Between You and Me.
I.
“Is your name spelled with one n or two?”
We collided while climbing the
stairs at the same
time.
“Do you want one of my beers?”
Two chairs turned to face
each other, your hands on your
thighs, fingers tapping.
“Do you want to sleep out here, or in my room?”
The first kiss, your tongue was
curious, and your breath was
warm.
“Did you know William S. Burroughs shot his wife
while playing William Tell?”
We were walking into a restaurant and
you accidentally kicked my shin
when we sat down.
“Can I fuck you here?”
We were wet and the hot water was
running out and you came without
telling me first.
“Just calm down, I love you, okay?”
Taxis passed and the rain slapped
your face and I wanted to run
but I held your hand instead.
“I wish you’d stop acting so fucking crazy.”
I ripped every shirt off every hanger and
swung the front door wide open when
I left.
“I’d give anything for you to come back.”
I came back I came back I came back and
nothing changed at all except your hands
on me were never so soft.
II.
“Two n’s.”
Wobbly knees and shaking hands
and a smirk or two in
your direction.
“Do you like Brand New?”
I sipped on your cheap beer
and wondered what color
your eyes were exactly.
“Give me some blanket.”
I did not sleep that entire night
because I was afraid of closing my
eyes.
“Did you know Sylvia Plath killed herself with her
children asleep in the next room?”
You didn’t order anything and picked
all of the fries off of my
plate.
“Why didn’t you say something?”
You paid for the morning after pill
but I had to catch three buses
to get it.
“What did you say?”
I should have said I love you I love you
I love you and I should have kept
loving you.
“I wish you actually gave a fuck about me.”
I know where I went that night and I
know what I did and I don’t know
if I’d change it if I could.
“If I leave this time, I can’t come back.”
There are 842 miles between us
but the distance is not what
keeps us apart.
Skin
I think there are bed bugs in your mattress.
Last night after you fucked me
My blood felt a little bit thinner,
And I had the strongest urge to rip apart the skin at the nape of my neck.
You used to write me love letters in pencil.
After I read them my fingertips were left stained with gray soot that whispered the ghosts of your words.
She wrote you a love letter
Of her name and seven numbers in blue ink.
It was folded 3 times and pushed into the corner of your blue jeans pocket.
Now, when you tell me im beautiful,
I smile with my lips closed.
There are parasites under my tongue that are eating away at the few words I have left for you.
Now, when you touch me,
I only want to pull away from your leeching fingers.
You take the warmth from her body in filthy motel rooms at deadly hours and transfer it to mine,
Then back to hers every thursday night.
I think there are bed bugs in your mattress.
Every night I want to pull you off of me like a tick.
I hear her six-legged words in my ears
And I feel her seductive fingers in the sheets
And I just want to rip off all of my fucking skin.
I want you to wake up to my rotting bones.
Savvy
A man and a woman meet. Or a man and a man, or a woman or a woman. It doesn’t matter. They are sexually attracted to each other.
The man (we’ll say it’s a man and a woman) gets the woman’s number and texts her. She texts back four minutes later.
A friend had taught the man—you don’t want to seem too attached, too needy. However long you have to wait for her to text her back, you text her back after twice that amount. He texts back eight minutes later.
The woman learned very well from her friends as well. You have to make him work for it, or else you’re easy. However long he waits to text you back, you wait twice as long before texting him back.
They were both incredibly socially savvy now, and they knew just how to do it.
She texted him after sixteen more minutes.
He texted her back after thirty two minutes.
Her, an hour and four minutes.
Him, two hours and eight minutes.
Next, four hours and sixteen minutes.
Then, eight hours and thirty two minutes.
Seventeen hours and four minutes.
Thirty four hours and eight minutes.
They tried to get coffee, but couldn’t agree on a time in time.
Him, two days, twenty hours, and sixteen minutes.
Her, five days, sixteen hours, and thirty two minutes.
He was determined; he texted her to come out to a bar that he knew he would be at with some friends in exactly eleven days, nine hours, and four minutes.
She was equally determined: she didn’t agree to show up for twenty two days, eighteen hours, and eight minutes.
Him: maybe another time, in one month, twelve days, twelve hours, and sixteen minutes.
Her: maybe in two months, nine days, and thirty two minutes.
Four months, eighteen days, one hour, and four minutes later, the man moves away.
She texts him that it was too bad it didn’t work out, after nine months, five days, two hours, and eight minutes.
They keep in contact.
Him: one year, six months, twelve days, four hours, and sixteen minutes.
Her: three years, twenty five days, eight hours, and thirty two minutes.
After six years, one month, twenty days, seventeen hours, and four minutes, he texts, “How have you been?”
Twelve years, three months, ten days, eight minutes. “I got married.”
Twenty four years, six months, nineteen days, ten hours, and sixteen minutes pass.
“You still married?”
sometimes autocorrect can be nice to me
I am so in live with you
No that’s not a typo I meant ‘in live’ because love is a four-letter word
And live is a lifetime
Honey-thick and mellifluous the word carries with it the promise of infinity
Because a human life is infinity really
Projection = protection against fading
But it’s degrading to remember only with your mind so
I will be in live with you
I want lavender lemonade in the summer and dusty corners in winter
Call the exterminators in the spring to be rid of these cockroaches & bad memories
Kiss me on the balcony where our venus flytraps grow
Heat up my skin while we’re cold in the snow
I want to live with you in the moments where we are both bleeding
And broken and screaming and hopeless
Sprawled on couches and kitchen floors imploring one another to just look
Up up up at the same starless sky (city life for you and I)
Words cut sharper than glass sometimes but
I don’t mind because
I know your butterfly kisses scar deeper than any syllables ever could
But that doesn’t mean you should use them against me
I want to be in live with you for infinity
projections
I could teach you magic
built in limbs and tongues
and our ancient DNA—
could show you words
letters and ideas that break
you in two (three, four, more),
display the cone of your sight
the freeze of mind
delusion of self, time:
you exist in lines
echo chambers,
self prophesied-signs.
a shaman turned into a hawk, believed it
to his pale-skinned visitors.
I learned it placing blocks,
videogames and skype talks,
dejection is projection
projection is protection
from change.
hope I’m more lion than fox
hope I know better than vixens
got poison in my mind
thinking in tales/tails.
loose logic pieces twist
they drift
like slide guitar
and hip-hop sax.
I’m lonely, lonely
scaling wrong towers
and shouting from idiot mountaintops
I could show you magic
you wouldn’t like to see
I could unravel you
like I unraveled me.
floral pattern eczema exorcism
I want to eat flowers
So like Van Gogh
I can feel pretty on the inside
Even though my flesh has shriveled and died
I mean he swallowed yellow paint
Because it meant happiness right?
And flowers are beautiful
I want to be beautiful for you
So stuff orchids down my throat
Raw roses with the thorns left still
Peonies and lavender, tulips and daisies
These flowers (crunchy with bugs) will make me go crazy
Sex organs of plants and yellow paint
Happiness right?
I want to be beautiful for me
I want to be bright
I want to swallow flowers
And cough them up for you
A Few Truths.
I don’t know how to stop hating your happiness but
I do and I wish you wouldn’t keep hanging it out
on the line like fresh laundry for me to see.
I wrote a book with 1000 reasons why the
wrinkles around your eyes mean that you don’t
want to be with her.
My loneliness is no longer a mask but an offense
to the smiling and the laughing and the eternal hand
holders of the world.
Your old love letters held promises and before they
felt like obligations but now they feel like sinking
weights so I crossed them all out with red ink.
I have never met her but I imagine she is smug for
keeping what I never could because you were more
fluid back then, always slipping through my hands.
If a tree falls in the middle of the woods and doesn’t make
a sound than can you hear me saying your name
into the center of crowded rooms?
The way my lips twitch when I think about the first time
we kissed says that I do not miss you and I do
not want you back and I am a fucking liar.
Heresy.
sanctorum communionem, remissionem peccatorum, carnis resurrectionem
I never told you what my saint name would
have been but I can say for sure that kneeling
has ruined my knees.
If you say the rosary repeatedly every time you
think you might go to hell, you will inevitably
lose your voice.
Did I ever mention how brave you looked the
first time you unzipped my jeans and how you ruined
it all by looking guilty afterwards?
If you rub a Saint Jude prayer card between your
fingers every time you are scared, you will
gain absolutely nothing at all.
I always thought there was something quite
divine in the pull of your teeth on skin that
should have been hidden.
If you pray for answers to questions you
can’t bear to ask yourself then you deserve the
silence you get in response.
