a lover named Anthony

the hem of this skirt has grown so unbearably frayed
i fear i begin to see him in the trailing strands
disillusioned, i retire to sheets soft and clean
waxing poetic and wistful in the cool night air
he grows and plods in my e a r d r u m s
"think; think; think;" he knifes to me
i smile and let my blood pool for him
we watch our wounded red reflections
bloom, and the thoughtstains make it all right
it's all right, and i know it, and he knows it
anthony, with his unkempt patchy morning eyes
and i, toes wrapped in scuffed patent leather
the both of us very nearly make one.

echolalia

little garden spiders are drawn on my eyelids
night-goblins bleeding me out my elbows
your words leave me blue and echoing
when you write about dimensions below
that kept her apart from the rest of us
and wildfires just out of sight
like the monsters in the mountains
of our childhood fairy tales that gave
you grey nightmares and me razor-
sharp drawings to cut you with and
make you cry. i burned the
drawing of you i made after hansel
and gretel escaped into color, but i
remember it like i remember you:
all framed like a police report and
growing out of the sidewalk.
you smoked cigarettes like you
wrote poems: infrequently
and mostly for looks. that didn't
stop you from doing it well.

now we're meeting again and
it's been a while, casual.
"tell me about it", and i do
but sometimes family dies
and it also sometimes just goes
away for a little while. but you
look down like it's the day after
christmas and the toys are all
broken, and you say we're all
broken. broken. you repeat it
like a proverb in the bible.
like it'll save you somehow.
i drive away, but really
you drive me away.

your spider-silk constellation
sends electronic messages
and you receive them
and you put yourself in pencil
a surrealist tribute to your
limbless ex-brother.
apathy flits along your
strands and fills you like
half a fifth of brandy.
sketched on graph paper,
you let yourself burn.

death is easy
when you're
electronic.