I just want you
to chew
on my callow bones,
sense the hollow
beneath strong skin.
as long as I feel your touch or your teeth.

smell the rotting
hidden in my clean breath.
as long as you’re close.

just know me.
I feel empty and open,
but totally brick.
what a tired prick.

like the sun,
I’m dying slow.
like you,
like them.
drowning.
a sinking stone.

falling,
flowing,
evaporating
water.

it’s natural,
all things faceless and falling,
all wiped away.
it is how it is.
it’s hard to accept,
all things shortly searching and stupid.

I just want,
just want
to know what it means to live.

or not at all.
I wanna shack underground.
beside a mole’s hallowed hole,
a skeleton’s chateau.

please, blind me,
hide me.
kill my hope,
cut out my heart,
then I’ll breathe in peace.

but,
I dreamt last night
(night, night- last time I saw light)
and it was so nice
it hurt.

I hate to believe
that’s how it could be.
it isn’t.

in my bed,
with winter out the window
(dead and white as the dusty moon,
lonely like life),
in my bed,
dreams of us
running in a field
behind the school.
the world not wicked
and you so close.
we slept beneath a tree.
I didn’t feel so cold.

In my dream,
I was never touched by blackness,
untouched by everyone but you.

but here,
in the real,
I’m stained.

and I touch nothing,
while refusing to be felt.

god, god,
all lost from the start.
so stuck.
what was meant for me?
no meaning set aside.
no heart small enough to hide.

it’s hard to admit,
that most of life’s awash.
usually, we’re alone.

I think of you.
I think of others.
Ann mentioning the wind on her windows,
“how hollow it was” she says,
“like a scream” she adds and leaves.
Imagine her at her trailer,
on the cliffs,
dreaming,
waiting for calls, waiting for falls.
she knows she’ll get to leave so soon.
but, will the world look any brighter from a dorm,
will she grow stronger on her own?

and Tim told me with his eyes,
he’s sick of living only lies.
he drifts as the guys
talk about the strip joint he’s grown to despise.
there’s good liquor and cheap coke,
and he’s got the money, man,
but he just pities his mom.
he’s looking for something he can’t find.

and outside,
covered in snow, the mountains surround us.
they made us rough as the ridges,
rusted as the rails,
empty as the forests,
while, moaning weakly like the wind,
still soft under our skin.

what a sad strange home.
but I know,
by the blue ocean,
kids hear the waves
and think of drowning,
geese s***, and tourists on boardwalks,
then dream
of a rare time
when it all seemed sweet.

At night we’re all home,
all alone,
drunk, dying, crying,
or staring in our sheets.
dreaming when we can.
but there’s a time
when our dreams and our hands
turn sour.
then we see,
we were all born to be alone.
and so close,
so close.

I just wanna open my hands,
and hold yours,
then I could stand,
then we could stand it.
it's only a dream