i erased my name for everything. wiped off fingerprints, dusted away footprints. like i was never even there.

you make me feel like singing,
to tip and pour out
all the little worlds
swirling in the back of my throat
and let all the little people
i've thought up
make new homes on my tongue
and teeth
so maybe the next time
you'll kiss me and
my mouth will taste sweet.

some desperate, chemical blood
i touch your mouth.
i touch your jaw.
i touch the shell of your ear, your shoulder blade,
the inside of your wrist.
you hum softly
the engine in your chest
hot and roaring
like a furnace
and when you exhale,
softly,
shakily,
smoke rises.
you compare yourself to a machine,
longingly tracing patterns on you skin
explaining the detailed webwork
of steel and wire that lies
beneath
that mighty engine sputters
and
groans.
you whimper into the sheets.
& yet i pluck you gently,
you pale delicate thing
and carry you into the garden
lay you down in the soft marrow of the earth
and let your bloom quietly in the
moonlight
(you pale delicate thing)
i touch your mouth.
i touch your jaw.
i touch the shell of your ear, your shoulder blade,
the inside of your wrist.
you hum softly,
bright petals shivering.


&& he was a poet's wet dream:
"every time I breathe in I smell and taste the cigarettes you stole from me. and under that bright sun you laid across the road so unafraid, thinking yourself invincible, & every time i breathe it feels like the broad expanse of those tired hands on my neck, your eyes are the stars dying and imploding and in all that heat and light and energy i am beyond insignificant, im that lighter you sparked next to my skin and then let me steal so i could throw it as far as i could into the sea."

you left without saying goodbye, its almost 2am. The heat collects behind eyelids, behind knees, along the shelf of your collarbone, & all I'm doing is wishing for snow. To turn our ordinary human silhouettes into something more, pressing angels into the ground. This is the opposite of a children's book; no monsters come out at night, only humans- we save our horns and sharp teeth for the sunlight.

"I burnt my tongue on you. Now I have no sense of taste. Or decency.'