I never dreamed of meeting someone like you.
You found me in the cold and gave me a home,
and now I
can't imagine my life without you.
You showed me the parts of the world
that no one has ever seen.
You helped me find the light
and now I
can survive these dark days because of you.

We danced with the stars
and lived off wishbones.
Swallowing stardust
and creating galaxies with our imagination.
Your love made my head spin faster than the planets.
Sweetheart, you have done so much
and now I
feel like one of the lucky ones.

Let us go fishing for stars
Let us swim with the cosmos
Lets everything

You drew an atlas on my hand
and connected the dots to the places where we plan to meet.
I love the shape of your lips
and how I can trace them so easily with mine
and now I
can finally feel comfortable when I say I love you
and mean it because I will love you until there is no till.
Until all the stars burst apart in front of us.
Until the universe stops spinning
Until the end.

1.He’d say anything to get me out of my shell.
2. His pupils are hard, black marbles and I want to flick him off of me.
3. He is always shuffling through women like they are a deck of cards.
4. It’s just how the dice rolls.
5. I was afraid of falling, of my arms snapping like wishbones.
6. He waits until I’m swaying like a door hinge.
7. My eyes are wide like 8 ***** and he hits me with that same click, roll, thunk of a pool ball table.
8. You are cursing me. When you yell, you are cursing me.
9. “Come out, come out, wherever you are…”
10. I hope the bruises on your legs turn into birds. I hope you get out of here.

Don't have a wishbone
Where your backbone ought to be,
They told me, so often.

See, wishbones are meant
For Thanksgiving dinners where
Two children break it

In half to see who
Gets the first turkey leg,
or something like that.

See, wishbones aren't strong.
They aren't reliable, strong
Enough to support you

When what you ought to
Do doesn't comply with what you
So dearly wish for.

If you lack backbones,
And have a wishbone for a
Spine instead, you should

Get to breaking that
wishbone right out of your mind
And body because

At the end of the day,
A backbone is all you have
When wishes aren't your

Reality. No,
A backbone will keep you up
Whereas a wishbone

Will break easily,
As easily as your heart
Will when your wishes

Do not come true. A
Backbone is something you ought
To have instead dear.

i dream of silk and black lipstick, leather and ice-burn
i fashion thoughts into clouds of smoke i ghost out of my mouth
into necklaces i will only ever give to you; you
are burnt russet bitten lip bleached bone coalesced into
constellation; you burn brighter
than any constellation i have ever breathed

i dream of your hipbones; stretch marks flicking over them
like lightning glimpsed between fingers; like wishbones silently pulled apart
in promise; you are wishbone you are gold plate you are sunshine
through a stained-glass window; my heart is glass
a cemetery to your footprints a cathedral to your broken
dreams; i can taste the honey in your scattered thoughts
like a prayer on my tongue
i dream of deep purple and yellow and green and
black and fading bruise and blood
at the corner of your lip; i can taste iron in your breath
rotting in my dreams slow-burning ice in my veins; vengeance
is a dish best served cold i know
that if i unfurl my skeleton and tuck you into the spaces between my
ribcage and my lungs you will taste just as sweet

i dream of ruby emerald sapphire in brooches pinned onto black i
think of the bruise-giver of the blood-spiller of cracks in my
ribcage of wishbones of constellations of iron-taste of ice-burn of you of you of you
and i let you in
and i am cathedral i am cemetery i am bonfire i am in l o v e
with constellation

In the mustardseed sun,
By full tilt river and switchback sea
  Where the cormorants scud,
In his house on stilts high among beaks
  And palavers of birds
This sandgrain day in the bent bay's grave
  He celebrates and spurns
His driftwood thirty-fifth wind turned age;
  Herons spire and spear.

  Under and round him go
Flounders, gulls, on their cold, dying trails,
  Doing what they are told,
Curlews aloud in the congered waves
  Work at their ways to death,
And the rhymer in the long tongued room,
  Who tolls his birthday bell,
Toils towards the ambush of his wounds;
  Herons, steeple stemmed, bless.

  In the thistledown fall,
He sings towards anguish; finches fly
  In the claw tracks of hawks
On a seizing sky; small fishes glide
  Through wynds and shells of drowned
Ship towns to pastures of otters. He
  In his slant, racking house
And the hewn coils of his trade perceives
  Herons walk in their shroud,

  The livelong river's robe
Of minnows wreathing around their prayer;
  And far at sea he knows,
Who slaves to his crouched, eternal end
  Under a serpent cloud,
Dolphins dive in their turnturtle dust,
  The rippled seals streak down
To **** and their own tide daubing blood
  Slides good in the sleek mouth.

  In a cavernous, swung
Wave's silence, wept white angelus knells.
  Thirty-five bells sing struck
On skull and scar where his loves lie wrecked,
  Steered by the falling stars.
And to-morrow weeps in a blind cage
  Terror will rage apart
Before chains break to a hammer flame
  And love unbolts the dark

  And freely he goes lost
In the unknown, famous light of great
  And fabulous, dear God.
Dark is a way and light is a place,
  Heaven that never was
Nor will be ever is always true,
  And, in that brambled void,
Plenty as blackberries in the woods
  The dead grow for His joy.

  There he might wander bare
With the spirits of the horseshoe bay
  Or the stars' seashore dead,
Marrow of eagles, the roots of whales
  And wishbones of wild geese,
With blessed, unborn God and His Ghost,
  And every soul His priest,
Gulled and chanter in young Heaven's fold
  Be at cloud quaking peace,

  But dark is a long way.
He, on the earth of the night, alone
  With all the living, prays,
Who knows the rocketing wind will blow
  The bones out of the hills,
And the scythed boulders bleed, and the last
  Rage shattered waters kick
Masts and fishes to the still quick starts,
  Faithlessly unto Him

  Who is the light of old
And air shaped Heaven where souls grow wild
  As horses in the foam:
Oh, let me midlife mourn by the shrined
  And druid herons' vows
The voyage to ruin I must run,
  Dawn ships clouted aground,
Yet, though I cry with tumbledown tongue,
  Count my blessings aloud:

  Four elements and five
Senses, and man a spirit in love
  Tangling through this spun slime
To his nimbus bell cool kingdom come
  And the lost, moonshine domes,
And the sea that hides his secret selves
  Deep in its black, base bones,
Lulling of spheres in the seashell flesh,
  And this last blessing most,

  That the closer I move
To death, one man through his sundered hulks,
  The louder the sun blooms
And the tusked, ramshackling sea exults;
  And every wave of the way
And gale I tackle, the whole world then,
  With more triumphant faith
That ever was since the world was said,
  Spins its morning of praise,

  I hear the bouncing hills
Grow larked and greener at berry brown
  Fall and the dew larks sing
Taller this thunderclap spring, and how
  More spanned with angles ride
The mansouled fiery islands! Oh,
  Holier then their eyes,
And my shining men no more alone
  As I sail out to die.

okay, imagine
for once, not the worst of it
a house, cottage-like, at the edge of the countryside
or perhaps in a small town
there's the slow mornings, lazy afternoons, and evenings smelling of comfort and vanilla
from the candle or from you?

                                                           ­everything is perfect in theory  


the curtains are the softest fabric, faint, see-through, gauzy
almost predictable, lighting up the living room
and every time the sun falls at a particular angle
it brightens up the insides, stripes in horizontal and vertical
criss-crossing, like heartbeats in a totem

music plays off a vinyl, in the corner,
the record player sits
dainty-looking, majestic—as if it owns its spot
and it does


                                                          ­   can hear the hum of the water
                                                           ­          lie in the shower, to relive



the kitchen's a mess of shades ranging from "aesthetic" to chaotic love of academia
there's stacks of books, every corner, even by the windowsill
candles and lanterns, no lighting that'd be too bright to compare what the moon leaves behind
warm, glowing dim like sunsets, golden

lava lamps, ranging in shades from purple to blues
every night, watch the stars change colors
they're there on the walls and the ceilings
the room's threaded, as if built in mattress and moss
with green vines covering every spot—wild, freeing


                                                     ­       there's so much beauty within



the unseen: journals and ink-splotched sheets
there's the love for unknown, no fear
like living in a house that sings its own rhyme
speaks its own rhythm
builds its own poem



                                              a small space encompassing a home  
                                                          ­    home is the one you're with  
                                                        in­ person, in your own



you walk in, slip through the doors
they don't creak, open with the smell of innocence and warmth
flooding in are feelings, the unspoken
soft footsteps, bare or clad in socks
making their way through the wooden flooring
the soft hum and tap of the house's backbone



                                                     ­        why did we not feel it before?




resembles a daydream from the front
the porch is filled with pots, stones, and herbs
there's a pathway through the backdoor leading to a garden so immense
lie on the grass, soft to touch, like you're on a cloud
and look up, watch the stars


              coffee, would you like that or some tea in the mornings?  
                                i'd go for a hot chocolate—marshmallows 
                       let's cook s'mores, how about you pull out a bonfire  
                                                  sit, once without the glaring screens  
                                                 the flames are gleaming,
                                   calling out something from within, see it?




the humongous, otherwise intimidating, glass panes
leading to what is the balcony, u-shaped
and it's almost like half the moon
crescent, everything to imagination
rekindling what couldn't be true


                                                 stack up the pancakes and churros—  
                                                      ­  sugar, bad in breakfast
                                                       ­    who cares, it's one life
                                               i'll live and love, may it be in disguise
                                   to worsen it all—in bed, put the tray down
                eat half-asleep, waking up to cherry-clad cupcake-y mess

and the fireplace?
oh, it sits at the bottom
beneath the show of screens, it lies, unearthened
and every time there's a fire in the furnace
it reminds, combining the breath shared, the touch, the earth
each element having come to show off its play


                                                 unpreced­ented, watering those plants  
                                                        ­they're babies, excuse me
                                                              ­   i have to enchant

close your eyes if you can see
being greeted with a hug and a kiss
and the cat hisses, almost painstakingly impressive
trying to express the day's worth of boredom
love isn't so reckless


                                        read the incantations with me  
                                      sit in the candlelight while the storm hurries  
                                      and it could be in the grave depth of nights  
                                           isn't it gruesome yet befitting
                                                       i love the nightlife

it is only cathartic, dreaming of peace
knowing achieving is like putting iron to test for coal
hoping it'd turn diamond, except even iron burns
upon contact with charcoal

have you dreamt before?
oh, something meaningful that lies in the corners
stories behind your eyes,
or the pits of your heart, hidden, well protected
the best kept secret—
we all have ours, but hiding from what?


                                                        ­                  work the work  
                          leave the thoughts of the outside where they belong
                                                          ­we've lived so hard and long
                                      dance this evening, holding hands
                                      together as we might be forlorn

uncover everything and beyond
for if they can't handle, let them fear the pressure of it
they won't stand tall
and that's how you differentiate
who handles, who is there
ingenious, romanticising the otherwise slow life
that seems to be passing by, scaring me in the process

i'd live to delude in the illusion of what lies beyond
or even parallely, there's always one of those
so here's to cheering in the midnights
typing upon the old keys, hoping it'd be the 90s
and perhaps there'd be a ball, for the ones who hope
masked as they will dance
praying upon the lunar moon
their wishes may come true


                                           lonely souls beckoned to the wishbones  
                          pull your side,
                                  do you get the shorter end or the longer?  
                                                       ­        believe as you might



light a candle at 11:11
and blow it when the clock turns 1:43
believing is inhumane
but i set my clock and timer to test
how wrong could it even possibly be?

If you're a patient in a hospital, wouldn't you want to know
exactly how many people have died in the room
                                                                 you're currently sleeping in?    
                           How many hearts have stopped beating, how many
                                                               lungs have deflated, how many
pupils have stopped responding to light—
                                                          ­                 how long CPR was
                                                                ­             performed before
                                                                ­            Time     of     Death
                                                           ­                       was called?
How many DNR patients waltzed into the afterlife
without so much as a half-hearted chest compression?

Ribs can break during CPR.
How many cracked ribs have echoed
                                                                ­  across the walls of your
                                                                ­            hospital room?

                                                           x

Eve was made from Adam's rib.
God plucked the bone and
                                                                ­                  fashioned it into a
                                                                ­             subservient woman to
                                                                ­               replace the wild one,
                                                                   the first one, the no good one,
                                     the woman made from the same soil as Adam:
      Lilith.

                                                           x

We break ribs, break wishbones, break most things we don't understand. A confused patient will take out his IV, his PICC line, even pull at his chest tube or his LVAD driveline.
If it doesn't make sense, we will try to eliminate it in the sake of
                                                                ­                               normality.

                      ­                                     x

Some time in August, we had two codes within one hour.  After 30 or so minutes of chest compressions, they pronounced the second man dead.  He wasn’t my patient that night, and I didn’t know him.  I think his ribs snapped under Alyssa’s hands when she tried to revive him.
                                                            ­      And what does that feel like?   Not just the desperate rush of adrenaline,
        of trying to bring someone back to life—not just the emotional,
                                                                ­           but the physical of it all.

The cracking of the bone beneath the heels of your hands.  
Your fingers laced on top of each other
                                                                ­ pounding and
                                  pounding and
                                                                ­                                  pounding
                                                           against the sternum.  
One, two.  One, two.  One, two.  
                                                          ­            The bone cleaves in half.
And how much pressure does it take?  
I’m sure science could tell us, but
                              how does it feel in your arms, in your shoulders—
                       will your muscles remember the strength it takes and
                                                      stop you next time?

                                                           x

How hard did God have to try when he ripped out
         Adam's rib to make Eve? And
                           how long did it take Adam to recover from the loss?
(Maybe he never did.)

                                                           x

Healthcare is still so barbaric.  You must hurt to help.  
                               Saw through the sternum to get to the heart.  
                 Insert a painful tube to remove the excess fluid.  
                             Drill through the skull and remove
                        potentially useful brain matter.

I have nightmares of tripping over IV tubing and
ripping out PICC lines.   I am terrified of
dropping someone's chest tube on the floor,
                                                 of it ripping violently out of their lungs.
It's not my blood, it's some else's,
                                               and that makes it so much worse.  
                    Being responsible for another human's well-being
                                             is actually terrifying.

I just want to be helpful.  I don’t want to hurtful.  But so often,
                                         I find myself damaging the ones I love.

                                                           x

I would rather have my brain-dead sternum sawed open than
rot in some hole in the ground like my mother if it
                                                        would mean that I could be useful.
                                                   And all we really want is to be useful.
To feel something.  To be something.  
To be proud like the original sin.

Remove my ribs.  All 24 of them.  
Make them into several new women with
several new names and
                                           faces and
                                                            eye colors and
                       skin colors.
Their lives would be more beneficial than my death ever could be.

Like Eve with Lilith, replace the bad, with the seemingly good.  
                                                         Replace the soil with the body.
                                                  It all has to come from somewhere.  

                                                           x

                     How to keep the self close and yet distant from trauma.

I had horrible dreams of her last night

of a Mother red haired with soft hands and fine skin that demand

her two boys' respect or the cunning not to be caught in contempt

of her as she doesn't mind burying her head in the sand

if they kiss her before she slips under her dune comforter and sleeps

for a selfish safe-keeping with a smile but is the kind of lady

who pins her lip corners on her cork board cheeks daily like a cast list

while she cooks turkey for all cleaning the wishbones before her plate

to use as window-sill ornaments until her kids come home so they might fly

or at least not to waste the magic on herself but they hide blocks away

in the parking lot shadow of the auto-repair shop's spinning sign

from the Sun and sky

I want to
Break off both pieces
Of that wishbone.
And yet,
I want to keep them
In place together,
Still holding them;
Shaking along with you.

My wish
Has already been
Granted anyway;
I’m just greedy.
Enough to see
Where this surreal night
Takes us as we sway,
Lest we be killed
By the trembling masses
That crushes all our moments.

[On my birthday]
                
                
At low tide like this how sheer the water is.
White, crumbling ribs of marl protrude and glare
and the boats are dry, the pilings dry as matches.
Absorbing, rather than being absorbed,
the water in the bight doesn't wet anything,
the color of the gas flame turned as low as possible.
One can smell it turning to gas; if one were Baudelaire
one could probably hear it turning to marimba music.
The little ocher dredge at work off the end of the dock
already plays the dry perfectly off-beat claves.
The birds are outsize. Pelicans crash
into this peculiar gas unnecessarily hard,
it seems to me, like pickaxes,
rarely coming up with anything to show for it,
and going off with humorous elbowings.
Black-and-white man-of-war birds soar
on impalpable drafts
and open their tails like scissors on the curves
or tense them like wishbones, till they tremble.
The frowsy sponge boats keep coming in
with the obliging air of retrievers,
bristling with jackstraw gaffs and hooks
and decorated with bobbles of sponges.
There is a fence of chicken wire along the dock
where, glinting like little plowshares,
the blue-gray shark tails are hung up to dry
for the Chinese-restaurant trade.
Some of the little white boats are still piled up
against each other, or lie on their sides, stove in,
and not yet salvaged, if they ever will be, from the last bad storm,
like torn-open, unanswered letters.
The bight is littered with old correspondences.
Click. Click. Goes the dredge,
and brings up a dripping jawful of marl.
All the untidy activity continues,
awful but cheerful.

You talk about eggshells
I hear the crunch as I get closer to you
Thought it was glass breaking but it was too soft beneath my shoe
I can't stay out of your perimeter forever
When the diameter grows bigger and bigger
Pushing me farther away
I can still see soft silhouette

Your skin is so frail
Pale white made of the eggshells at your feet
You reach down time and again
When you're pierced by words
Cutting off oxygen
Penetrated by the carbon dioxide truth
You're not young anymore
Age is ageless numerals
You're not old

How many birds flew away from this pile of youth?
Each one once packaged like a gift
Leaving behind stacks of birth to sift through
You gathered them
Scattered them evenly around you
Put your appearance and self worth into them and
Waited for the crushing blow
Marching toward you from all sides
Your insecurities will swallow you and
The stomping will leave you angry and hollow

We are all hippy chickens
Making wishbones out of peace signs
Hoping for unity
Not realizing it's meant to be broken
A lopsided libra unbalanced
The powers that be
Expect you to follow obediently
Stand in line
You can't take just give
'Short people ain't got no reason to live'
Newman must have know
How difficult it is to create new men
One by one we attempt
To tip the scale in our favor
But the bigger Man
Can push it down with a finger
Like a toppling Pisa tower
A slow motion fall to the ground
A single direction agenda
The momentum gained
With each inch leaning

So stop clowning around
Sweep up your eggshells and
Go buy a dozen more grade A's and
Break them all at once
We don't have much time

Darling, I'm afraid I've broken the coffee maker again.
Darling, I'm afraid that all the orange bottles are empty again.
Darling, I'm afraid that sometimes walls remind me
of either the ones you threw me against or the ones I put up around my heart
so that no one can love me ever again.

Darling, I'm afraid that I don't see stars in the sky anymore,
just a lot of eyes staring down at me,
scrutinizing me like interstellar councilmen,
knowing about every disgusting thing that I have done
when I thought it was just me and you and the peeling wallpaper.

Darling, I'm afraid that I am woven around your ribcage
like the beads of a rosary
are wrapped around the fingers of a sinner who has sold their soul
to the devil for forgiveness from God
one too many times.

Darling, I'm afraid I have to pause to talk about your fingers.
I am not wrapped around just one, but all of them.
I was hoping to bind you like a book so I could read you a little better,
but I'm afraid I've just entangled myself in a giant mess
and I'm afraid that you're a little too amused by my demise.

Darling, I'm afraid that guns shoot and so do stars,
I'm afraid that wishbones break and so do bones,
and I'm afraid that feathers float and so do bodies.
Darling, I'm afraid that I'm sorry that I cannot fix you,
because I don't think I can even fix myself.

Darling, I'm afraid I'm just
afraid.

- b.b.

Teddy Roosevelt was shot under his heart

Yet he told the crowd mobbing the shooter

To stand back, do not hurt the man

And I like to think that’s what I’m going to do for you

When you shoot an arrow through my chest.

There is ice frozen on my windshield

And every time I play a CD in the cold it skips

Like the tone of your voice

And I wonder what those friends are doing

But then I remember that I don’t really care

Because compassion doesn’t mix well with alcohol

And if I have to sit in another bathroom with pale yellow tiles I think my head will crack

Just like the porcelain seat you slammed your head against

And I’ll fall short of sympathy.

We’ll never find our glory in stained carpets and shaking hands.

I think I’ve started to get wishbones and backbones confused

Because my wishes are buried in the crevices of your spine and now

I hold on to both ends of the wishbone to guarantee success

And maybe that’s why I’m only lucky half the time.

I’ve gotten repetitive repetitive repetitive

And I have gotten faulty with my words

And this is beginning to sound like a tragedy.

I could tell that you had smoked a cigarette
yesterday before I saw you because
your shirt smelled like smoke and
your lips tasted like
lung cancer.  (I like to to pretend
that it doesn’t really bother me that
this is not the only connection
you have with my father.)

My parents, my sister, and you, my darling, all
have green eyes.  Green like miniature
earths turning in space, like Lake Michigan capsizing,
like the summer leaves in the woods behind my house.  
Sometimes I think that I’m more closely related to
my grandparents because when I
turned down the emeralds, I was given
sapphires to use as kaleidoscopes instead.

And, you know, my father called me a month ago and
wished me luck “in the big city” and I still
do not know if that means he knows
where I am or not; I have
not heard from my mother in over five years.  
(I like to pretend that your relationship
with your parents is much easier than mine.)

Do you remember that time when you told me that
                       “everyone sins?”
I do not think that you took into account
the amount of which we all sin.  (All sinners are equal,
but some are more equal than others.)  Sometimes
I think that the Viking blood inside of me
makes sure that I identify with
the villains            more than            the heroes.
Sometimes I think that
                                            you are the hero.

But, darling, there so many things I
tip toe around when it comes to you, and
I am not sure why—religion, politics; the
Chernobyl boy, the inked boy, my father, my mother; the
moths that live inside my gut, the layer of dust over my limbic system.
I wish that I had the words to say that I can never
be what you want, what my
family wants, what anyone wants.

I wish that I could tell you how I
think I am drowning in the in the gene pool,
how I am convinced that I’ve broken three bones
without actually breaking them, how I lay awake
at night, scared to death that my
dreamcatcher will stop working and that the
nightmares will finally catch up with me.

There are broken wishbones in my bed that
I keep as trophies of losing to luck and
blood stains on my clothes from all
the lambs that I’ve been forced to slaughter.
All I want to do is tell you why I prefer
cigar smoke            to            cigarette smoke
and how I would rather have you
quit all together than live another day knowing that
you’re dying faster than me.

But darling, I watched the world spin last night
when I opened my eyes and looked at you
looking at me, and for now, it’ll do.  You
can be the nightlight in the corner of my room.
Wait for me in my chrysalis. Listen to my wings flutter.

Buddha belly, rabbit’s foot,
how much luck can you get
                                                    from touching the dead?

(Maybe that’s the reason behind Jeffrey Dahmer’s slaughtering of
                                                                ­                         seventeen men;
maybe that’s the reason why we break wishbones—
to remind ourselves that this bone is dead
                                            these hands are alive
                                            do something with them.)

In some cultures, it is socially acceptable to
                             eat your child’s placenta—
there is good fortune in it, power in it.

(I wonder if this is the reason why cannibals eat their victims.)

Number seven.  Cross on the wall.
         I wish you good luck.

1
I remember her body against me

She tells me she doesn't want to get hurt
That I will break her heart

You can break me like a wishbone
and keep the better half

Sharpen it like a prison shiv
and stab me with it if I do

2
She is the snow
I am a stove in a single room cabin

I have been cutting off parts of this home
and feeding them into my belly

There is sawdust
on the floor of my love

3
Most of this house is gone now
I am still a stove
she is still snow

We both think
this heat is a good idea

I keep burning

Call her iglu
Call her daring
Call me almost homeless

4
I have left the stove

I am a candle now

Slow burning

Call me always hot still

Call her always melting

The floor is always wet

5
I tried to trap the ocean
in a dresser drawer

But we were flooded roofless

I learned to hold my breath

She learned that warmth doesn't really change anything

There was the sun
and it heated her body

I bathed in the ocean
she made
a thin
near burnt candle

I sank down

Her heart was made of winning halves of wishbones
Sharpened like shivs

I did not go near them

I am not afraid of getting hurt
But I have always been taught
to respect the sea

I've spilled your name
and my feelings
on fallen lashes
and wishbones.
I've read 1950s
love letters and wondered
if we would've had
exchanged some
had we lived that time.
I've stayed up late
in air-conditioned rooms;
a ****** for midnight voice
between your broken smiles.

But boy, this isn't
a confession of how
enchanted I am of you.
This is just me realizing that
somehow,
you can make a dismal world
look a little less messed up;
god, you're beautiful for it.

This is just me realizing that
I can stay with you
for all the reasons
they left you for.

This is just me realizing that
I can fall for you,
so, so deep,
if allow myself.
and feel like I was falling to the clouds.
Boy, this isn't love,
but somehow, it's so much more.

This is a saving grace
wrapped in chipped nails
and stories that make you feel
more human.
This is a silver lining.
This is chance.
This is light,
This is hope
for damaged people
like us.

This is us —
surviving.
This is us —
living.

i've seen the wings of coughing angels,
bent, snapped off between fingers,
like wishbones.
i've blanketed them with burlap rags
of red and blue, so neatly stitched,
only to discover they were
bewitched
by men on ships.
and with death on his lips,
he laughed
at their ****** backs and spotted foreheads.
and he never bothered
to cover his tracks,
when sneaking into their beds.

i am a wishful thinker
i make wishes on bones
that are not necessarily wishbones
break me in two
and place a bet
on my better half
i'd try & come true
if you wanted
yeah, i can be selfless like that
but in my head,
i am so selfish
selfish enough to wanna share my bed
with you
you,
with the bright spark eyes
and the catherine wheel heart
i wanna make you dizzy
i'm not a firework
but give me a chance to explode
i'll show you all the colours under my skin
swim through my blue veins
and turn them white
with your library smile
climb to my highest tower
and breathe in my clouds
that doesn't make sense
i often don't make sense
i wanna make sense
out of every corner of your body
i want to wear your frame
like a tailored suit
'cause around you
my sunday best is wearing nothing at all
but your lips & my sheets
i often sing songs for you
into my pillowcase
in the middle of the night
this bed is the arena
of me & you
i'm often echoing in an empty room
but once in a while
i hear you knocking
on the door
i always
let
you
in.

sternum (n.)
a bone extending along the middle line of the ventral portion of the body consisting of a flat, narrow bone connected with the clavicles and the true ribs.
I remember taking an anatomy class in high school, we had to memorize the bones of the body - the skeletal system. Scapula, humerus, mandible all favorable to the tongue, but I never liked the word sternum, it sounds far too angry, nothing like the supple it actually is. Years later I would still find myself walking to work and naming them off. Bones on my mind. Tibia, ulna, femur, breastbone.
Breastbone rolls around my mouth, lulls my anxiety towards its twin like a boat in calm waters. I think of your breastbone as a platform to profess my fascination. I am surprisingly amazed every time I count the steady rhythm of your heart, it's sound conducted as though your breastbone is a soundboard. I feel the slight ridges of your ribs when my head lays in the valley of your chest. There's not a day that I wouldn't love to get lost in the formations of your bones, each crevice a new place to hide - lounging in the curve of your collar bone, plucking the muscles of your fingers like guitar strings, getting lost to the soft scent of skin, and memorizing the plush roundness of your *******, each sensation leaves me with a new obsession. I look for replicas in everyday life, the hunt almost as intoxicating as smoke from campfires, or plucking wishbones from hens.

I will search for you in my little toy boxes
filled with old ancestors and sayings slipped from tongues, revealing stories of my birthmarks
I will search for you in the light
I will search for you in the dark

I will gentley remove my skin
in my mind you are so royal
so monarch

I will drink my water
all alone
I will light my candles
in the late night and imagine what would be the smell of your cologne
I will stare into the world at night until Im
****** and moonstoned

I will linger wax inbetween thigh bones
flirt tales with wishbones
until all the stars beg me to stop
uttering moans

I am beseeched in interlocking strangle
of submission to my loneliness
and waiting with a white transparent dress
on the bridge of london
hoping to see the dark eyes
that put light in the souls of the peasent in my
disabled heart, mused in desguise

should I sit here and speak the anecdotes
and the lies
of the littler girl inside of me
who everytime thinks of your dies
slower and slower
each time

the goodbyes
and the standbys

I reply
I have ran out of supplies
to fix my sunrise

and now I sit here in the absence of bright skies
life I see takes hold of the wise

but you see my lover
for you I shall be patient
I shall be humble

and I shall be kind.

So many  opportunities for wishes,
11:11
shooting stars
birthday candles,

but here I sit
with you miles away,

so many wasted wishes,
throwing coins into fountains
breaking wishbones,
blowing dandelion seeds.

Give him everything you are.
Strip yourself to bare skin with chills on your spine.
Wishbones and collar bones,
your ribs protruding through your shirt.
He doesn't like fat girls.
So love begins on your knees in a bathroom stall
10 minutes after lunch.
Stomach acid burns your esophagus.
"I wonder if his **** going down will hurt as bad as ***** coming up?"
Be skinny.
Be everything he dreams.
Quiet, soft, subtle, pretty and confused.
Be this, that, and everything in between.
Be willing.
Be recyclable.
Be trash.
Broken glass in your retinas,
don't look him in the eye.
Let him have every part of you,
but hold back the feelings.
Be emotionless.
Be empty.
Now hope to god its enough for him to stay.
Ignore every part of you screaming
"he doesn't love you".
Unbutton your pants, pull off your *******
and reply,
"But I can make him."