please tell me that I look like my lips are soft,
and tell me that I look like I’m trying very hard
because it's true—
I want to look pretty for you!

I’m threading sutures through our hearts I hope,
or I’m tearing sutures from our hearts, I hope,
because what could mean to live in a warmth that leaves me so alone?

if you know,
I’ll score down my throat, take what's inside,
with fistfuls of clay, i will reshape every line,
I’ll grow out my hair, matted and fine,
from nothing to nothing , that last night of my life,

when I tried to drive through the flood,
I felt my size , my limbs untethered,
and the day after we met, my melodrama penned:
"i want to die, die, die by your side",
now (twenty-) six months since that flood, I’ve lost to detachment,
i can guarantee this is not what I meant.

can you convince me that heaven is not a formant shift?
could you convince me that heaven is not in anybody else's arms?
if I find love will it be because i had made it?
if I find love will it be because it wasn't hard to steal?

score down my throat, take what's inside,
throw away all the parts you don't like,
from distillate smoke to finasteride ,
from nothing to nothing, from ashes to light,

so I opened the windows, and I opened my hands,
I felt the pressure from the seatbelt, the bubbles through my skin,
and the windshield, it shattered, the weight I carried rushed in,
so I closed my eyes, resurfaced, and looked down at them,
them,
them,
them four angels holding out a trampoline atop the hudson, dark and icy,
glorious and unnerving, atop the palisades, I can see
the broadest shoulders, my yellow teeth, I fall in love with everyone i see,
I can hear her voice from five hundred feet, lord, come apart inside of me,
my body twists, my stomach howling,
my palms upturned, now all is wavering,
and I’m spitting out light, spilling on your cheek,
everything came to life, and now i am nothing

through suicide or fantasy, what could it mean to leave your body?
ask me again what it means to me , she tells me one more time "come apart inside me"
and I hear that voice, and I am released, my body catches flame, my dead love exhausts me, the angels swim away, and the river reaches out its hands! o! reach out both of your hands and try to catch me!

"come apart inside of me, and tell me i'd be more happy"