and I’m built of chlorate,
burning
lonely.
She will remain she, her,
distant.
A name is power,
her name is poison.
But she is the earth and sun and moon and blade and


no.


A name is power.
Green eyes break hearts;
green eyes broke mine.


I’m considering loving her.
A pipe dream of tangled legs,
and intertwined fingers,
and stained hollows of her neck.


I’m thinking about kissing her.
Frozen on a run down revolver,
in paralyzed time.
I’m thinking about kissing her,
and i’ve swallowed too much whiskey.


I am falling into the arms of no one -
into blonde sunsets
and creased smiles
stringing songs into confessions,  
realizing she cannot catch me.


She catches me between her lips,
between nervous kisses,
under clouds of ****** ****.


Under painted pink sunsets,
before the storm,
before the needle.

Confidence is built through quiet breathing,
through uneven tabs,
through pulling her mattress closer to mine.


I’m loving her from hospital beds and limited calls.
Tipping back paper cups
only to hold her.


I’m hurting her through letters,
writing a separate note.
I’m loving her until I die,
because breathing is too heavy.


And this is everything I’ve wanted,
she is loving me,
pressing into me - and for a moment i’m glad i’m not dead.
I am hurting her as she is loving me.
I am leaving her,
she is loving me.


We fight through six months and snowstorms,
ugly weather brings uglier words.
I am drunk and hating her,
sober and driving her insane.


I am taking her for granted,
pushing her further as she’s pulling me closer,
begging time to slow down.


I catch glimpses of her between class as we aren't speaking,
as she is falling,
and I let her hit the ground.
And if a girl is a gun, then ****,
I’m dead.


She always forgives me,
giving trust away as though it costs nothing.
I lay on her shoulder and kiss her inner thighs,
as she believes I am good.


We stop time together in the same way as last summer,
losing ourselves in lyrics, and phone calls,
and basements.
She stays when I am no longer profitable,
I am loving her,
she is teaching me.


She says she’ll never forget me,
though I wish  she would.
She is my sun, my love, my heart,
holding back tears in my driveway.

I saw the red and blue sparkle of crime.
I felt my lungs overflow.

Spilling,
words,
blood of too-much,
thoughts of too full.  
Tears constructed of *****.

Bleeding
cold,
freely,
dragging out the strength to emerge from admittance -
to find comfort
in a home built for destruction.

As the blood boiled over, spilling from my mouth,
spattering murmurs of naive hope before drowning out the cities’ cries,
I clawed through a sea of red,
light falling through fingers -
I let go.

Years of blue striped tablets
comfort in the church parking lot
bites you for getting to close.

Idolizing a sadness of sick children,
crusading on acid
Nicotine, aspiration,
the tongues of others -
who find a place in a world of unrequited love for existence.

This blur is the final fracture of bones worn thin from chosen malnutrition,
malnourishment of the skin.
Pigment.

So the reaper knocks on the back of your skull,
not to punish you
Not for
subjection to chemical poison,
but to remind you:
dreaming of her body on yours is cyanide.