Libidinous

It's past two-thirty on tuesday morning and I'm watching moths die in quick succession,
confirming inevitability in the streetlamp below my windowpane.
I'm thinking about topography, how your body is like a map,
how I'd like to explore it, worship it,
but mostly how I'd like to wage war upon it:
Assault your senses with the scent and sight of me,
dig the imprint of my teeth along your collarbone,
scrape bright red claw marks down the length of your back while
pounding your eardrums with the sounds you force out of me.
I'll be begging you to give as good as you get

Mark your territory with bruises across my hipbones and down my throat,
paint rugburn down the length of my back and
the delicate skin of my knees.
We were always fighters more than lovers but
I swear either way you won't forget me. 

Perfect Friday

Tea’s on the stovetop,

Five pm and I’m still in my pjs,

Sitting on my balcony,

Imagining people complexly. 

For Gabriela

I am at the edge of everything, at the edge of the doorway. 

it’s five thirty a.m. and the grey light before dawn knows all of my secrets,

knows the t-shirts I’ve stolen and the long walks home, the feel of the sidewalk,

rough beneath the pads of my feet and the silk of my high heeled shoes, dangling

heavy from my hand. 

It knows about the bourbon shots I had last night and the cigar smoke that’s worked it’s 

tedious way into my curls. It sees the way my skirt clings indecently and how I tug it

back down to almost touch mid-thigh the way an almost good girl should. 

I may rub the remains of my red lipstick off onto the stolen t-shirt, but that grey light 

won’t say anything. It’s always discreet; gives me enough light to navigate home by, but 

hides me enough that I won’t be missed.

Not until later.

If at all. 

And I’ll sit on the edge of my bed after I smell sweet again and contemplate the texture 

of red twizzlers and other in-between things as the morning gives birth to itself

the way it has for millennia. 

Hypergraphia

I am writing you a letter that I don't intend to send.
And yet, and yet,
I cannot say what I mean.
The inklings of almost-thoughts dribble out from my brain and
stain the page in great blots where my pen has lingered for too long.
Not unlike our relationship.
That was unkind.
I think I'm sorry.
No, I'm not.
Because it's true, really, that relationships are like milk-
they've all got an expiration date.
I feel like this pen has tapped into my vein, drawing blood away from my heart
to tell you how it feels, how this feels, how ending it felt.
Too personal.
I start over.
I am writing you a letter that I intend to burn.
And yet, and yet,
I put a stamp on the envelope.
Forty-four cents wasted but it feels more official this way and really, I owe you since
I donated your clothes to Goodwill.
That was a lie.
I put them in a box I intend to give to give to Goodwill.
I intend a lot of things.
I always get distracted.
Like I intended to be in a relationship with someone who knew me, someone who
valued me, someone who would fight with me, someone who would read to me in the park
on lazy summer afternoons but instead I got distracted by you.
I was so tired of being tolerated.
Of being conditionally adored.
That was unkind.
The truth often is.
Too long-winded.
Take three.
I intended to write you a letter that I did not intend to send.
But I wrote this poem instead.
Because fuck you, that's why.