i forgot that conventional is unconventional and that unconventional is conventional and that sometimes some things that are conventional are still just conventional and sometimes things that are unconventional are still actually unconventional despite all of the conventional and unconventional things that are unconventional and conventional, respectively, and having forgotten all that i sat down and wrote this:
i can feel your head falling off in my hands
the looseness in your neck
my hands twist and twist and twist and and you don’t bleed when your head falls off
i’ll make you bleed.
one time i pressed my thumb against the veins (arteries? [no, veins {wait, arteries <FUCK IT, CAPILLARIES>}]) in your wrist
and watched them (you) squirm (but mostly you).
occasionally i get the feeling like i’m going to get a nosebleed but then i don’t and i’d be lying if i said i wasn’t disappointed
sometimes i just want to run out of class holding my hand up to my nose and then when my classmates turn around and look at my seat all they see is a few drops of blood,
like i disappeared and all that was left was a few drops of blood and they’d have to take a turkey baster (or whatever the official scientific equivalent of a turkey baster is) and put my blood in a petri dish and hope a baby grows out of it (that’s how it works, right? you bleed into a lady’s private area and then a little you grows. right?)
i’ll make you bleed.
one time i pressed my thumb against the veins (i’ve decided they’re veins) in your wrist
even though i didn’t (never) wanted to.
you’re too pretty to pretend to be a boy
your girly smile shows through
you can dress in that flannel all you want
and hide your hair in hats
but you are not going to hide that smile
in my sleep i lost a lover to disease.
she coughed and she coughed and she coughed
until she coughed no more
and died.
is this going to be how you spend the rest of your days?
following me to the white cliffs of dover like an old blind dog
with a too-short leash.
i have see the thoughts flicker beneath your eyelids:
an alien terror, a foreign invasion,
a man under the mattress hiding from your mother.
you are growing older
with each passing day
you cross out
on your calendar.
can you feel it
in the bones of
your fingers,
white and tired?
i can see it
in the wrinkles
of your skin.
you look pretty
in a green sweater
and i want to feel your pulse.
your hand on your neck
should be
my hand on your neck
feeling the blood
pass quickly
underneath.
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