i before he

one more month of it.

did december fail to

keep me warm on its

own, sequestered and

blown up like a balloon

too full? did november

not bring me enough air,

gave purpose to preserve

it for winter in large gasps

of breath? were they meant

to be my final ones, i wonder?

i choke down anhedonia but

it always comes back up.

(& a rattle to the brain)

to feel swiftly so much less dead

(& so bafflingly sane)

you put your blood to my blue lips

forced life back into still veins

“I’ve got a needle if

you have the stomach for it.”

Can’t be your first time—

your sleeve rolls too neat.

An eagerness

you haven’t shown until

I sold you what

on your floor length mirror

and the fluorescent lights

bounce freely, just right

meth really does kind of look like glass

coruscating across the depressed and

me. frothing away toward

an unforgiving drain. how

wise of him to finally flush

the conversation is orgasmic,

the sex is utterly interstellar,

and the drugs taste sweeter

when we taste them together.

intoxicating ambivalent you;

exhaustingly saccharine me;

the divine shape of lightning

bolts and of fractals and of

broke her neck this

morning stitched

back together she

lay in her coffin

easing out of her

body and into

the audience no

one could crowd

freshly powdered, a

forgiveness in a zipper

baggie, sustenance il

retribution for the red

withdrawal; winter is

not nearly as frigid

once the nerves all

dull make synapse

blur, and even after

we hurl up the worst

parts, green messes

left in toilet bowls yet

seem somehow worth

drowning your ear

you cannot hear

a damn subtle thing.

it burns, the build-up,

the painful removal

shocks and bites

and fuck, does it sting.

and each serrated tooth seems to

tear chunks of meat loose from, spring

green, my arboretory anatomy, each

laceration splicing me from me till

no two edges meet and form the

old blue tucked a tin briefcase

tightly under arm, wore too-big

boots. don’t know who he was,

but he sure had someplace to

go; he moved with an austerity

heavy as the chains that bound

his ankles, jerking them taut and

then, again, slack, taut, slack,

his face under the brim of a too-

wide hat, just some shapes

indistinguishable in empty black.

down two flights of a fire escape,

rattling with each sharp turn, he

kept chin to chest as in a funeral

march and looked up to street

lamps for one flash of a second,

eyes crinkled shut as he silently

wept, no longer caring to look

where he stepped. businessman

in navy blue business hat leapt

over the railing that evening;

muddy sludge

unstirred by stick in

child’s palm,

turbid mask for nude

river beds—

offer me no reflection,

only a mire.

the impression yet bares

my likeness.

dragonfly up close for the

first time, terrified and yet

magnetized by its luster

in drunken pitch:

a sinking thing—

some bottle’s bitch.