strawberries.

against myself and a genocide

and a long, long night

in gethsemane.

loving you has been an ocean

of depthless nothing,

an unforgiving current

pulling me down, down,

down.

but sometimes the rays of light

reach my eyes,

and they are so beautiful

i forget to breathe.

there is no calvary cross

waiting for me tomorrow,

i am no martyr for your sins.

there is nothing left

but the water

and the surface tension

i cannot break.

when it comes to you,

but somehow you are still

a stranger. i still have your bottle caps

on my desk and all your music on

my playlist. i remember the joke

you told me about the bruises on my legs—

the gnome that lives in my closet and

beats me with tiny hammers at night.

no one else but me thinks that’s funny,

no one else but me stares at the photo i took

of our steps aligned and fingers laced together.

no one else but me felt a prickle down my spine

before i turned and saw you standing there.

no one else but me thinks about the way that

you smell or if you’re happy or what you need or

where you might be going tonight.

no one else but me misses you so much it

feels like it might kill me sometimes.

— strawberries (excerpt #298) from “Surface Tension”

of all the wanting you,

and the recreational kinds only made it

harder to ignore.

God did not save me from it,

and neither did the stars,

and neither did you.

i take the pills on time but

i take them with liquor;

i’m kissing him while i wonder

what you’re up to.

and as i’m missing you i am praying

i never see you again—

i’ll go for a drive to forget and still be

looking for your headlights

as i drive off a bridge

remember my name.

i try to tell you why it hurts

but my words never make sense to you.

you want me like a second cigarette

or a drink you forgot on the counter;

i want you all the time, screaming and begging,

i want you with bleeding eyeballs and

i want you with broken bones and

i want you when there’s nothing else

left to want.

i think i’d die for you but

you’d never even wonder where i went—

i’m just a sex doll speaking in

riddles again.

not to be pathetic about this

but the farther away from you i go

the harder the string tugs at me.

the only thing worse than

missing you when i’m drunk is

missing you when i’m sober.

you’re only a few minutes away,

i could call you and tell you i need a hug.

or i could lay here a little while longer

feeling sick to my stomach and

trying to navigate all the letting go.

why do i care so fucking much

if i only exist after midnight?

i wish i was made of plastic—

letting you use me wouldn’t hurt so much.

i am a trembling pile of cold sweat and

too-prominent ribs and teeth and

the smell of my fear is permeating.

i have always been this animal,

my eyes have always glowed yellow

at night when the moon is gone

and i don’t remember the way home.

Can i be forgiven for this?

I have worshiped you as a god,

I have raised you as an idol.

I am greedy over you,

I am covetous and envious;

I am filled with pride and wrath,

I am drowning in lust.

surely, i have been hexed

and even cursed by you—

surely i can’t have wandered this far.

what i would do for you—

i have burned myself upon

a pyre of great misery

and called it worship.

i have carved your name

onto every inch of my skin

and called myself weak

if i dared even flinch.

this is the cost of love!

this is the cost of love,

don’t you see?

don’t you see what i mean?

what is love if it does not burn away

all that is not you?

i would blind myself,

i would be mute,

i would claw my way

out of hell to reach you

i could be a good listener and

i could be someone important

to you.

you could laugh at my jokes

you could fix my car and

you could be the sun and

the moon.

i could be happy and

you could be happy too.

i know how to be a good starved dog.

or maybe it’s the hollowed-out feeling

i’ve had since the first time you

kissed me goodbye.

we are nothing but a thousand “almosts”

and the silence in figuring out what to say;

we are casual and fun and light-hearted

and i’ve never cried over you

and i’ve never missed you

and i’ve never begged and bargained

with God to have you.

i never think about your hands or laugh

and i hardly notice your toothbrush on the sink;

you are not mine and i am not yours.

i am clenching my teeth as hard as i can

but it is always raining in my head.

when the rain rolls down my face

it tastes like the sweat dripping

off your body into my mouth and

it tastes like when i was crying

on the bathroom floor.

you are the smile lines and i am a glower.

you are the house while i am the paint;

you are the name and i am a face.

you are the earth upon which i walk;

you are tattoo ink and i am sidewalk chalk.

you are the circles spinning around me

to the smell of soap and cigarettes

and an old country song

you’re humming against my hair.

you are a gutting smile

and eyes that notice everything;

you are the only person who

laughs as much as i do.

my neighbor hung flowers from his mailbox

and it made me think of you.

i don’t really know why i cried—

i only wish we had a mailbox or flowers

or that you couldn’t live without me.

and the world burns around me,

i will think only of how

your brown eyes must look

in the explosive sunlight.

when the bombs and gunfire

deafen me for good,

still your laugh will tickle

the shells of my ears.

and when the radiation eats away

every inch of skin on my body,

it will not erase your touch.

this world is not eternal,

and maybe you were never really mine—

but for just a moment

before i collapse,

it is enough.

perhaps there is more here to unearth;

perhaps i have only hit the

false bottom of loving you

and never being loved by you.

dawn is not far off—

the seasons have changed,

and i have kept digging.

the dirt turns to clay

and the clay to stone,

i know i am too far down

to ever climb back out.

my shovel is dull and

my arms are tired, but

perhaps i will dig and dig

until i find you or until

my heart explodes.

how deep is your love?

how deep is your love?

there is nothing left for me

on the surface;

you will not be waiting for me.

hurt me so i don’t have to destroy myself.

i miss you, your hands, your voice in

the dark of my bedroom before dawn—

i writhe and i suffer all night long,

suffocated by your absence,

tormented by your sweetness.

hurt me, please—bite deeper, i beg you.

leave me with a scar if not your heart.

i want your kisses to bruise and

i want your glances to welt.

i want to burn and burn and burn

until i am the soot

under your fingernails