Bedtime Story

Ghost. Not dead.
Take off your sleep, despite…
Tell me a story

OK, take off his death
OK, he’s asleep
OK, he tells me

Sit up against old pain,
…despite sleep
…despite ghosting

There is a story…
I can see his sex
He’s (not) inevitable
I compute no difference between living and shame

He’s fallen asleep, still unable to fly.
Fill my chest with thin air, despite…
Tell me

Sit huddled around our pain,
…why start coming home
…our way isn’t this

There is a story in a magazine…
He begins a sentence with his face
He ends it with his sweat
Letting the details run across his legs

Breathe in your belly out of the moment
You’re curious about what I feel?
Nothing.

He wanted to tell it…
When I peer out of my chest
Breathe against me
Let go of numbness
Want sensation

Breathe out the window
What I would miss if he wanted to?
Something.

A story?
I would say it was already written
Feelings? You must be joking.

He keeps rising, “are you ready?”
I rest in the mucous of my past
Contracting my throat, dripping into my eyes

OK, I’ve never slept
OK, I try to
OK, I worry

I fear that I don’t have any more deadness

Let go of the details in your legs!
I feel nothing, except your curiosity about the conduit of my knee
(which has been injured)
(which is penetrable)
He compresses himself into a story

I will remember it
Sweetness is integration
Possible is visible
The fall is exploration
See me, it’s OK

It’s OK, I was asleep
It’s OK that he wonders what comes with affection
It’s OK to look away

Heat Rises

My mind betrays me: I won’t hurt him
The window passes through different shapes
lifting
gliding

My mind betrays me: Are you ready
We can generate columns
families
friends

I read that to achieve long straight distances
You drown on holidays
Hit inversions
Surround the air
And are carried aloft

My mind betrays me: I say nothing
The heat radiates from your back
warm
safe

My mind betrays me: I think outloud
I’ll write a cloud, smash an instrument
I’ll fly right through it

My mind betrays me: I wished I learned how to feel
He is willing to soar long distances
He will master the thermal

suede

The sounds of your mouth rattle my brain
Hollow me out
Marbles tracing a jittery pendulum
Across concave metal
Hollow me in

Should I fall in love with him?
Should I not fall in love with him?

Scared Scarred
Scarred Scared

Insert my fingers into your shoe
Pull you out
Pry suede from cotton lick your ankle
Rest my nose on the ball of your foot
Pull you in

Should I fall in love with him?
Should I not fall in love with him?

Scarred Scared
Scared Sacred

water

I’m pushing you through the vessels of my heart
Water propels my legs
One step ahead of going under

Vulnerability is
the weaknesses like bellybutton
smiling eyes
visible

I keep thinking
If I only knew things
I could remember
I keep pushing
What is it?
Do you remember?
What is it called?
What is the word for…
I can’t recall
Anything

cut

I’m cutting it into the hardwood floor
The only thing I knew how to do
Hurt Hurt
Make it absent
No body here

Where is my support?
Where are my tools?

Keep cutting a straight line
No ruler
Only leave a slight scar
I know how its done

Slow down
You can do this
Right
Without destroying
Your hands
Your art
And the floor

grasp

I can put it on
I can put it on for you
For you

Slip the hold
Grasp the cracks
I can’t
Control

I am so scared
to lose you
as your back turns away

I am so scared
to feel you
chest on my back

make/resorts
make/resists
make/restraits
make/restores

twist my desire like straw paper
rolled between your anxious fingers

wanting your abuse
the only way I know how to protect

watch me decay
to half life

But you said
You said
You were angry
What is that?
Danger?

But you said
You said
I’m here
Hold my trust

But you were angry
You were
You said
You said
Let’s not blow up

Blow up is what I know
how to protect
hold me?
I’m decay
Half life
Blow up

All I know
is my fault
is your desire
is my shame
is your come

Obsess control
The only control I know
Is over my own brain
(heart

If I can think it through
If I can think you through
If I can think through you
enough
again
over
some more

You won’t fury
You won’t hurt
You won’t touch
I will want
What you want
So I can want
So I can want

lie

She’s walking on my keyboard
Typing a silent message — pay attention to me!
Get out of your own head!

I can’t tie everything together so neatly
The truth has so many stands
But a lie
a lie
is static

I can’t even control what is inside
Never mind what is outside — you and your body!
Un(der)stated desires!

I am his object of guilt and shame
He hurts (me to hurt) him
As it is
it always
has been

You worry these days about lying
When you used to talk about [the poetics of love]:

Black / White
Male ? Female
Family Man \ Fagg-t

I don’t know how to compose that life
I only know how to compose a lie

My lies protect me by protecting you
I will tell your story of yourself — its a funny story!
Silence!

I will believe the lies he tells yourself
You don’t know what kind of wrath
He’d reign
on me
otherwise

And you can’t shatter!
And you can’t break!
Because I fucking need you!
(protect me…
(nurture me…

I will rip the power from your walls
Tear out your eyes from their sockets
Shove your head into the raw existence of me
become
whole
authentic
alive

You can live too
You can compose more than a lie
with me
please come
lie with me