There’s a bed on the bare floor
Where the walls come together
And there’s blood on the front door
All squalor-cum-splendor

And you were the first born
The short-term surrender
At the end of a cold war
You pretend to remember

Candy, pull over the car
I’m starting think we’ve gone too far
We’re helpless to stop once this starts
So let’s see how brave you are

The boy with the girls name
The tenured professor
The cliches twice your age
The men you remember

Whose best of intentions
Sound like deathbed confessions
For there are no good men
And I’m no exception

Candy, pull over the car
Baby says she’s got a weak heart
You’re helpless to stop once this starts
So let’s see how brave you are

You fumble around in the dark
And cover your eyes at the sad parts
Now muster what’s left of your charms
And show us how brave you are

A head like a dead shore
Of cancerous notions
And a heart like a carthorse
Just bred to be broken

The lovelorn, the blood borne
The services rendered
And she keeps the seat warm
Til they find someone better

Candy, pull over the car
And blink when you think we’ve gone too far
It’s helpless to stop once this starts
So let’s see how brave you are

You fumble around in the dark
Careful to cover your birthmark
When you’re all through falling apart
We’ll find out how brave you are

When it’s my turn to cry
I think about this
The goosebumps of girls we grew up with
My second french kiss

When we were blonde as butter
When we deserved each other
Summers we bled in your bedroom
With crescent french tips

And when my lip starts to quake
Well this is just for your sake
I tease out the tears of these memories
From when we meant this

But oh heaven knows
That was years ago
And my how we have grown
The same in name alone

Now we’re vacant inside
But you’d never know
Those waterworks still flow
But now it’s just for show

When it’s your turn to cry
Just take a deep breath
And breathe in the smell of the pear trees
And name your regrets

Raise the ghosts of those dreams
Cut down from the crossbeams
And wait for the sound of his house keys
Pretend to forget

But oh heaven knows
That was years ago
And my how we have grown
The same in name alone

It’s just salvage inside
But there’s no one home
The doors all boarded closed
The copper stripped and sold

So this well has run dry
No one has to know
The waterworks still flow
But this is just for show

Emily Says
As she starts to undress
The phases of love
They’re like Faces of Death

The promise of blood
The skin & suspense
And then it just ends
So Emily says

Keep your horses held
No matter what you think you felt
Then when it ends, it’s just as well
So save your prayers for someone else
Because she knows
That god helps those who help themselves

Emily trusts nothing but
The first signs of distress
How the cringe of disgust
Held the promise of death

From the 10,000 cuts
When her friends condescend
To the tenuous touch
Of feminist men

Keep your voices down
I don’t see what the point is now
When surely everybody knows
Those wolves are wearing women’s clothes
And she knows
Those pretty boys don’t sleep alone

Emily Sighs
When she binds down her chest
And suddenly shy
She tries to confess

She was 15
The age of consent
Too young to forgive
Too old to forget

Please don’t make a scene
I don’t know facetious means
Our dreams may die by slow degrees
But memories burn like effigies
The effigy of Emily

Emily says

I remember you well in the desert motel
You were naked, your hair was still wet
At the foot of the bed, with the mirror overhead
And the shape of your soft silhouette

I can picture you best in a pussybow dress
Knots of nylon chiffon at your neck
I remember champagne, and the taste of cocaine
Too impatient to fully undress

I kissed you goodbye
The softest apocalypse
I’m surprised that we survived

A victimless crime
Leave this ambiguous
Leave no fingerprints behind
And leave no loose ends untied

With your share of the rent and your boyfriend’s consent
We spent weeks in those cheap rented beds

But now you send your regrets from the Chelsea address
I guess I misunderstood what you said

I’m the first to confess
That I tend to forget
And my memory’s subjective at best

But I felt what you felt
In the desert motel
And I’ve come back to pay my respects

And what’s left behind?
A phone full of photographs
From the year I nearly died

No corpse no crime
Leave inconspicuous
Leave no fingerprints behind
Leave no witnesses this time

When you’re away
I’ll stay at your place
And while away these idle days
All sound and safe
While you’re away

And I will wait
Sweet like a sheet cake
With tape affixed between my legs
To save your place
While you’re away

Black Shroud
Low ominous drone
Black Shroud
Vague sinister tones
I’ll be here when you get home

I’ll stay up late
Tongue-kiss your keepsakes
With grease paint streaks across my face
To mark the days
That you’re away

But take your time
I’m patient like a landmine
You can’t outrun what’s left behind
The trace decay
While you’re away

& I don’t need too much
I know I can be tough to love
But I don’t need too much
I get by on breadcrumbs

On Providence St.
We cursed ourselves to sleep
12 years on plastic sheets
Then braces after baby’s teeth

It’s where we were raised
A section 8 estate
The wards of waitress wage
The heirs of mother’s maiden names

A little overweight
Clothes safety-pinned in place
Birthdays on layaway
The years our tears turned ticker tape

The sake in your voice
And shoulders like a boys
You never had a choice
You never looked your age

The gentlemen’s gaze
And seven generations
Of love framed in quotations
Is this the way grown men behave?

You went from bated breath
To plainly bored to death
You went from pink to red
But you just smiled and shook your head

On Providence St.
Where we turned 17
Still halfway in between
The Love we seek and loves we leave

They led you away
Your fingers laced together
Oh faithful young offender
I remember every frame

A little overweight
Clothes safety-pinned in place
Our single saving grace
Those years our tears turned ticker tape

In blackest night
In black & white
With eyes that flicker like a men’s room light
You sleep beside
Soft like like a lullaby

& here we lie
Just you & I
This mattress savaged like a violent crime
An abstract canvas for the ravages of time
The last night of our lives

& if I die before you wake
Lost in the figure 8s of restless legs
Here in the half-light
Where both our bodies look the same
I’d go with no complaint

You’ll never need to doubt it
Try not to think about it
Well-read & welfare-bred
& more dead than alive
Well nevermind

The last night of our lives

I got this absence from my father’s side
I’ve had this sadness since my sister died
I’ve been on borrowed time for six years this July
I’m not afraid to die

These expectations that I kept inside
Gracious and graceless like a child bride
Your pretty words obscured most murderous designs
Your eyes were twice your size