strawberries.

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 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.

day and night and day and night

i am haunted by a future

that may never exist.

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

black eyes narrowed in,

two strides and our noses almost touch.

you want me to cower, to look away,

but i don’t, i never do.

i grin, and you grin too.

your whole life they said you were bad,

that you needed to be fixed,

that you were nothing but anger and spite.

a fist through the drywall,

a few beers, a line, and a bar fight.

always making so much fucking noise,

you can’t hear the thoughts over your own voice.

but you are so quiet when we’re alone—

it’s like i can see all the way to your bones.

“don’t yell at me,” i plead.

“i would never yell at you.”

tell me, where are all your teeth?

this makes no sense, and too damn much,

you have her and i have him, but

if i’m being honest,

i love our staring contests.

at night i imagine your body over mine,

hands crossing line after line.

i make you vulnerable

and you make me immoral.

it is terrible to want you,

but i do

and you

want me

too

getting high off your sheets,

praying to the odds and ends

on your nightstand.

i am happy—i am dying—

this place is a womb,

this place is a grave,

this is somewhere i should

never have wanted to go.

your house is haunted—

it is filled with the ghosts of what you and i

might have become.

i’m standing in your bathroom

cataloging every trimmed hair on the sink

because i cannot look at my reflection.

i had a dream that you didn’t want me.

i watched you laughing with my mom and friends,

i was wishing i knew how to be what you need.

you held my hand and opened every door,

and still you were slipping through my fingers.

“i would do anything for you,” i swore.

but when you leave, this emptiness only lingers.

not enough, not enough, not enough.

i am crawling after you, i am begging for you—

my heart is a desolate place, jagged, and rough,

adorned with your name in a thousand tattoos.

i have tied rocks to my ego

and watched it sink as many times

as i watched it crawling back to me

through the sand.

i have cast my heart into the water

like a fishing net a thousand times,

and seen it pulled up empty

just as many.

still, every day at dawn, i heave and i

drag my boat across the beach.

but i mustn’t look from the horizon—

who will watch for you if not me?

so i sleep on the shore, and

i drink the seawater as i bathe in it.

i’m building you a castle with the

prettiest shells i can find.

i’m building it in silence.

i eye the stars to make sure

they haven’t become sailors,

and i listen to the howl of the wind

inside my heart.

tomorrow, yes—tomorrow,

i’ll go for a swim, i swear it.

i’ll go early, but not too early, and

just for a minute or two—

tomorrow the tides might bring you in.

the thought burns my eyes like salt

and i dig my pruned fingers down

into the sand to stop their shaking.

maybe all these stones

were once patient women

the sun is shining on me, and

i can see a warmth pouring from your eyes

that wasn’t there before. my chest swells with

anticipation as you lean in to kiss me,

my cheeks flushed and a small

tinkering laugh escaping my lips.

nothing can take away this moment.

nothing can take this feeling from me—

wait. wait—as i close my eyes, i see her.

ice floods my body.

my shadow, crumpled on the ground.

she weeps at your feet, grabbing at your knees

as she throws herself against you;

oh, god, the sounds,

my god, how she screams and wails—!

she’s clawing at herself—aren’t you going to help her?

look, she needs you! help her!

desperate, ugly creature, starved to death!

don’t you see her?

don’t you feel her broken nails?

don’t you smell the blood?

im clawing my organs from my body and

sobbing and screaming and bleeding out,

i look over and he’s right there with me.

there are two carved hearts lying in the dirt.

he does not promise that everything will be okay.

but he does hold my hand and

in that moment i know that

love is meaningless

without pain

DROWNING IN YOUR SILENCE

AND IN THE NEXT I AM

BURIED IN YOUR DESIRE

YOUR EYES BURN HOLES IN ME

AND YOUR ATTENTION IS VIOLENCE

YOU WONT ASK ME HOW MY DAY WAS

BUT YOU MIGHT STAY THE NIGHT

IF THIS IS WHAT YOUR INDIFFERENCE FEELS LIKE

THEN YOUR LOVE MUST BE A CARVING KNIFE