picasso06

          He's not that much taller than you but your wrists are weak when he is yanking them behind your back. "Dan stop fucking stop it Dan," you try to say, but no one can hear you, up against that wall in the kitchen. Go back to ten minutes ago when your two best friends left, tottering in their heels towards public transportation, on the hunt for Red October and Greek gods. You were worried that they'd find Pan and Ares rather than Apollo and Hermes. Come back to now and you're worried that you and Dan are the only two people in the house and that one more tug might break your tiny wrist.          Dan doesn't stop; he just covers up yo

so i dreamt of you last night. as usual, you are with me, but as usual, i can't find you. so i scream your name, again and again until my throat goes raw and i wake, with my fists clenched, swallowing my sobs. and i see him there, lying peacefully on his side, stray strands of hair fluttering under his breath as he sleeps. i look at him and your name pops into mind, but it's wrong. i fear i'll say something i shouldn't, and he'll just love me more. i know when he wakes, he'll flash me a smile that breaks hearts. he'll ask for a morning kiss, and that's when your name will run repeatedly over and over in my head and spill over onto my lips.

[it took him 129 days to finally stop breathing without you there.] on day 32, he bought flowers and slid them into a thin vase on the windowsill. a petal fell off and floated to a silent rest on the water's surface, and a single ripple weakly faded away. he threw the flowers out that night. on day 58, he woke from a nightmare, clawed at the pillow your picture was on, and his fingernail snagged on the paper. he gazed wantonly for a minute at the ragged shreds, then promptly turned on his side and shut his eyes. the torn-up paper drifted off into the cracks between the floors. on day 99, he thought you came back, and he cried out

Numbers I could not stop seeing parallels between words and human flesh. A poem that could rise up, hunching its back, a concentration camp victim with bare ribs; this language rolls like the ridges and dips of a spine, sticking up through paper skin. And they’re using the peaks as an abacus, counting them as they die.