she said love the good man, the best man,
the man who fits into all the boxes
on the checklist of shit you should look for:
kind, capable, genuine, adoring...
boring. but she said love this good man or
be lost, be wound up in cycles,
be controlled by the fate of the lesser man.
love the good man or this other man, whose
hands are dark like tea leaves, whose eyes are
darker still: who draws you when you'll come,
lithe and lovely, into the palm of his hands and who
drags you screaming into nightmares when you won't.
with him you feel the density of loneliness when he exits
and the ecstasy of passion when he returns.
for this man who presses his mouth on your skin
you will be lit, glowing with love,
brighter than coal or the diamonds they become.
your heat will burn away memories of hate
till all that you see are his fingertips
tracing a path from your breast to your hip,
till all that you hear is the cadence of his heart
when it speeds under your ear as you wake him
from sleep with your hands, your mouth, your need.
for this lesser man you will become a lighthouse:
a beacon, a guide, a piece of history and geography
who, though motionless, still spins:
on again, off again, black, yellow, day, night.
your motions collide with his, his turbulence
accented by your revolutions, till his stormclouds
and your determination to be seen crash together.
the riptide will carry it all away;
everyone around you will drown.
there will be wrecks at the bottom of the ocean,
dead fish along the shoreline, stinking of rot.
there will be flotsam around your ankles when,
weeks later, you return to see the damage done.
for this lesser man you will learn rage,
you will learn hatred, you will learn pleasures like
lighter fluid and motel matchboxes, purple bruises
that flare and fade, and the sex that comes after:
long, troubled, complicated lovemaking,
his hand clasped around your throat till you see stars
and you think you could die for his orgasm but
then your freedom, your body suspended over him,
his hands on your hips while your lips traverse his,
the marks of his fingers fresh under your chin.
she told you to love the good man so that you would live,
and live a good life, and love a good many years.
but you are a siren, a gull keening towards a different heart,
flashing on and off, heat upon cold, sun upon stars,
wave upon wave crashing up onto the limestone crags.

the signs of you and i, strewn throughout my life,
littered across the years, carelessly planted by thoughtless hands.
detritus of so many beautiful nights and long, sweet moments,
bedding piled up on the floor and two mouths breathing
face to face on the low bed, a shared smile and
the patterns of streetlights through the blinds, orange and dull
on the cheap white walls. text messages, saved and resaved,
copied and pasted, blog posts and emails, hoarded
as best they can be, intangible but loadbearing, heavy, dense.
a shirt here, a lighter on the table, a borrowed dish
that waits to be returned; your presence externalized,
your influence visual, visceral, sensual, and lasting.

(Every song is)
You are young and I am tired
When we talk, we talk around each other
Like we're barriers in each other's paths
You are young and I am tired
When we fuck I don't think you even see me
Or my face, much less my heart,
Stretched thin as I am against the passage of time
I am tired and you are young and set the pace
I am tired but I can still keep up
(About us)