Tangram Tiger

I see in you the padded battles of matchbox dioramas
sabers drawn to clash harmlessly and dull—
where plastic death reaps over the die-cast and cutouts
sparing, but magnifying the spared ‘til their boots melt together
or their bayonets creep to hang bowed and useless.

There I am, gathering broken arrows on hills of stretched felt
while transatlantic babes stomp and splash in the pooling drops of my dreams.
They’re clocks, so meticulously constructed but flowing
and collecting in the folds of fabric, taut like skin on tribal drums
or the bold taxidermy that keeps your bed warm.

But what echoes in the primal scream of tigers no longer displayed?
Their lowest pitches I can’t hear, but see ghosts register and queue in doubles
readily devoured by aching mouths bound open and tongue tied
as they whisper expository plaques into cool earpieces
and dissolve slowly like communion wafers before their etherial lover.

The management is afraid you’ll steal the souls of the soulless
but I don’t think they considered where you’d keep them
since your bag’s checked and you’re sleeveless,
but they’re right to be cautious near the artificial tall grass
because you’re terrifying in those slimming stripes.

Row

Like a black and white fever,
the blurred grounds were bisected and spun
the lake pasted to the end of a kaleidoscope
his wrist bare and hair long
and rowing—
through veiny green waters stagnant as clotted blood
but overflowing with life
that would land on my brow
to annihilate itself between touching skin
so maybe that was you.

I liked to think I knew you
and that you knew me in some capacity
greater than just a photogenesis or a list of what I was not
so I’m curious how evil I was in your dream
that you won’t hold me in the night
because what if you were wrong
had it backwards
and I’m evil now?

I need you to hammer it out
like some scattering formalism
don’t worry about terms I won’t understand
‘cause when I finally reach the gold trimmed logbook
entitled 2008-????
you won’t even recognize me.

Smoker

Sometimes I wish I smoked two packs a day
so that tar may become my fifth humor,
all absorbing and nullifying,
like how all colors lead to brown when mixed together
which coincidently would be the color
I'd hack up every morning
expelling everything that's touched me,
a ritualistic cleansing in the shower
that'd require a chemical cleaner about once a month,
or so I at least think
because really everyone's like fly paper,
and the dullness in your eyes indicates you're almost spent-
what all have you collected
in the time since I last saw you?
I doubt I could handle knowing
until I've met a girl at least twice as nice as you
which I believe may take my entire life
so I guess I shouldn't have asked
without you first agreeing
that the rhetorical is all we have left.

Destruction

There are nights you can't escape the day he ripped your cat in two
where a choking in your throat
and the nonexistent smell of uncombusted gasoline
adds to a lightheadedness
normally reserved for Mt. Everest
or the last moments of some famous author
that no one else in your high school english class enjoyed
or even bothered finishing the book
'cause no one gets laid when they're affected—
a finer point your fat friend would never grasp,
wrap her lips around,
eyes screened by hanging locks to hide welling tears.

You wonder if he ever thinks back to that day
but that's like pondering the visibility of specters across other wavelengths
because really, empathy is just another frequency
and you just want someone to resonate with you
but be careful girl
because love hurts and so does fire
so it's best to know which you're falling into.

You've stocked your kit with the appropriate cream,
readied your bag before the door to leave it behind—
you visit like a conservationist on the moon
carefully sweeping to leave no trace or footprints
just a massive crater where you first touched down
and from where you take off.
Now at the terminal you stand upon the painted line
flickering displays vie for attention but your gaze is set
towards tracks and the source of liberated air
fixated on the thought of how that train
would fucking destroy you.

Heatless Engines

If you were here I'd tell you stories
about how all the broken hearts from the 70's
ended up on New Jersey beaches
but tonight it's so cold I can barely remember
if I'm wearing any clothes at all
so I know that you're cold too
in your room and in your poems
filled with heatless engines pleading "let me in"
oh, you know I'd let them in.
Like wound watches you are intricate,
filled with gems, and loaded springs
but for me you'll always run like new—
what's a boy to do
in love with the weekend
and a sweetness his tongue can't comprehend.
I think it's only fitting
if this is how all great civilizations end,
collapsing in the pre-dawn
with hair like copulating snakes
tangled and adrift in the darkness of space
and against their better judgement
hissing for more.

The Blizzard

Buried beneath snow drifts and bookshelves

you awaited my engine,

whose pistons and fires drove rubber through compacted snow,

but spared no heat for the cabin.

With precipitating breath and gloved hands

I followed tracks to meet you,

amazed by the continuity of open roads and uncautious drivers—

somehow oblivious to coefficients and inertia,

'til your warmth did greet me

and my hollow bones filled.

I thought about entropy

and at what cost we breached the disorder,

to share this moment,

as coffee became cold and my cheeks flush

and I learned in your room,

amidst chatter and mixtapes,

why watches should never glow

as the night became timeless

and on my way home,

I searched for an answer:

"Who are you today,

when you've fallen in love?"

Astigmatism

I can't come home anymore,

and I can't trust your willingness

to see me until I can at least remember your smile,

and pretend what you're wearing now is the same thing.

I so want to pretend;

I swear I've gotten better,

to the point that even my friends are recognizing

the floor is lava and I'm on the wrong side of the room,

but that's hardly enough

to make this place real again.

It's like everything is coated in mercury

and I'm afraid to touch anything,

afraid to die, slowly, from a heavy metal

replacing my insides

and reducing metabolic flows to stagnant pools

where electrons whirl like clouds of gnats

dogging me and occasionally dying in my eyes.

They're no longer unpredictable—

I could tell you their colors

and why the blue lights are always doubled

and you could know how sick we really are

just by looking:

mine a bright red and yours a pale yellow.