(1.)

my brakes only work on the passenger side
but I haven’t had a passenger in ages
only hitchhikers going backwards

the right faces in false memories.

(2.)

I burn shed skin flakes
to whisper smoke signals
of suicide notes burned before reading
into the nude coral dusk

it was another false alarm on my part.

(3.)

chewing the nails I forgot I polished so I would stop chewing them
glitter shrapnel imbedded between my teeth
you called them constellations of anxiety
in a yellow graveyard,

what a cruel thing to call a smile.

(4.)

I mistook my heart
for a wasp in amber
and made its last words
before going under
a stone’s throw
meant to shatter you.

(5.)

no shore remembers
being born of glass
only the tide
that beat them into dust

Brooke calls hers: Mother.

(6.)

My hands fold words into paper birds
yours fold lovers into gardens of scorpion grass

a promise unkept.

(7.)

for a second,
when undressing your painted body
the world stopped breathing in color

and all of autumn was us.

(8.)

You called the moon in daylight a gravestone

but it’s more like an unlit porchlight
that cannot picture our silhouettes
outside the depths of nightfall.

(9.)

midnight was never a bridge
just the turning of the hourglass
another funnel to fit through

another fall to the bottom of a bottle,

they never spun it toward me,
so kiss me in the closet
until I’m small.

(10.)

polaroids of us naked
may fade to gray

to us,
they will remain
blossoms of dusk.