i have nothing of great substance to say to you;
the shrieks that flutter in my chest betray me
so i swallow them down thickly one by one,
like bitter pills.

caged bird,
trichotillomania.
i had these impulsions to pick at my wrists when i saw you coming,
pulling away the skin before it healed,
hands clenching in pockets against tiny little criss cross kisses;
we are all a different kind of dying.


cough & politely look away please
i dont like it when your gaze sticks to the scars,
i want to pull you off & throw you from the room.

dont say anything shh shh its not there.,
these lines are all the same, dipped in
trite cliche & thrown together out of
nothing of great substance.


i want to write a list of it all, a poem in a paragraph,
a - z, 1 2 3,
this is what
you all have meant to me.


names & dates & times.
nothing that rhymes.


you tell me how you feel now and i tap the keys to show you that i understand,
i shuffle in my shoes & i will meet you, we will stick together for a moment
until we are depolarised, desensetised.
fashionable ignorance until some time when it is fit for me to tell you

i dont love you like anything but yourself.
not like a bullet or a fire or a page full of words,
not like any great feat of nature, or an ocean,
not like a knife in my chest or a fever in my veins.
you are not the stars and moon, you are not a god,
this is not everything.
this is not even most things.
you're just a person that i watched out of the corner of my eye
until you came into full view;
someone to attatch a portion of my lifetime to.

why should i care now any less or any greater what becomes of you.
its not a stopwatch its a ripple,
of course i havent shut you off.
you're not anything less magical now;
nor more magical before.


yr eyes, my wrist, my caged bird trichotillomania;

the word for me looks like the desperate wail of some madwoman,
fingers through her hair.