moisten

& the salt comes out slower
if you shake the shaker, dearest, & if
you stomp yr feet hard in the grass,
the trees might send down some more
fluffy seeds like snow so we can spin &
sweat & imagine it's winter.

i'm seeing everything through a veil of humidity -
you've got eyes like bogs &
fingers like seaweed & knees
made for knockin', & i think we should make out
in the library where it's tantalizingly cold
between the long disapproving
rows of darkly silent books.

are you paying attention? cuz really
what i'm trying to say is,
i'd like to give you mono.

farewell chanties

i pretended my shoes were slip-ons, and you tried to prove the world wasn't flat as a pancake. but yr eyes are cute when they crinkle up confused so i didn't tell you that it's all been done, and that raindrops are missiles from angry clouds. (you claim they're missives but i failed dictionary class so i wouldn't know which one is better), but i'm running away to go to map school and pore over books bigger than i am, glasses perched on my librarianesque nose. sucker punch to the eardrum and stretch to the ceiling. camera flashing spewing out small squares that we'll stack neatly and burn in a ceremonial display of cinnamon revival. i think we can distract the gods of running & noise if we make a stunning main dish of noodles plaintains pickle juice too. if all else fails there's always a roommate we can spare to satisfy their sacrificial cravings. anyways, back to the story. so when the ghostly trashtalker showed up past midnight he tried to bite my nose off, and i defended myself with guitar strings i'd hidden in my piles of hair. we made a fingers-crossed truce and joined the others for orgies and movie endings and i blew her kisses while i dodged yr warm-bodied advances. hands through hair. elbows and armpits and toenails. i wish you were sober so forward. i hope this isn't goodbye. what happened to florida?

no pictures, closed eyes only

& i couldn't even bring myself to take pictures cuz they feel like such closure, like such a last-ditch effort to lock memories into place on paper, to document that which i'll never have again. & he told me not to bring souvenirs away with me, but to return instead. what's the use of mementos when they could be exchanged for reality?

these nights when we sit around in the basement in the dim red light with beer bottles building up and smoke twisting, in circles or sprawled on each other, playing music, making music, showing music, laughing too hard at our nonsensical trains of thought. these boys with their open faces and easy smiles, all indiscretion & skateboards & nonchalance. "have you thanked yr hands today? think how much yr hands do for you!"

i've fallen too hard this time, fallen too hard for this city and these people and this life, and it's harder than usual to extricate myself.

this is hyperbole

since i met you i've stopped sleeping
& cut back on caffeine, i've
watched the ashes of too many cigarettes
burn down to my fingertips.
when we clasp hands together & yr face
wrinkles up into worries
you could break my heart
with those cautious eyes but
you could win me over with a pinch of
reckless disregard instead.

this morning you were still coming down, so you couldn't submit to the lure of my yawns but instead laid beside me listening to me snore and giggle in my sleep for that one short hour till i had to wake for work. if only last night's snow flurries, last night's white frozen fragments dancing thru the haloes of the streetlights, had frosted the pavement to trap me here, if only. but this morning the rain beats the cold into us, and the roads are clear, and i leave you smoking on the stoop with distance in yr eyes.