The Dogs I Have Kissed

Sometimes I think I resented you so much it felt like love.

My hands are still shaking from nights spent not knowing how to want you.

Like one moment I am whole, but then I hear your voice on the phone and I swear to god three blocks away from here they can smell smoke.

I will greet you with a mouth full of barbed wire until you learn to stop coming after me with your hands.

I’m sorry that I am back and forth, push and pull instead of effortless simplicity.

For Brittanie There will always be men who have fishhooks for fingers. There will always be women with wet, sharp mouths. It is okay to get caught up in them. It is not okay to drown. Don’t you ever let another human being tear you apart. Remember that you have claws and teeth, too. Remember that you are better off whole.

I do not tell her that sometimes it feels like compromising yourself is part of growing up.

i loved her more than i loved you and i’m sorry that you knew it.

Hurt me once: shame on me. Hurt me twice: shame on me. Hurt me three times: shame on me but fuck you. Hurt me four times and we’ll get severed-head biblical.

And now that I am older, I don’t give a damn about sin. I will be the first to cast one.

Girl like a garden you never volunteered to tend. Dirt all tracked into your front hall.

can we say goodbye again? i miss the way you rip me open. i

I’d suck salt off your fingers like a fucking animal.

I Swear Somewhere This Works In a parallel universe or another world or a different life, we sit across from each other at the kitchen table and go over the grocery list.

My girl always talks about herself like she’s a graveyard, a place for other people to come and bury what they’ve lost. As much as I want to tell her that she’s wrong, I still find myself crouching in her earth with flowers I’ve brought for someone else. My

I know that I am lucky to be alive at the same time as you. I know that finding you was a cosmic needle in a haystack, a joke of Internet cables and telephone wires. But I also know that you are more afraid of opening up than losing me.

She writes a lot about religion for someone who looks out of place in a pew.

Don’t you ever let another human being tear you apart. Remember that you have claws and teeth, too. Remember that you are better off whole.

Tonight I wish I had someone’s body pressed up against mine. I am glad you are not here to see this. I

sometimes i think i resented you so much it felt like love. you’re

Hurt me once: shame on me. Hurt me twice: shame on me. Hurt me three times: shame on me but fuck you. Hurt me four times and we’ll get severed-head biblical. We will pick up stones. And

The poet can’t stand the quiet. She can’t stand the buzzing in her head. The murmur of memory. The poet picks up a book of poetry. It is not her writing but it reads the same way. It is not her story but the ending is similar enough to pass. The poet tries to read a verse out loud and only tastes blood in her mouth. The poet worries she is writing the same poem over and over. No matter what words she puts down, it comes out with a bite.

And you might curse the one who teaches you what it feels like to cry at the bottom of the shower in the middle of the night, but it is important to learn how to get back up on your own feet and let the wolf in your throat howl at the moon once in a while.

like her life is not a spectator sport like she doesn’t need a metaphor for my mouth

Looking around at dirty clothes and empty bottles, I got seasick for the first time in my life. We

I don’t know what it is in me that yearns to be the lifeboat that people throw themselves at when they are drowning.