Low.

Every now and then
I look over see you as a stranger,
thinking about things you've said
and wondering if this will
turn into an ache I won't forget.

You know you can tear me up,
turn me into scraps of old newspaper.
I think this time I cared too much,
wanting more from every letter
that you spoke.

Now I guess we'll never know
just what could have been hiding
in our corners,
and when I listen to the radio
songs are playing that I never really noticed.

Ink.

I stopped growing when I was nineteen,
I marked it on my bedroom wall with fat black line.
That same year I spoke to my father,
the first and only time.
He sounded so dirty, like the floor of a biker bar.
The gravel in his unfamiliar voice tore a layer off my skin.
When I hung up the phone, I was all shiny and new. Like I stepped out
of a scalding bath.

Late at night, when I can't sleep, un-missed lovers tessellate on my walls,
painting portraits of oh my god.
Late at night, when I can't sleep,
I find it comforting to imagine I can slowly take my flesh off
my bones,
that I can rearrange my body into something worthy.
Sleep is so very peaceful when it is filled with dreams of a beautiful,
mutilated me.

I can curse the history books for teaching me
lessons I never learnt my self,
but I will forever bless the boys who locked me up
in concrete cellars
for the light (of my life) at dawn and my methylated spirit.