irony

you've told me
that i don't know what irony is
but i listened
when you said
i love you

Lovers.

i've met people who've loved me and showed it,
i've unraveled the seams of all the gloves they've sewn for me
as i've wandered aimlessly in the cold looking for the one i've lost

i am the stray cat of my lovers past,
i come hungry and crying and i leave late in the night,
all the deer mice i kill i keep to myself

i come with the intentions of an exclamation mark
i tell my stories with a comma, i go on, and on, and on,
and leave with a question mark

i've drunk the blood of women who've cut theirs wrists for me,
made homes in shoulders i've flooded with tears,
i've chained my lovers to my diving bell from time to time

i have loved
in every language
my body knows

my vocabulary is limited
to islands and sloppy variances
of you

a haiku about how you came and fucked up all my shit and then left

unexpectedly
you came like a hurricane
and made me your home

gone, fishing

am i the catfish to your cod?

do you like the story
of when i jumped off the third story balcony
not because i wanted to die but because i wanted to leave

i always keep you guessing
post trauma, it's a funny thing, in stories
told to your friends over coffee, casual like stand up comedy

am i the hook to your line and sinker?

it's funny how long it took me to understand rape
it's funny like a movie when you relate
to the character but he is much uglier than you
and much sadder than you

am i the Betta to your Betta?

the bad side of your gemini,
fighting to the death for the territory
of an egotistical tank of head space
where the enemy is familiar
like déjà-vu, he oddly resembles you

am i the the game fish and the bait fish?

cycling, the food and the hunger,
i swim circles, keep the pain close,
catch and release i keep
coming back to those who hurt me

am i this fish and the fisherman?

lured by the bait of my own suffering,
is my solitude hobby
hooking my own jaw?

a haiku for my genderless child

no pink or blue cloth
for my child wrapped in yellow
cannot be contained

the fox and the grapes

when will i convince myself
that you are a murky, dirty pond
and i, a bright blue Betta
better left alone

the living being had no need of eyes because there was nothing outside of him to be seen, nor of ears because there was nothing to be heard

i am more honest than my father
less stable than my mother
i have a girl i could marry
but i cannot love her

she is an innocent pup
i have left in the snow

watch from the window
as i circle like crows
circle above warm meat
hungry
i would not wish this upon you
but i do
circle still as a serpent
inside myself
deprecating body

i am Goliath
hear my scream
as i gnaw on my feet
i am a self-inflicted dying beast
building and trampling dreams of my Babel
a place where god lives, underwater, my still euphoric dream
the beginning and the ending of me

i am a starving tick
blood sucking
what are the odds
surviving love in a looney bin
a heavy sponge collecting anything
what is fair
in lacking empathy
in degenerative disease

i cannot love her
with what is inside of me

getting older

growing less poetic,
and more professional

the places we leave the ones we love

i don't want to play the part
of your beaten dog
tied to the neighbors fence,
your puppet on display
under a stack of plates
at your weekend garage sale

haiku

still finding your hair
between the wooden floorboards
we once walked naked