red notebook

ol-k

photographs & poems

october 2016-june 2017

1
10.16 10.16

there are many things about you that scare me. the way you furrow your eyebrows
the way you don't flinch at sharp objects, furrow to meet your hair
don't you know i'll hurt you? the way you talk
rushed, heavy breathing
sunrises on empty streets. your forehead against mine,
i can picture driving down them with you. you shudder, the world crashing by.
i can picture doing many things with you. i hold you, the library shaking.
dancing, camping, biking, studying. you shaking
all with you. in my arms.
every moment with you. hesitant at every touch
i don't want to stop. creaky, like an old house,
i wish to memorize it all.
this ragged jacket.
i put my lips to its bitten sleeve. draw a map of your mind for me.
i want your bites all over me. a mental escape in a library.
tear me apart like this sweatshirt. i could watch and write forever.

2
10.19.16 10.25.16

i. walk in the forest christmas lights

hand in hand, feet making beat parking lots
cry, a sound you, hands, me
the world, spinning
ii. breathe breathe like streaks of light surrounding
don't look back at branches green, orange, red, white
they're grabbing kiss
you, lips, me
iii. number the nights carry my weight
count stars, point, point up i'm so in love
falling moon dust

iv. forehead dance

sweat. breathe. sweat. fluorescent lights.
crash yourself against me

v. walk in the forest

you, barefoot, always, barefoot
you, always, me, always

vi. time will not run out

you are here, in green, in sunlight
and i am by you.

3
10.25.16

lists, while manic:

putrefy, dust up
a matte coffin for a leaf after rainfall
arnold palmer, your sandals hanging in the air
i want to cry and laugh and scream and run
and your hand is here, tight
hold me down like your balloon
a snowman sweater, gold eyeshadow
your grin. your hand over written letters.
your voice, calming me,
scream
shimmering benches after rainfall
you, the world, me

4
 11.12.16

every walk in the wood is different

every leaf a shade browner
every hand a degree colder

the sun does not exist

beneath these wooden walls

"when do you think we stopped being interested in

everything?"

i could be playing in this stream

right now, little boy renamed
but i am tied to this log, simply watching the water move,
not moving it.

5
11.12.16

i left my shoes by the riverbank

i promise they will not be
enveloped by ivy
i promise the mud will not consume
the laces

i left my shoes by the riverbank

so i could feel the river flow
so i could crawl upon the fallen log
so i could watch you smile forever

they will remain forever,

by that riverbank
because the world does not eat up our intentions.
trees will grow from its souls.
butterflies will feast.
the world does not eat up our intentions.
it uses them.

6
11.13.16 12.4.16

"do you think the rain ever gets tired?" sometimes the cold is inescapable.
sometimes fear is, too.
i'm scared of nothing but myself.
what will i do and will i do it right?

have i lost myself or found myself?

internal- am i just pretending

everything is dry
rock cold

7
12.16 12.16

sickness there are some thoughts that fall out of my head sometimes
why do you haunt me. into your lap
this chest shouldn't be here do you think i'm punishable by death for my crimes
does that apply to me, too. or survive off your laugh

skin cry me a river

please roughen your touch so i can float my boat
i want hair all around to a sea made for the two of us
full of things i wrote

i don't regret a thing

still this often stings

8
12.16 2.10.17
we never spoke, only through notes and kitschy kisses, so when
last time i was here you were beside me. funny how i can't i heard your voice my ears bled
seem to do anything without you anymore. well i can, of
course, they're just half as fun alone.

9
2.12.17

you fucked me over.

i saw the sun in your pocket and reached to grab
not realizing that it shone because of leaves,
because of stories to tell and things to write.
you unravel every person you meet,
you write a book on their demise,
you pick the stitches in the seams and let your lovers walk
about with loose strings.
i know i won't stop writing about you, just like you won't take
my book down, forget.

i want nothing to do with your library.

10
2.13.17 i'm sorry if i sound cliche
you know my writing always turns out like this anyway.
you are a fool.
a romantic, running.
is this all false?

you used to tell me love was a choice

and i believed you--
but why can't i choose to un-love you?
why can't i erase:
mornings with rain playing tunes on the window,
your heart and breath in perfect time.
moving your bed to surprise me, to watch the swaying trees
like television.
light kisses and laughing at all the ridiculous things you do.

this time i believe you.

you are choosing to love her.
stop your fooling.
run before she catches you, gobbles you.

i won't scream, though i want to.

you'd just turn to me and nod.
i can't help but think that this was always a choice for you,
a hobby you picked up.
i was like knitting, like writing;
i was something you played and then put away neatly in its
case.

you were never a hobby to me.

you were the earth.
you were breath, and your laugh my symphony.

11
2.13.17 2.14.17

you are my new pen. time wasn't real around you

i will spill blood everyday which is why she's just me,
until i am drained of your bruising silence. your chaton re-embodied, clawing at your back

christen her in poetry.

go ahead,
but you're still everything i worship, even after forfeit.

i want nothing to do with your library,

but i want everything to do with your skin.
whether bathing it in spit or tearing it to bits.
you're scared of the latter but you know it won't be long.

you know to fear the day i'm gone.

12
2.16.17

you lay in bed and stare at the ceiling

it's far more interesting than me.
i know you're painting thoughts up there, piecing together
some great mystery.

i see how your eyes move.

i see the brushstrokes.

i admire how your hands tap along to the music you've made.
how head and hands move to engulf pillow.

you invite me over to be a fly on the wall, and i come for your
tongue.
it feels like the world is stuck in this room, so dense, so freeing
all there is.

"i miss her"

"i'm glad i met you"
in unison.

and then i wake up, we spent all morning talking,

but i leave with sand in my eyes.
rain soaks sidewalks.
i wander to the bus stop.
i drift back home.

the world feels more real in your room.

i'm infatuated with you.

13
2.16.17 match the sky

cry let me walk in your drowned halls

i dare you let me bathe in your heart

i'm not sad anymore

just tense
you've wrapped your rope around this apartment
how dare you bring her here

i'm claiming my territory

you're all packed up it seems

where will you stay now?
buried in her closet?
in her laundry pile?

cry
i dare you

seems like you're filling up with saltwater

cry
i dare you

seems like just a week ago i was her

cry
i dare you
cry
i adore you

cry

14
2.17.17 2.17.17

i don't know how you're out for good

this ever happened packed your bags
wind blows hair i'm sure she helped you move
growing through water like i did months ago into this cellar
we play in ponds remember i packed everything
praying to practice our kiss i drudged across spongy earth
play with me once more to get you here
like children
remember know that i am here for good
that i've collected these moments
in jars
i'm collecting your thoughts
i'm checking off boxes
play with her pink hair
forget that you lost it all

i hope you feel my hurt when you open those boxes

like a gust of wind
i hope you feel regret

15
2.17.17 2.19.17

i. your library this place is haunted.

filled with friends and lovers
minds you collected in pages
you read me for a cheap romance novel
with a blue cover
ii. your words
you controlled mine
you criticized me for criticizing you
stopping my words at your neck
let me cut you open
make you bleed
iii. you wrote in lists, like this
(i ii iii) everything to do
you did me and i'm undone
congratulations
dead, yet so alive.
we used to walk down this path together,
hand in hand.
you'd tell me stories, old lovers, friends.
i'd listen, peering at your back.
he told me last night that i'm a talker.
maybe i've changed.
maybe i don't listen anymore because that's all you ever
wanted.
you cut a tree ear off a douglas fir.
(or was it a red alder? you always used to teach me the
difference.)
that was the day i kissed you.
i still have a photograph:
you, so proud of the knife you made.

the ear is still there.

the forest doesn't change.

i remember telling my mom the day before:

"they're just a friend."
"yes, i know they're old."
"they're just a friend"
maybe because i didn't think i had a chance with you.
that didn't stop me from trying.

that feels so long ago now.

seasons change:
we saw the leaves yellow and then brown.

16
this place is you,
this place is only you.
but it all feels so emotionless now.
you, me, the trees.
like something i lived but never felt;
like a song i danced to but never played.

seasons change:
the leaves decompose into the soil.
the ferns are green again.
the water in the river is high.

and you and me?

we don't see each other anymore.
and i am stuck
retracing the steps that we took
barefoot on the forest floor.

17
2.20.17 maybe you really did burn with the poems.
or maybe i'm just daydreaming on warm concrete again.
there's a warm spot on the concrete maybe steam is just steam,
we never noticed. and air is just air.

he's out drinking.

it's what he does.

i always find people who have thin blood,

full of alcohol and meth and heroin.

maybe my blood has become thin, too.

maybe this place has made me stretched out and torn.

cigarettes have never seemed more favorable than they have

been the past few days.

maybe it's the rain

and the stay up till four am grins
that leave me missing her and all her sins.

or maybe i saw the cigarette against his lips and wanted to feel
them beneath mine so badly.
maybe i want to burn at his touch.

i could get high right now.

i could play with the tongue of any dark figure.

it's nights like these that make me realize how unafraid i am.
steam exits the ground and it looks like ghosts in my periphery.
the air... it's slow-moving, and cold.

maybe the spell worked out fine.

18
2.21.17
i look like:
i have lived this day in double carpet, red and stained with black
every step a flashback like metal melting
like hand grabbing skin
your hands on the cold window. like railing
like rain, and nights
every moment a whirlwind and your mouth
it pierces me.
your mouth, your eyes, piercing.
yeah "every heartbreak, a piercing,"
"you can hold me," i say. my mother said.
your body melds into mine so why does every mouth pierce mine and leave a mark?
like something once split, now fits.
i have lived this world in double
cigarette smoke-- i have met you all before
dark streets and movie marathons this would i'm seeing twice,
and begging the corner store for extra change. it exists in my mind,
in my forest,
pizza-- and someday i'll go back.
a girl sitting on a railing,
drooping, wilting, like a pink flower in fall.

we walk through rain--

nights at school, always at home,
never leaving her side.
railings with purple chipping paint,
i want to eat it.

this face
it isn't mine
there's something stuck behind there
that's not what i look like

19
2.21.17 2.21.17

i dreamt of you last night. when all the other little girls had growing chests, i had hair
you showed up at the door like forests on my skin.
rain pouring, wind hitting glass. my armpits two caves filled with thick brown grass.
if i closed my eyes it felt like that first night.
i still see myself as big.
we talked, when my chest started growing,
you put your finger in my me. it was not womanhood.
i didn't know if i wanted you anymore it was fat and rolling skin.
yet your stain was on my neck
and i liked it. when you look up at me, with my lumps of blubber in your
mouth, it surprises me.
we drove you home.
i, haunted by the gap you left in me, i have been forced into confidence,
mistook you for a lizard. freed by fornication,
you didn't tell me if you still kissed her but i am no different than that little boy who wondered
but i assumed. why these lumps of blubber were labeled womanly.
you crawled back to your clay house. why this body, a forest, was being taken for only skin and
we drove away. bone.
and i woke up, confused.

20
2.21.17 2.21.17

if you had ripped my bones out i know these poems make you uncomfortable.
and told me i could walk around
with just muscle and skin and blood, you said it was over when you took off your shoes.
i would have believed you. i agreed.
we talked about socks and money,
i would have believed any lie you funneled down my ear. and then you fit yourself inside me like the key to a lock.
i would have eaten meat for you, it was a promise, a secret
and danced through acid rain, and we went to your apartment.
and screamed with joy at pain. it was midnight.
beer bottles littered the carpet.
when you told me that i was being irrational, i could wrap my thighs around you then,
i knew you were right. i could drink your lips in like poison.
i didn't just believe you,
just as people do not just believe in gods, sin.
just as people beg for forgiveness. your bed reeked of it,
get down on knees and shout at sky. especially after we had dripped all over it.
two melting candles
i believed you, but the wax never hardened.
i knew you.
i built you out of clay and you were rock hard, i wanted more, i still do.
a statue i had molded. i wanted marks and burns and stings.
set in its ways. i found myself in your bed the next night
and we stayed up until five,
so i had no one to blame but me. and we found no room for silence,
irrational, silly, me. and you painted the walls with drunk whispers,
your voice bounced off cabinets and my ears could not soak up
enough.

and i went home, my body covered in your wax

and i could not wash it off
and i was burned but my wick was never lit.

21
 a few nights later, i danced
a week passed. with promises of keys
i bought you socks with money. and we talked until four in the morning.
my mind was coated in your paint. i think you were getting unlocked
you were worried about this, i think i was opening you
about you sticking, i think i saw your insides and you felt it, but i could never be
sure with you.
but you let me see you again,
and you didn't let me kiss you. so you told me we needed to stop melting.
i couldn't sip poison i never knew you were melting, too
but the sun began to rise and i'm just a young boy
and you saw me, with poison on his lips
you saw me still, in your sheets, but i see now that i was poison, too.
with your speaker playing white noise as it does at night and it's okay that our wax needs to harden,
and you unlocked me again. i am easily melted by hot metal
and i understand you are, too.
"this is what you wanted, isn't it?" so we stopped
and it was and i know these poems make you uncomfortable,
and i cried wax but there are some things i hide that you need to see.
and your warmth made me sick
and i knew you wouldn't see me again.
i went home.

i'd never been in town at night.

we ate fries, my friends and i,
and laughed at numbers on checks.
you had warned me not to speak
if i saw you
and i saw you
burning tobacco and paper with your mouth
and your eyes were fire
and i melted on the sidewalk as we passed.

22
2.22.17

annoying little boy

dramatic little boy
you know nothing
and yet you eat the world for breakfast
the trees are in your cereal
and love is in your orange juice
and you feel so much
and know nothing at all

23
2.22.17 and i'll keep trying until it escapes
because there are secrets in my mind that need to be uncovered
spilling secrets by the stream. and they're all so stupid.

there are poems in my head

that i'll never write,
things i want to say
that i'll never say,
and it's all so overwhelming.
my mind fills with each kiss.
you're filling me with air
and i think i'll pop soon. 2.22.17

and it's all so stupid, little fairy spirit,

my brain, anything i write. how could i have ever despised you?
it's all so pointless and numb you are goddess-like,
and yet it's all i know. flawed and fiery,
passionate and in love with life.
how funny it is that we think we own this place, you kiss the hands of everyone you meet.
how we build boxes and bridges.
there's something on the tip of my tongue little fairy spirit,
and i can't figure it out. wearing overalls,
boxes and bridges two pigtails in your hair.
and we fornicate not to procreate oh, dance barefoot on your mother
but to feel and never stop.
and we find etchings to have meaning
and it's all so pointless,
it's all so stupid.
it's all made up.

so let's keep telling stories that no one wants to hear,

let's keep faking it all because we know nothing is real
and there's something that i want to write but i can't

24
2.23.17 keep burning or bathe in your waters,
but why would i ever have to choose?
i like the dip below your waist above your butt,
how your nose crinkles,
and i'm sick of writing lust poems
but i don't want to lust without writing it down.

you are endless

yet so small,
and you glare at me, red and panting, when i don't give you
what you want.
and i adore this,
this twin-sized mattress creaking beneath us.

what's funny is
that usually who these poems are for is anonymous.
but you'll know when you see it
because you said:

"you don't have to write poems about me,"

with an unsure giggle in your voice,
and i told you,
"i write poems about everyone i meet."
and i'm scared this will come off
too strong, too fast
but i want to feel you until i don't.

he was fire, that man who melted me.

he was flame when i needed burning.
but you are
a babbling stream
cooling the burns i wished for.
and i am unsure if i'd rather

25
2.23.17 i think you think
that i do this on purpose
i don't know what i'm doing. that i write these for your eyes.
you drive me around like i'm your son. but really i just have things to say
the sun glares in my eyes that i won't tell you.
but you never seem to make eye contact and these are those things
unless you're a part of me. and i don't know anything.
then you shine down on me, not even what i'm doing.
weeding out my moans
like some sick gardener.

and i think we're both bullshit,

playing house,
and we know it won't stop.
i read on your bed today as you slept, nuzzled into my side
and i felt like it was four months ago.

but you're not them

and i'm not me anymore
and i think i've become okay with that.

i asked if you think it was the drug

or the experience that stained my mind,
and you shovel down food
as you explain to me that this will pass.
it probably will.
i don't know anything.
and the sun was out today.
and it felt like a dream,
because i thought you wouldn't see me again.
but you're drawn in by my words.

26
2.25.17 2.26.17

i wish i could be a woman for you: in my dreams

blend into soft edges, i am warm
giggle at your jokes. and you are here, holding me
but this hair
and this posture the rain is not fun anymore
and this everything just sad
is so boy-like and tiresome
so butch.
i am no ballerina you used to tell me
i am a stomping gnome, that i "reminded you of what fun means"
crying caveman i wonder if there
and you must be strong to cross me. are any reminders now
you must be strong to make me a woman in your sheets.
but you only have the strength for soft edges, i hope i remind you of hurt now
for plis and pirouettes. healing, highways, haircuts
i am a man i hope i remind you
and that's how you'll always see me. of singing along to Hamilton
of bad driving
of ciders
and ratty couches
i hope you see green and think of me

because i hear rain

(and i hear rain all the time)
and feel your presence
a warm, slightly foul smelling being
in the bed next to me

and watery eyes

you had watery eyes those last few weeks
i could see the hole you were digging

27
the coffin 2.26.17
and i zipped my mouth
and we sat my mom sent me ghosts in the fall
silent and they have hung above my window since.
silver in the night i should probably take down all of my ghosts
and you didn't love me but there are some, like you, that i can't seem to throw away.
not anymore
but you were comfort
in the rain
and your foul smell
your greasy hair
weren't so bad
and i dreamt of nothing
and i was warm

28
2.26.17 2.27.17

i'm like two Gods in bed

a light switch and i am a mere mortal among them
turn me on honey on lips, between thighs
fuck me dry and purple lights
make me bleed and i feel nothing
don't worry through this pink wine
i won't cry when entrancing
you need me off
need me gone
i'm like
a light switch
you can always
turn me on
again.

29
2.27.17
tiny crystals on the window
you draw in the water
spots of shadow on the dash
i shiver
we listen to the radio
he talks, mouth full
30
2.28.17
the television changes colors as you two do
i hear the movie in the background
but i don't care
(i've seen it many times before)
but this is new
each smell
and sound
new
you kneel
in front of me
bless my stomach with your spit
with your spill, bouncing, still
spike my tongue with alcohol
sweat in rhythm to closing credits
you laugh at my poetry
you joke about keeping up
you two find your ways into my pockets
purple presence
even without flashing lights
2.28.17 3.5.17

i'm numb i'm painting myself a new face

sounds surround
we fooled them both
trapped between walls
but now we choose to be trapped
and with that we're free
you like lions
using every color that doesn't remind me of you.
i'm still etching stories into wood
like we did by the stream
but this time they're not about you,
no matter how much it seems they are.
they're about me,
about my laugh,
and my voice that showers on my lovers like rain.
and the rain isn't you anymore,
the library isn't yours anymore.
i have taken back my blue book-
it was never blue anyway.

you misread me
took me for something i wasn't
i am
red
bleeding
fire
everything that hurts and burns and stings
i'll cover you in paper cuts
make you scream in fear

i'm painting myself anew

and i want nothing to do with you.

31
3.6.17 but this silence is piercing

i like the sound of snow

it's different from the rain
and the rain was them
so i don't like rain anymore

but the snow is soft

sounds like waterfalls
like crunching through autumn leaves
it's like you
your hair a mess
you a mess
and yet somehow still put together

i'm scared of floating

fumbling
i want to do things with purpose
take hikes
read books
but i find myself doing nothing instead

what do i feel?
i don't know
especially not about you two
him, keeping me at arm's length
and you, always a breath away

i don't want to float

i want to feel
but i don't feel anymore
the snow has stopped
it's silent

32
3.7.17 not sweet like purple grapes you hated but always ate
on that train ride, grimacing as you popped the sugary juices
i've been fucking myself purple into your mouth
purple flashing lights not like grapes
purple dick i'll taste like biting into a garden
i'm sure soon i'll bleed purple like soap
the purple blood you suck i'll wash them clean
like the purple heroin you injected and take their dirt with me
like the purple rope you tied around your neck like a saint
i'm sure i'll be calling it something else soon lavender
lavender i'll fuck myself lavender
colors only exist in my mouth and paint myself in lavender snow
purple in your mouth you'll taste my blood again and gag
blood and i'll be great
or oh so great
dick a lavender saint
the first night you held me
you fit purple inside me
it was early morning
i'm sure the sky was purple, too
the rain was you
paint- i was coated in it
no umbrella
purple in my blueness
i'll force the word lavender into myself
like you forced purple into me
make it bleed out my edges
purple scabs picked away
they will drink me in like satin
royalty
and smell me like flowers
like the ugly bubble bath my mother got me
i'll taste bitter

33
3.7.17 3.10.17

what day is it? bruised

i've got carpet-stained skin boneless
hairbrush marks all over the world is floating around me
i'm bleeding in all crevices, and i am here
sweating blood paralyzed
blackout
fuzzy mind bruises
freshly fruited but i don't feel a single one
finding facts in weird crevices of the room like my hair is just long enough
you said
Theodore Roosevelt survived a gun wound, i didn't have any flashbacks
gave a speech with spilling guts the carpet numbed my elbows
why can't i talk? sunshine
i haven't been shot was in a tea kettle
just punctured in three blue candles
and i felt everything
i like how you are like your friends through numbness
how you find facts bruised
in sofa cushions banned
in furniture, next to pennies
pillows, precious
talk

34
3.10.17 but i leave her out
save it for another time
when we walked to your beaten-down car, headlight broken, i don't want to become a ghost story yet
motor
moaning
i felt it again
the piercing sound
like a cupboard crashing
to the ground
dishes spilling razors onto wooden floors
like waterfalls, big, loud ones
like the ones i hiked to
as a kid in Guatemala
like storm
and sails snapping
sudden
piercing like a needle
i saw bodies again
a memory from a photograph on a phone
the grass, damp
the bodies, sweating, asleep, in bliss
bottles in hand
and i open my eyes
you are looking at me
confused
shattered in two
you must think i'm strange
seeing different worlds in parking lots 3.10.17
christening cries with reenactments
so i tell you about cupboards bobblehead boy
and waterfalls fingers tapping, snapping
storms i could suck the lipstick off your mouth
sails if it meant i could keep on kissing you

35
3.14.17 3.14.17

you're doing pushups in the hallway i fall in love with photographs

the lights shiver don't trust me
you sweat artists
arms tense paint my skin
drinking red wine from a plastic bag make sure it can't peel away
living inside so when you leave
loathing ground and sky i can strip the skin you left off
trapped bleed
i see your eyes find reasons to write
you loved her a lot, didn't you? to paint
you replaced her with to find a new painter
pushups one with brass brushes
and wine who sculpts acrylic
in a plastic bag who fills my pores with pink
and eyes lavender
oh, your sad eyes anything but purple
so alone, so faulty and i'll take photographs
never landing on any single thing and post them on walls
just moving remember everything you say
and moving every stroke you make
like she did, on falling in love with paintings
the moon is full not painters
i am shivering and ripping myself anew
you
are doing pushups
your eyes
you sweat
arms tense

36
3.20.17

i don't know what i want

i just know that i miss you
flourish
habit
mushrooms after rainfall
i jumped on them
and you cringed
i liked your reactions
more than anything
your moans
your shakes
so thoughtful
so caring
and fade
fade
fade
and it wasn't you anymore

i could relive
october
november
december
over and over again
if it meant i could have you back

37
3.20.17 3.23.17

you make me feel stupid do i make you uncomfortable?

and small and young i sometimes do that
you wear blazers to breakfast i worry
and tie my arms and tongue about a lot of things
you drink bloody marys like how i haven't scared you away yet
you grimace at the green beans how could this be real?
and i would probably fall in love with you
if i were capable

i like your voice

like a tuba
soothing
i like that you don't think about me
that i can watch you and your partner
like a movie

that i can sit in diner booths

and be blue
but button my shirt to cover bruises

be mine
i want it so badly
i want to see you more than once a week
i want your attention
love
i want your eyes on me
your hands
and i want you all to myself

maybe maybe
i want to

38
4.4.17 you don't want tea
let her make you burn
you flinch fool.
your kitten at your sleeve
tugging you to your flinch left a mark
make the move i've got many of those already, it seems
hurt the boy i keep finding them
that only exists in teacups on the back of my thighs, a candle
in sweating a saucepan on the inside of my lip
on couches it's okay
in snow on the trees they decorate me
outside the apartment you decorated me
and i am a mess set my table with china
you didn't touch me but with teacups
i felt your steam you propped your kitten
the kettle screaming on the seat across from you
don't burn me i can still see it
no, do as clear as day
i want to remember your touch flinch
leave a mark on me like you used to but it's okay
do it i only exist in teacups
burn in sweat
scream on couches
make flesh wilt in snow on the trees
into fabric outside the apartment
don't flinch and i've been decorated before
fight i can take it, again
tear me apart apparently.
kitten at your sleeve
do as she says
don't stop her when she
turns the kettle on
don't tell her that

39
4.10.17 that i'll crawl around like your puppy
and you'll notice, i promise
i am fireless my presence increasing
fearful i'll make any move to see you
filling up with soap i won't choose to
god, i don't want this
my mom used to reuse everything (i know what i look like)
yogurt containers but my body will move
plastic bags along inevitable tracks
soap dispensers toward you being annoyed with me
wrapping paper
stop enticing me and then being surprised
reuse me, too when i sip from your hands
let me change your mind wine
your son, once daughter from your breath
so distinct from former self nicotine
yet so similar. honor you?
i will
another god to worship
another stupid god, same old stupid me
4.13.17
i'm high.
you're gonna be one of the stupid boys this poem doesn't make sense,
the fuck me over boys but i want your loud snores,
the i'm addicted boys your moans.
you're gonna laugh in your sleep and nothing more than that.
dream of abandoning and i can't have it.
i'm probably going to survive because you think i want more
another hole in my chest than your tongue.
how worth it
this all is and maybe i do.

i hate that i want you to use me

40
4.13.17 grew grayer
seeing things you didn't think
"she seemed so nice," slowly sinking
you say slowly cracking
as if she didn't seem anything but nice fracturing heart and beat
for a year
as if you didn't see how she glanced do i seem nice?
at anywhere but you or needy?
ready to be used
something beautiful in the way do you see the yellow in my eyes?
things fall apart see how unweathered?
burdened by lovers are you scared?
friends i can tell you want more than sex
we cry ourselves to sleep more than skin, body, whole
and it isn't a picnic, you want me
and it never will be my yellow
but the way the human soul but i am not holy water
regrows i cannot absolve you of sin
i can just dance
not improved in hell with you
just changed "she seemed so nice" won't seem
not scarred sinful anymore
just tainted
dipped in something new

did she seem nice?

or did you see her through a lens
ignoring glances
grimaces
but your eyes did see
saving your brain of processing the images as coherent
thoughts
and they aged, your eyes,

41
4.14.2017

there's a space in the rubble

i've saved it for you
filling fingers with wine-soaked blood
we could lay here
you could change me
mold me
clay for the taking
change me
i don't want to be this
change this
please

42
4.18.17
let your hands callous
when you touch me
eyes adjusting
your face, strained
i am in heaven
at three in the morning
panting on wood
twenty feet in the air
and i can't help
the fact that moonlight is
the only thing that strings
your words out like satin
that you don't grab me like this
at any other time
you're not the first
to keep me under his bed
scared of attachment
yet keeping me so attached
you fit yourself inside of me
twenty feet in the air
i lost the bet
and you did too
so technically we both won
panting
hands of leather
the Colorado flag below you
and me on top
you were scared of getting wet
but i had been dripping all day.
43
4.26.17
the boy stumbles, sleepy, to the door
aching
sounds taking root in their ears
clashes, chewing, construction
chills as they open the door,
desperately clinging to silence
their roommate, swaggering
singing as he enters
and they try to pry out the roots
rid them from skin
fight the urge
to kill the noise
and not the musician
a woman stands at an open window
a million miles away
(or so it seems)
dreaming of her son
not grieving
never grieving
because the boy has not changed
from what they once were
but is changing
to what they must be
they will come back with the crickets
in the summer, when the dust falls
and the woman
washes dishes
black cat at her feet
dreaming of the boy
who will return dreaming woman
midnight
funny, thinks the boy silence, finally
three years in the making roots blocking out all else
this being, window cracked
hair green, pinching green, doors shivering
finally freed of finding the world
they understand now that is fine
that boy they loved
sunken in sand
brain-polished and witty
was the best
not the best they could do
but the best given the circumstances
and they've been looking
teenage love seldom returns
only faulty girls
creeping lovers
who pry for their attention like
howling wolves,
drunk, confused beasts
yearning for
the small grass boy
who paints on the back of memories
with spit-mixed-charcoal
grading each experience
with a tug, pulling down tapestries
making sure each detail is unraveled
unpinned
so useless
it all is

sleeping boy

44
4.26.17 5.1.17

what a catch he is the beginning

once he's eaten sounds about right
drowning in spit no loving
finally breathing we get straight to the point
what a catch we exchange saliva
when there's nothing else to catch other fluids
catch no loving
catch me none allowed
clobber at me only rolls of fat
want me soaked in pimples
please we'll taste each other
like licorice
and bathe in each other's sweat
baptized
no loving
there's no room for that here
finish

45
5.1.17

i'm falling asleep with you

there's no end to this dream
this stream is warm
it's been under the sun for a long while
and we're drifting in the best possible way
floating away
no realities here, we'll dance to street bands
i'll smoke, you'll watch
petting a big dog lying on concrete
kissing in immature places
you're warm
water i wash in
you frown at things, honest
roll your eyes at me
draping over wooden floor
with my hand reaching for your intestines
there's no end
to the things i notice about you
counting each pore
each hair
every one is you
and i'm in love with you
and i'm falling asleep
dreaming
and the stream is warm
under the sun's soft gaze

46
5.31.17 6.7.17

i've been thinking about high tide you're driving them north
about your head between my thighs they're running away
about all the little things that make life new again and you are a river
people keep bathing their licorice in,
you are dark, sweet, deceptive
in the best possible way
i like sipping you like cola
full of things i've been afraid of
a puppy, laying on my stomach
eyes wide

working too deep

in the river
pulling up sand
land in my skin
facade of my wrists
where i pray to your feet
i'm soaking up dawn light
crashing into mirrors in the morning
and i'm thinking about your ride up north
and i'm hoping it's going okay.

47