Knocked-Down Homes, Burned-Out Hearts

The season brings knocked-down homes, replaced
with burned-out hearts we can burrow into. Make a nest
for ourselves and sleep for months. The accommodations
would be a fine place to curl up into. Won't you host us?

We don't ask for much, just a place to keep us warm.
Maybe a cocktail before bed. Simple creatures demand
simple lives; we are no different. We demand a room
for rent. Somewhere to get the mind right, the body clean,

the needs serviced. Though they may be simple, our needs
are many. Care for us, beautiful girls and beautiful boys,
and we will buy you a wedding, or a rent-to-own bed.
We can treat you all like saints or burdens. Friends

or paper dolls. We can tie you down to four stanzas,
locked to sixteen lines, so you can't bother us ever again.
And maybe we'll take you out every so often, just to say
hello. To say: we used to live there, but that was forever ago.

On Reflection

There was a time when you
were enough. You were built

to love and you owned me.
When the honey dried,

when the season

changed, there was a time
when the idea of you was enough.

Something to get me through
the day, like a kind word

from a stranger; a moment

of accidental contact. A hand.
A stray hair. The small comforts

could only replace so much.
I wasn't made to love you,

but my wires got crossed.

[Broken hearts don't exist, for the organ...]

Broken hearts don't exist, for the organ
cannot be snapped. It's a pulling kind, a motion
that wears out wrists and jaws. The rip

is the new break. A tear mark, like a dark
spot in an open chest cavity. Broken hearts
don't exist, as much as we'd like them to.

We've never been ones for stitchwork,
the slit is too small to work with. Our fangs
would do the job just fine,

but we've been warned. Eating our own
stupid hearts went fine until
we filled up. Floating and drunk

off wine from our living vessels.

Modus Operandi

HER: When are you moving in with The Variant?
HIM: Who?
HER: ...
HIM: I don't know who you mean.
HER: But you do.
HIM: The first and last woman I move in with will be you in fifteen years.
HER: ...
HIM: ...
HER: That was weirdly romantic.
HIM: That's my modus operandi.
HER: Kisses.
HIM: I love you.
HER: I know.

Green Like July

Something about the light of this day makes me feel
fourteen again; when we'd walk
everywhere forever & never worry about tomorrow
or the day after. Upon re-examination,

it may be the scent. The air is full of Halloween (the cold
smell that always gets mistaken for "wet".)
Days like today have never heard of A/C units
or soundproof windows.

They have no need for such decadence & will not entertain the thought.

We want four-piece garage bands & girls
we don't know sitting beside us in backseats of cars
being driven by older friends, committed parents.
Give us driving too far in one direction;

a destination, or none. A mission that means nothing
to anyone, but everything to us.
We are good soldiers in this way -- we don't ask
questions. We are here to fight. To serve, indiscriminately.

Something about the light of this day makes me feel
fourteen again, and I can't help but think
of that terrible dream, or the best forgotten memory,
when I was young like I feel now:

A house in a Carolina. A girl I don't know
sitting beside me beneath a willow tree, keeping ourselves
from the rain. And in that moment, I think she kisses me,
but I don't know if this really happens

or if it's just the weather or something like that.