wasn't sure if i should post these - but fuck it. i'm poet.
"the more i run, the more i realize that the shortest fucking distance between two points is honesty."
I
little does she know she proceeds to set the precedent. she doesn't need to know. she doesn't need to know how she sets your heart veins and nerves on fire. she doesn't need to know the colossal dimensions of the brick she just caused you to shit. or that you can no longer enjoy the movie you were intending on watching or that sleep hasn't come easily or at all in days weeks months - or how that you can feel her absence in your cold soft bones and your skeleton is minutes away from folding itself into slow collapse. or how sick you feel in those pale mornings or how songbirds offer you nothing but unwanted awareness and migraines. she doesn't need to know that you are slowly convincing yourself that you are a silver wolf with the blood bones and marrow of your siblings in your teeth. or that you meet personally with uncertainty each week. these are facts she can step over in bare feet. she doesn't need to know about the monuments you made in her name and likeness. or how the way she moves speaks and breathes melts your shining guts into an unrecognizable mess. she doesn't need to know that. she doesn't need to know that the strange silence permeating your living room is wrapping itself around your throat and whispering biblical stories into your pores. or how a simple glance and gesture can kill all the bad in you and pull you from the muck and mire of doubt. no. what she needs to know is that you are unbendable as earth's bones and deep roots. and engine blocks. that your blood is a drug. hot as a fuck with a steel torso and an unscratchable heart. that sticks stones and words no matter how sharp or blunt are incapable of wounding your pride. and that you can walk for miles in moccasins not complaining. and that you only depend on your own hands to kill everything you eat. no. she doesn't need to know that, right now, at this very moment, you are an uncollected mess turning through traffics of ghosts with knotted calf muscles and a thinning waist that now belongs to no one. and no sooner than we are resurrected are we slain on sidewalks again - and her face is swallowed up by the lights on screens that form to make the faces of friends and not me. this is barely an embrace and you should sleep. you should bury yourself deep in layers of bedding and thoughts of distances and not me. I'm promising myself by my bloody marrow I'm not falling. I'm showing you my muscle meat and tendons bones and blood tethered and make you see. we're not the seraphs we made ourselves out to be. you hardly speak and fluency in silence leaks through me. I'm something. somebody worth noting. worth writing home about. worth missing. worth wanting. and wanting inside of you. twisting sinews tasting tongues telling truth and saying sooth. I'm fucking done. I still dance on Brooklyn rooftops with angels biting my own tongue. and i'll bite it til she comes. one way or another - she'll come. she'll come staggering to her senses spilling out all hidden and clandestine thoughts and come spiraling into my chest. knock me off of my fucking feet for one brief meeting of mouths. before i fade into dreams. and all she has is that screen. but this isn't real. she's perfectly fine without me, my words, my hands. she's perfectly fine. she's perfect. she's purring in her sleep and i'm wide awake wondering if i'm at the end of this bullshit rope. yup - she's got me up against the ropes and i'm begging to throw in the towel. no bruises but still badly broken. you never said you missed me. but then again you were never aiming for me.
II
my girl dances on the steps of my spine singing a silence that can splinter hearts. i used to wear her hands around my throat like a silver necklace and she knew the secret to keeping the sun in her pockets. pretty little phantom. her eyes pulled knives on my wrists. she led me here. and i, like a starved pup, followed the lengths of her silhouette waiting for scraps. i could swallow fire just to see her sideways smile. one fine day, her teeth will bury themselves into my arms and i will embrace the whole glowing shape of her. she runs from my mouth, from these my shaking, brown hands. she fears the burning sincerity of their awful touch. she trembles at the sight of my shoulders moving in to rest on her thighs. her taste has become something quite foreign and i long to lay her down beside the moving waters. to simply whisper into her pores: "it is i alone who will have you when the night is done." she disappears into the comforts of childhood without words. and i swim into her lungs with good intentions. my love is something like the joy of sandcastles. my mouth alone can hold her still and force the rhythmic marching of butterflies in her belly. she may not yet know - that i can eat fire. that i would dance my bones into the ocean at her whim. her skin is the only bed i wish to rest my head on. so let loose the arsonists and i'll lick the flames. i'll be as spectral as you wish me to be. i'll glide barefoot over the bones of you past lovers. let their sharpened ribs cut through my heels. and i'll dress her waist in fruit and take the tiniest bites. i'll press myself against these windows to illustrate my breath. and draw hearts in the center. and draw her hands to my torso. my love shall not forget my sweet, salt-ridden taste nor my tangled shape for i will haunt her hungry eyes as the ghost of a sailor. and wait. wielding sincerity like a dagger.
III
i drew a picture of her pulse. i traced it on the table. your blood isn't mine and our veins need washing out my dear. my darling. i'm honestly starving. i'm crossing my fingers. i want to make my home in your mouth. for you i would walk the distance between these bottles and heaven. your smile is a precious torture that renders my heart a broken clock in a dusty corner where no one cares what time it is. my dear. my darling. i'm honestly starving. for your tiny hands and your sinister eyes. you hold me in a clever stasis, bound by ice and oceans of locks. i'll have you know my love is gently anchored at your waist. i am tethered to your hips. entangled in your hair. i am the ghost bottled by your bedside when no one else is there. and i am burning and the brilliance of one thousand suns could never hold a candle to your flames. this boy that now baits you pales in comparison. the love that i carry in the bed of my palm bleeds only for you. let us be the unmasked children who drank on brooklyn rooftops on the fourth of july. let us be the phantoms in the sheet forts. the kids who kissed wildly in costa rican downpours. the babies who fell in love too fast. i wish for nothing more than to feel your heart beating against mine. my words are my charms, my dear. listen awhile. for i was sculpted to fit inside of your chest. my lungs built to share in your every breath. and i want to breathe deeply from you. to fill my blood with your sweetest exhalations. if you are afraid then close your eyes and disappear. but i promise you, i'll still be there when you open them again. and i am no thief. nor was i born to steal from you your dreams. i believe that i was conjured to simply help you stitch your wings. and you will reach the heights you seek and i'll float underneath. and i'll watch you laugh as you collect the stars like fireflies in mason jars. my dear, i am for you more than the boy who now baits you. for one thousand six hundred forty three days i gave praise to whatever force led me to your arms. for thirty nine thousand four hundred thirty two hours i was the luckiest man breathing. and you must feel my absence in your bones. i know. think of my brown eyes and how they bore deep into your soul. remember how they watched you sleep and softly breathe. remember how they glided over you as you walked away. remember my dried lips and the songs that they would say. my dear. my darling. i'm honestly starving. and i am for you more than the boy who now baits you. will you know my worth when you smell me on your bedsheets? please hold me together. i'm about to unravel and i'll leave pieces of myself on every road you travel. i'll leave bits of my heart on every street in this city and i won't go to sleep until i'm certain you'll miss me.
I
little does she know she proceeds to set the precedent. she doesn't need to know. she doesn't need to know how she sets your heart veins and nerves on fire. she doesn't need to know the colossal dimensions of the brick she just caused you to shit. or that you can no longer enjoy the movie you were intending on watching or that sleep hasn't come easily or at all in days weeks months - or how that you can feel her absence in your cold soft bones and your skeleton is minutes away from folding itself into slow collapse. or how sick you feel in those pale mornings or how songbirds offer you nothing but unwanted awareness and migraines. she doesn't need to know that you are slowly convincing yourself that you are a silver wolf with the blood bones and marrow of your siblings in your teeth. or that you meet personally with uncertainty each week. these are facts she can step over in bare feet. she doesn't need to know about the monuments you made in her name and likeness. or how the way she moves speaks and breathes melts your shining guts into an unrecognizable mess. she doesn't need to know that. she doesn't need to know that the strange silence permeating your living room is wrapping itself around your throat and whispering biblical stories into your pores. or how a simple glance and gesture can kill all the bad in you and pull you from the muck and mire of doubt. no. what she needs to know is that you are unbendable as earth's bones and deep roots. and engine blocks. that your blood is a drug. hot as a fuck with a steel torso and an unscratchable heart. that sticks stones and words no matter how sharp or blunt are incapable of wounding your pride. and that you can walk for miles in moccasins not complaining. and that you only depend on your own hands to kill everything you eat. no. she doesn't need to know that, right now, at this very moment, you are an uncollected mess turning through traffics of ghosts with knotted calf muscles and a thinning waist that now belongs to no one. and no sooner than we are resurrected are we slain on sidewalks again - and her face is swallowed up by the lights on screens that form to make the faces of friends and not me. this is barely an embrace and you should sleep. you should bury yourself deep in layers of bedding and thoughts of distances and not me. I'm promising myself by my bloody marrow I'm not falling. I'm showing you my muscle meat and tendons bones and blood tethered and make you see. we're not the seraphs we made ourselves out to be. you hardly speak and fluency in silence leaks through me. I'm something. somebody worth noting. worth writing home about. worth missing. worth wanting. and wanting inside of you. twisting sinews tasting tongues telling truth and saying sooth. I'm fucking done. I still dance on Brooklyn rooftops with angels biting my own tongue. and i'll bite it til she comes. one way or another - she'll come. she'll come staggering to her senses spilling out all hidden and clandestine thoughts and come spiraling into my chest. knock me off of my fucking feet for one brief meeting of mouths. before i fade into dreams. and all she has is that screen. but this isn't real. she's perfectly fine without me, my words, my hands. she's perfectly fine. she's perfect. she's purring in her sleep and i'm wide awake wondering if i'm at the end of this bullshit rope. yup - she's got me up against the ropes and i'm begging to throw in the towel. no bruises but still badly broken. you never said you missed me. but then again you were never aiming for me.
II
my girl dances on the steps of my spine singing a silence that can splinter hearts. i used to wear her hands around my throat like a silver necklace and she knew the secret to keeping the sun in her pockets. pretty little phantom. her eyes pulled knives on my wrists. she led me here. and i, like a starved pup, followed the lengths of her silhouette waiting for scraps. i could swallow fire just to see her sideways smile. one fine day, her teeth will bury themselves into my arms and i will embrace the whole glowing shape of her. she runs from my mouth, from these my shaking, brown hands. she fears the burning sincerity of their awful touch. she trembles at the sight of my shoulders moving in to rest on her thighs. her taste has become something quite foreign and i long to lay her down beside the moving waters. to simply whisper into her pores: "it is i alone who will have you when the night is done." she disappears into the comforts of childhood without words. and i swim into her lungs with good intentions. my love is something like the joy of sandcastles. my mouth alone can hold her still and force the rhythmic marching of butterflies in her belly. she may not yet know - that i can eat fire. that i would dance my bones into the ocean at her whim. her skin is the only bed i wish to rest my head on. so let loose the arsonists and i'll lick the flames. i'll be as spectral as you wish me to be. i'll glide barefoot over the bones of you past lovers. let their sharpened ribs cut through my heels. and i'll dress her waist in fruit and take the tiniest bites. i'll press myself against these windows to illustrate my breath. and draw hearts in the center. and draw her hands to my torso. my love shall not forget my sweet, salt-ridden taste nor my tangled shape for i will haunt her hungry eyes as the ghost of a sailor. and wait. wielding sincerity like a dagger.
III
i drew a picture of her pulse. i traced it on the table. your blood isn't mine and our veins need washing out my dear. my darling. i'm honestly starving. i'm crossing my fingers. i want to make my home in your mouth. for you i would walk the distance between these bottles and heaven. your smile is a precious torture that renders my heart a broken clock in a dusty corner where no one cares what time it is. my dear. my darling. i'm honestly starving. for your tiny hands and your sinister eyes. you hold me in a clever stasis, bound by ice and oceans of locks. i'll have you know my love is gently anchored at your waist. i am tethered to your hips. entangled in your hair. i am the ghost bottled by your bedside when no one else is there. and i am burning and the brilliance of one thousand suns could never hold a candle to your flames. this boy that now baits you pales in comparison. the love that i carry in the bed of my palm bleeds only for you. let us be the unmasked children who drank on brooklyn rooftops on the fourth of july. let us be the phantoms in the sheet forts. the kids who kissed wildly in costa rican downpours. the babies who fell in love too fast. i wish for nothing more than to feel your heart beating against mine. my words are my charms, my dear. listen awhile. for i was sculpted to fit inside of your chest. my lungs built to share in your every breath. and i want to breathe deeply from you. to fill my blood with your sweetest exhalations. if you are afraid then close your eyes and disappear. but i promise you, i'll still be there when you open them again. and i am no thief. nor was i born to steal from you your dreams. i believe that i was conjured to simply help you stitch your wings. and you will reach the heights you seek and i'll float underneath. and i'll watch you laugh as you collect the stars like fireflies in mason jars. my dear, i am for you more than the boy who now baits you. for one thousand six hundred forty three days i gave praise to whatever force led me to your arms. for thirty nine thousand four hundred thirty two hours i was the luckiest man breathing. and you must feel my absence in your bones. i know. think of my brown eyes and how they bore deep into your soul. remember how they watched you sleep and softly breathe. remember how they glided over you as you walked away. remember my dried lips and the songs that they would say. my dear. my darling. i'm honestly starving. and i am for you more than the boy who now baits you. will you know my worth when you smell me on your bedsheets? please hold me together. i'm about to unravel and i'll leave pieces of myself on every road you travel. i'll leave bits of my heart on every street in this city and i won't go to sleep until i'm certain you'll miss me.