everything smells like sulfur in my disappearing november
under blankets of midnight
we pile wood into haphazard forts
our brain waves frozen
we've become a tribe
collective in our poverty
worshipping a pyramid
in a federal project marsh
we rebel in our own strangeness
for the breakdown
my curiosity crawls from these stalemate ears
what came first?
the fall? the plunge?
diving off the cliffs
naked and young in spring moonlight
but not me
i cannot jump
scared of the touch of darkness
scared someone stole the water

if i must sit in one more
dimly lit coffee house
listening to one more
hourglass shaped nineteen year old
poet chick
recite to me what love is
i will die
do they not see that this
elusive love they seek
exists only in their brains?
what we need is
a voluptuous lover like me
composing verse about
all the fucking laundry

it ended as oddly and quickly as it began
your fingers typing and my heart aching
different reasons, same pain
and you're not being mean
you're being you
a big pile of ignorance coupled with the knowledge
that i'm having a nervous breakdown
broke down from the last one
crawling on the kitchen floor
wishing the oven door wasn't so hard to open
crusted up from a badly managed baking incident
waking up and wishing
i'd never met you
but i knew it in the wee hours of the morning
felt you there
where you weren't supposed to be
it wasn't a rule, it was a given
violator traitor
and all i could say is
have a happy easter
when i wanted to say
you fucking moron
why the hell did i even bother trusting you
a man, as it were
unworthy of anything but hard words
but the ones that fell out were sore
sad, full of the madness that was already pulsing
and i knew it all along
lined myself up and opened my arms for the firing squad
hoping that for this one time
somebody would hold their damn fire
of course not
that's not how it works
but, no, we'll be friends
ones that don't talk and think about each other when we're crying
and lonely and the only ones on earth who know
what it feels like to be a ruined version of us

the shadow we cast
dances in midafternoon sun
while the world pushes paper
    and watercooler gossips
warm lovely sweat falls from
your brow
    trickling over the favorite part of
my porcelain shoulder