Seizure

her scalpel

in my gut

cutting out the insides

the cold, clinical pull

of someone

who wants you gone

examining

secret marks

you left

on parts of me

i didn’t see



my mind

wanders

i am not okay

the places it goes

unchaperoned

are empty of everything

except your voice

and the looming threat

of your

once-warm

grasp



this poison

is inside of me

and i cannot

break it

my blood

held on

to something

it couldn’t have

in hopes that

one day

my youth

would return

i still await myself

because i can’t live

like this

thinking

you’d reconsider

or come to me

and stay



my love

my joy and

my agony, you are



i failed

to forget

that moment

you made everything

stop

as if all my life

were cradled

safely, soundly

in your palms

3 a.m.

we live our lives

in stranger’s beds

and in the morning

break ourselves in two

leaving soft parts

in lover’s hands

across the miles

we feel them lamenting

what we left behind

this grasp

on our souls

too harsh

or too frail

so sometimes

we let go

we disappear

slip right through fingers

whose desperate caress

fails

to prevent our escape

and here we are

again in beds

made by maids

in strange cities

always questioning

how far we go

trying to touch

always knowing

how sad it is

that we cannot reach

even right next to each other

Movements

this time i

sought out your fear

looked into you to see it

tried to crush it in my hand

but it just

slipped through my fingers

fled back to you

deep inside

deep enough that i could not reach

and scratching at my eardrums

with each word you say

fear

but you could never name it

and i promised myself

no one would see

what she did to my heart

when i let her wash herself in it

now it’s a damp and soiled

pitiful thing

hanging out to dry

and no longer

connected to my chest

there’s just a gaping chasm where

muscle used to be

you pressed your hand to it

but my arteries still drained

words like blood

spilling from the places you touched

released

as if they’d been

dammed up for years

Bloom

grow

empty

rest myself

against your stem

opened like a bloom

savage force of longing

cleaving petals out of me

raises me both ways, pulls me apart

weed-like, i am only half the thing

you wanted flowering in this garden

Break Fast

the sheets are rough and rumpled

curled over on themselves

empty in the spots where your

scent is not

they’re clean

all crackle and snap

in the morning light

lamenting the absence of you

and your body which

right here

tight and tired

curved against mine

and I’ve never made a bed in my life

except

for the one I made with you

that I lie in now alone

alone

nothing but the cool

to comfort me

but it’s cold and makes me feel

crazy

lying there

crushing the smell of

not you

to me