I have become a bowl
sitting
under
a broken
faucet

for too long.

(drip)

Different patterns across my
face, shivering ripples, in my
way a
rouse
to keep me
interesting.

(drip)

Though, I
cannot always
catch
what falls
off
of
the
edge.

(drip)

Mm. Smell that angst.

I will rip the first three pages from your favorite book and I will
eat the memories I have of you
in one
bite.

I will devour any trace of you by
burning
my skin
away.

I will dissolve every look every time every
good intention on my tongue like bad sugar,
like bad sugar you
will remain
a temporary
satisfaction
for anyone
you touch.

like a fictional character's pain

a hand
touching my cheek,
I feel it there - warm - settling on my
skin like debris settles
on the earth after the
explosion.

I can soon feel the bruises bloom
beneath my skin, they are varied in
color and in size and they remind me
so much of
the valleys I've left in my wake,
I wouldn't call them craters for
they are not baren. I do believe in
the preservation of life
in all things, I find it necessary.

but without warning the hand disappears like mist
though my fingers, I cling to something like the
dew you see so often in the early morning, I cling to
space and to time and to the very edge of
everything, that is, everything that I can
think of.

instead of sorrow I feel only emptiness, no stabs of
pain or gasps gasped in horror, just
a dead-pan expression
and hollow
silence.

there was no burning.
there was non-chalance and too
much space, a rift that sank from
her chest, with bones protruding like piano keys,
to my chest, pock-marked with kisses and swelling
in pink youth, I
still don't understand
much of it, but I have
always known one thing:

we will never get another try at this.

it means nothing when I picture your hands sliding
through the motions of my patient body, of your eyes smiling when I am
beneath your slight frame.

until everything is anything again and
until the wind has stopped blowing at my back
or until I have enough courage to turn around,

I will settle, with limbs limp, into a deep, u-shaped sigh
and drift in and out and
in and
out of
this conversation
watching your
lipslikepetals
caress the air and
fondle my breath,
knowingly or not.

oh high

there's something in the middle of me, in the middle of 
me there is a large something
pushpushing against my skin and
aching against my vital organs, I 
can feel my heart strings as they are
are tuned up up up and pulled to the taut
-ness of a mandolin. the monotonous monks that 

haunt my chest take on a barely audible hum, 

angelic, the lightness of 
their voices driving into the tips of 

each of my quivering limbs like 

feathers, they are like
feathers in the sense 

that I am

covered in 

them, I am

buzzing with 

a glow of satisfaction - !

--------------------------------------------------------------------

^that is a work in progress. I've obviously got to come down from that high. 

I need more than I want to.
I want more than I need.

What is left?

"Have you seen how thin he is?"

You look like you're ten years old. 

You look like you did in that picture on the fridge

of a boy all wet from swimming and happy from 

living.

It's only now that I realize,

I never knew your 

happiness.

I only knew 

my own. 

I pull on my skin sometimes, I
pinch it away from my neck and collar
bone, mostly, I'm not very sure as to
why. I shouldn't be a big believer in
hidden meanings or false realities, and yet
I am. Almost religiously, I am.

I thought that maybe I could force the fizzy feeling in my throat or

the everything-smells-like-you phase or the

forgetting or the remembering or anything anything. 

But I'm not good at forcing things, seeing as I don't exert much energy into

anything but myself. 

How? 

when I'm sick
I'm drunk on myself.

I also enjoy power-disc-ing, whole
vegetables and tea. lots o' tea.

eloquence is out the window, even though it's my favorite thing.
unless it's pretend eloquence with a british accent. then I'm down.

repetition is a sort of therapy for me, I've found

I don't trust you, 

I don't trust you, I don't. 

I think you're too easy-peasily swayed by the fraying ends of 

dress hems, by the tails hanging loosely from the back of girls too

pretty for you, and by your impatient and italicized 

need.

I am ready to be swallowed by the massive curls of your body and

I am ready to have my heat (it's all gone to my chest)

recognized standing next to your heat (I can tell it's all in your head)

because the time it has taken for a 

face-forward-palms-un-clenched

acknowledgement 

has been ex-

cruciatingly

hopeful and

pain-

fully

trivial. 

I am ready 

to not be 

trivial 

anymore. 

But I don't trust you. 

I just don't

trust you

at all. 

if you're wondering

I'll be dreaming safe and sound, it's
all I've got so I'll be sleeping a lot more
often, now.

I'll be drifting in and out of the
conversation because it's all I can do to keep from
watching your
lipslikepetals
caress the air and fondle my
breath, knowingly or not.

is/was

bad books and toothpaste left on my face in the morning, I'm early all the time and I don't want to wait for anyone to finish their sentences before my mind becomes a mimosa pudica, the foliage closing, sleeping in the dark of the closed mindedness I've been suffering from. the magnitude of dry layers my skin has collected is truly astonishing, only letting pass my hesitant perspiration and the vibrations of my gong-like heart muscle. it resonates within my chest cavity before sinking into a slumber for days at a time. I don't miss it, I don't.

sticky red and circling black charcoal, the
pink cheeks are all mine, I can
still blush on my own,

               (thank god)

I can still feel the heat surfacing while I
am painted in this sickly green fluorescent light
         
            (as compared to
                 my own
            sweet sunshine)

I don't feel pretty all the time,
but when I do it's on my own
- all -
on my
own.