leave it at that, the grinding of teeth. cajoled and threatened, lice along the skin. an oily thickness, evermore, never said. leave it. alone and beckoning, shrill ring in the night. a certain kind of madness, parched lips. she once told me. he once promised. rewrite, remake, return. he once told me. she kept all her promises. i beat myself into street lamps and not one wish for incredible violence comes true. empty penance. leave it at that.

in the trenches, the knuckle-shift, the weight-bearing, the having-it-all: I came out of all of it unscathed, disgusting, a blather of a person. revealed as I always was, sham, shame. strive for redemption, the empty belly, the pining for hunger, crouched over. wait for it, the sudden pummel, the avalanche karma, the break down, the breakthrough, the leaving of all this pain behind. never arrive, only waiting. leave it at that.

the night the most cruelest mistress: she hides everything in the dark, gives you only the most fleeting of tastes, whispers into your ear, makes promises you barely remember when the dawn comes. i have chased her, i have lost her, i have had her spit me out wasted and exhausted on to curbs.

here now, all real, all surreal, happening as if never before. daylight like twilight. afternoon into a haze. you’ve never slept like this before. everything rearranged, realigned, a sub group, sub par. will it leave scars. out of dreaming, a dreamt life. suddenly and viciously, like never before. gaussian blur, the fleeting glimpse. you were never here, you never arrived, you never left. buckle down and wait for it.

you want to tell her you love her but you’ve broken that promise before.
you want to ask her forgiveness but she’s forgiven you countless times.
you are spent of yourself, you pile of clothes worn thin. you grime, you stain.
and the night mocks you. and the night mocks you.

and here we are, here it is. its furry, it has teeth. you can pet it, feed it. but you can’t name it. it has a name all its own. picked itself. pulled it right out of the graveyard. made a mess of us all. and there i was and there you were, all grimy, all spent. grit between our fingernails, a bit of sand in the hair. and it licked our toes and we laughed ourselves up from the tombstones. and there we were, leaving into dawn, making a mockery of it all and it was just fine.

I said I broke this
she said you’ve broken it
I said why did I break this
you said I’ve broken everything
I asked can we fix this
you said you’ve broken me beyond repair
I always wrote with a scattershot attention and a pulse that quickened between the muscles of the throat as if i believed it was the very last time I would ever see you again

i would watch my parents unfurl like blossoms but he stained the ground he walked on with thick black ink where we would leave footprints across tiles she broke her back over. and when he shouted it was like a mangy old tiger whose teeth were sore but still sharp and my little brother would pick at his fur and my father would settle around us. fearsome, grueling, but ever always cooed by the fragility of my mother’s delicate hand.

i breathe fountains of lost time, of roadside gravel and the skirts of streets made dirty with snow. we believed this, we all saw it coming. subways that hammer tunnels and whip us into a frenzy. bars with bouncers staving off the tide of drunken children. wide and open dark parks where trees yearn to escape the skyline brick. she held my hand and whispered into my ear, take me home, take me to where your heart is.

scratch like this, break this, fawning head over heels, beg likes this, spoon me like this, dig the nails into his ass, gripping, how gripping, sweat like this, moan like this, saddle me like this, kiss me like this, kiss me like this, leave me this, leave this, forget this, break this, miss this, hands on knees coughing.