We the depraved

I drank that last glass, for us, because we're all so afraid
we make people like us by feeding them inaccuracies
it's odd how much we praise self-loathing as if
loving something is a concept altogether too fragile
for our unforgiving bones, we've strangled that word enough
straining it thin through beatnik lust fingers
Oh we the depraved! If only we could muster the bravery
to cut off these hands that only chase trails of smoke
like our bodies were vaguely limbs branching off the grey haze


I spent all my waking time decorating for a wedding that
never existed, now I keep all of my windows locked
and sentences in fragments

Of Downpour

I found peace of mind in a traffic accident
broken skin is hardly a problem

when your brothers all sleep
with their faces covered

now I can’t find motivation to fold my eyes
when you told me moths fly through rain

dodging every drop, how
terrifying

Intimate

small moon shaped burns
cigarette kisses
speckle your chest bones
like maroon love making
caught in barb wired bedframes
dig your nails into
my ribcage now there's so much
more I have left to show you
you haven't yet kissed
my tree root heart strings
or taken in the dark
parts of my marrow

singe my skin again
and maybe one day we'll see
a spark in all this smutty air
but mostly I watch the moon
when you sleep I couldn't
look you in the eye anyway
something about the way we twist
our fingers into one another
is so violently cavalier
like laughing at our own
pity, we're petty enough
to half-believe that not
being alone is good enough

I think next time I'll wrap
my own skin around me like a
towel hung out to dry hang me out
from the clothesline of your
spinal vertebrae maybe if I
can't be in your head I can
support it and maybe if you
can't be in my limb basket
you'de at least know I
never wanted to wonder
if you lie awake avoiding my
eyes the way I avoid yours

Fold

we were bleeding out millions

of rainbows specks from under our skin

refracting, indigenous light

prism veins, I think we were natives

of each others consciousness, but more likely

we were only transparent glass


fragile impossible structures

why is it that humans in love

are already creased with

"fold here" signs, why is it

that nobody can hold

onto expiration dates

without folding.


twist a coat hanger into

the silhouette of the front door

you used to hide behind

use the coarse wires to

examine inside our lung walls

we'll remove every last sentence

with i's and fold

them into Uish fishhooks

Kill Paint

woman

wailing

on TV

how long will it take
for you to lodge a bullet in her

I don't know if I've been
present a day in my life
until the day I poured hot coffee
down my dress on purpose

streaks of muddied paint, all of us
he's aquamarine, she's red
sometime's we blend
sometimes we make black
holes

Splinter Hands

Our bodies hold together like

the way smoke tangles

and then vanishes

you could call it an addiction

but we're more of a cheap metaphor

for moth covered porch lamps

where children go to collect

insect bones and splinters


Constant tree knock gospels

you have woodpecker lips

leaving holes in

scattered veins

made out of every time

you ever said the words

"you and I"

I wouldn't mind the red

if you threaded our fingers

with wood chips