1)
please
lap up my sadness
like a dog trying to swallow
his own reflection.
i promise
there’s enough for both of us
2)
at a table where poets swallow
each other’s hearts like aspirin
(thinning the blood so it
pounds a little less furiously).
we sit, side by side and do you always
eat so aggressively?
all bent elbows and gusto--
stripping fat globes of edamame
from their fleshy pods,
discarding each spent shell
with a deft sleight of hand.
the red-lacquered bowl so suddenly
brims with the desperation
of your rigid jaw, this desire
for your animal mouth to
suck the sad like jaundiced marrow
from my bones, leave me spent
and empty: a red-lacquered bowl.
a promise. a prayer.
3)
call for a good time…
because earthquakes
don’t have names,
only numbers: the bathroom
stall scrawl of
permanent marker
echoes new fault lines
through my thighs as i
realize for perhaps
the first time how easily
we break.
4)
when i asked you
to fuck me
i meant to say
there is shrapnel
in my lungs from
every time I swallowed
her name like a
hand grenade.
she told me the hardest thing
about loving a bomb
is nobody has any
sympathy for your injuries.
she told me ‘the
hardest thing about loving you
is loving you’.
when i asked you
to fuck me
i meant treat my heart
like a snake bite. split
open my chest, use
your deft tongue and lips
to siphon toxins
from my bloodstream
but please. don’t swallow.
i can’t be responsible for
another casualty.
5)
the waitress asks what i’ll have.
i tell her i haven’t seen you
in months. she brings me
a bowl of salt. i sift
through the grains
looking for your hands
but the only thing i’ve preserved
is my own left shoulder
warding off bad luck.
6)
i’ve never seen myself
growing old
she says, twirling
her fourth cigarette.
i guess i just always
thought i’d want to.
she sighs, exhales.
please
lap up my sadness
like a dog trying to swallow
his own reflection.
i promise
there’s enough for both of us
2)
at a table where poets swallow
each other’s hearts like aspirin
(thinning the blood so it
pounds a little less furiously).
we sit, side by side and do you always
eat so aggressively?
all bent elbows and gusto--
stripping fat globes of edamame
from their fleshy pods,
discarding each spent shell
with a deft sleight of hand.
the red-lacquered bowl so suddenly
brims with the desperation
of your rigid jaw, this desire
for your animal mouth to
suck the sad like jaundiced marrow
from my bones, leave me spent
and empty: a red-lacquered bowl.
a promise. a prayer.
3)
call for a good time…
because earthquakes
don’t have names,
only numbers: the bathroom
stall scrawl of
permanent marker
echoes new fault lines
through my thighs as i
realize for perhaps
the first time how easily
we break.
4)
when i asked you
to fuck me
i meant to say
there is shrapnel
in my lungs from
every time I swallowed
her name like a
hand grenade.
she told me the hardest thing
about loving a bomb
is nobody has any
sympathy for your injuries.
she told me ‘the
hardest thing about loving you
is loving you’.
when i asked you
to fuck me
i meant treat my heart
like a snake bite. split
open my chest, use
your deft tongue and lips
to siphon toxins
from my bloodstream
but please. don’t swallow.
i can’t be responsible for
another casualty.
5)
the waitress asks what i’ll have.
i tell her i haven’t seen you
in months. she brings me
a bowl of salt. i sift
through the grains
looking for your hands
but the only thing i’ve preserved
is my own left shoulder
warding off bad luck.
6)
i’ve never seen myself
growing old
she says, twirling
her fourth cigarette.
i guess i just always
thought i’d want to.
she sighs, exhales.
