Ice Queen

I like my body 

after it has been with your body;

softer and smoother and rounder

more calm or more exhausted

definitely more smiley

and more pink. 

I am swollen and sweaty and 

electric, 

like I drug my feet across the carpet

while wearing socks and

I like the way you touch me

gentle like you 

aren’t afraid of the cold and I think

I am coming to prefer

feeling a little

melted. 

Tear the Edges.

I forget how lonely three am feels 

till that habitual late-night nausea rolls in

making me feel like the only person who ever lived

who ever walked the earth,

like this darkness and stillness is

all there ever was and 

all I can think is 

someone loved me once

over and over again 

reverbing around my brain like a

record that just keeps skipping

back to the same song and 

I guess I don’t mind 

I’ve stopped hoping to feel better but

I can’t stop myself 

from wanting

to feel less

empty. 

Bumpers

Nights like these feel like an oil spill

way beyond containment

pumping poison into the sea

It was an accident, honest, I didn’t mean

to start this flood and 

my walls should’ve been stronger

than a rock against the window

and a whispered

“how have you been” but

that’s the wine for you,

it marks out all your weak points

and now I’ve got you all covered in 

my leakage I’m sorry

and I hope you can 

forgive me and help me patch up 

all this damage I seem to have aquired

while I wasn’t paying attention because

I had my head buried 

in the sand and a good bottle of cabernet.

Hemingway, or something

Had a dream about you, angel boy. 

Saw you fold in your wings,

saw you crash to earth,

witnessed the heavy landing

onto a bottle of bourbon.

And then I watched you slide 

your hands across unworthy ground-

planting love and

reaping sorrow,

growing more bent every year-

“All cowardice comes from not loving

or not loving well,

which is the same thing”

but I am not here to save you. 

I cannot drag you up that pedestal 

I spent so much time climbing down from 

and frankly, angel, 

With that dark hair and those dark eyes

Sweet full lips and silver tongue 

and, goddamn, angel,

those wicked teeth,

I’m more inclined to keep you fallen. 

Magpie

I litter.

There’s a days long trail of 

post-it notes across the walls and

bobby pins across the floor and

clothes strewn just about everywhere else. 

I do it on purpose. 

You could call it nesting 

but really

I’m afraid of transience

I am afraid 

of not leaving a mark.

Of not being able to say that something is mine.

And so

even though I know 

it annoys you

to no end

I’m going to keep doing it. 

Because I hope I can annoy you

to the point

that I leave my mark on you. 

That I can claim you’re mine. 

Incidents.

I have never been good at growing things-

My thumbs have always been black, not green

stained with ink instead of chlorophyll and

I have a habit of breaking unbreakable things

like diamond rings and hearts with

my habit of running before I look down at what’s beneath me and thus

I often uproot delicate things without meaning to. 

I have never understood the nature of patience

my world has been barren and I have built castles from

the dust and been content

or something like it. 

But you are alien and soft and insistent,

and I stare in awe as green shoots push up from the rocky soil

so thin I can fool myself into thinking they’re a mirage

until I run my rough palms across their surface

and wince.