collection of things you won't even attempt to understand (because you can't)

i. compass

i lost all my words once
for you
and i lost myself once
for you
all the things i lost
all the things i
will never
get back
is it wrong that i will
lose them all again
if i could
have you?

ii. singing lilac coffee

you know everybody here wants you
the artificial sheen of your hair
the pale and curve of your neck
and the way you dance the way you move
the way cloth fills and stretches
over your body
over your skin
and they think they need you, like that
in their lives
in their bed
but they don't know
they don't know how i want you
and how i think
you
want me.

iii. like the sun

you do know how you
make me smile
always
all the time
i can feel my mouth
dancing at the memory of you
every strain of skin and muscle
grinning like a mirror to you
my sweeping tongue across the back of my teeth
wanting to taste you
you know how much the want foils my fingertips
and it aches,
sometimes
most of the time
how i want to bend you over
and watch that smile
turn into an open-mouthed
moan.

iv. this urban decay

we thought we were sated
so sated
we thought we were so done
we were done
but how do you resist the
pull of something
bigger than time
beyond what we know
all i know
is i can't stand
being here
breathing
existing
the universe so wide and gaping
and i'm here
alone
unsated
and longing for something else
who isn't you
can't you understand
i can be
i can't be
without you

v. another wasteland

so broken
here
don't you think?
we are trying to fix something broken
but we are broken ourselves
you are broken inside
i can see it
in your smile
and you try not to say
you don't want to say
how they broke your eyes
they want you to speak
when you're asked
be brave
when you're not paid
let your blood stain the soil
to save their pride
i'm sorry i couldn't save you
i'm sorry you couldn't save yourself
i'd have liked that
i'd have liked to tell you
what you always wanted to tell me
you, i, we felt it too
you made me what was i was
in that worn out alone land
but i never told you
and you left anyway
you left your future
and your body
and your blood
and your family
and me
you left me behind
and i do not know what to do with this regret
but bury it with you.

vi. it's our time now

i've returned to my old lovers
the pick and the strings
and the words that always came
while longing for someone else
you gave it to me, this time
you and your sparkle
every smile that sang
every hipbone that moved
and stole me away
and i was so far gone
watching you tonight
it's been a while, baby
it's been a while
but we're still the same
i know your favorite drink
and you can decipher my laugh
like we always used to
attached like twins who shared the same lungs
and beat with the same heart
vodka tonic sloshed in your glass
piss yellow sloshed in the urinal tiles
and you talked to me with the easy camaraderie
of days so yesterday and so before
and so trusting and knowing
asking me to come home with you
though i didn't know - no, i knew
i just couldn't believe it was real
to be waiting so long and hearing you
and i froze, and wanted to push
for details?
for you to get away?
and we've known each other for so long
why did we not do this so much earlier
were we taking it slow enough?

vii. circa 1920

they slept for a long time
all of my friends
the bristles of the brushes
the colors on the white
the smell of turpentine
they went to sleep
when her humming stopped
and left the dusty, muddy
Paris city streets
keeping them awake
without the sunshine
in the window reflecting
the gold of her hair
the cherub of her smile
the sweetness of her skin
i wanted to join them
sleep with them
with the moons in my head
but you gave me stars
i saw you in the dark
a piano tinkling behind
your everlasting voice
coffee and brandy
telling me how you smelled
when you're home alone
and you gave it back
my muse awoke a new day
turpentine came out to play
and i became one
of those lovers on the Seine
connected by the mouth
like i couldn't breathe
with you, you who
made me start
painting again,
colors in my veins
like river water.

viii. in my letters to home

hello little boy
apples in your cheeks
fairy pasta of your hair
the grass so blue
the sky so green
or maybe the other way around
stop looking at me so
miraculously
feel special, because
you are, because
yes, i wrote home
my fountain pen
smearing ink on the lines
the letters a little shaky
and told them all
about you - but
how much you really
mean to me
can wait.

ix. a modern pygmalion

daylight breaks
on your skin
marble cracking through
flesh underneath
paint flecks on your lips
like you just peeled them
with bone-white teeth
i used to smell stone
now i smell your hair
like concrete
like the forest
like Olympus
like the breath of Gods
let me have a taste
of that
i've been thinking
wondering what
you were always so
beautiful, how did
oh, oh, i see now
Aprhodite knew
she always
does.

hello, new lover
welcome to a body
softer than the one
you had before.

x. you're not belle

you were so
so pretty
that way
before your limbs
turned into poles
before your cheeks
sunk like anchors
before you turned
paler than a white-hot sun
before you relied on a knife
to fix something
already so perfect
little red rose
folding its petals up
back into a withered bud
star fading into supernova
makes me wish i could
save you
makes me i wish i could
make you see you
without the paint and the hiding
and all the changing
before you wanted to
erase yourself
smudge it all away baby
let me be your mirror
i'll show you everything
you never wanted to see
because you're everything i
dreamt of
when i was dreaming of beauty.