I suppose you could say I haven’t written in weeks, I suppose you could say that and in a certain sense it would be true, true, but let me promise you with wet-lip fervor I’ve been making my marks beyond missives, carving in the surface of my thoughts with the tongue of image–

here, you are seeing this, and while you may well forget it, this small cloud of time pressed itself against all your dumb impressionable wits, and all your pretty drunk amnesia cannot undo the fact. every cd skip, every lighter flicking on, every eyebrow arch and stone-cold cleverness, every shoulder that rests against another shoulder keeps on in you regardless. even if my words are full of lies, there’s a full life marching up behind them. 

and here I think I’d forgotten all my French
but when you whisper in the girlish quiet
the sibilant flood returns.

I want to pour language all over you
like a blanket
like cum
like how I want you to hold me. 

me and my tongue full of scraps want to set up shop in your closet, or perhaps at the foot of your bed, send words down from the window, bedsheets-long. we can call you Rapunzel. I’ll keep you safe. I’ve never kept anyone safe in my life. that’s a lie. we can call me Lady Witch Next Door. we can call us survivors, ethical thieves. 

(I’m not sure what I’m talking about, either, but these days it’s usually about you. well, okay, it’s usually always about me, but these days I seem to often think of you at the same time. I can be a narcissist for two.)

Steam rises from thousands of palm trees at once, except the steam is a strain of sound, a drip of guitar, a piano laugh. We catch a glimpse of it through the car window. I spend a foolish moment remembering what I have at various points described as love.

The sun is licking us like a big dog, and my heart is pulled pork disintegrating into tastes and small sounds of indulgence. 

Each of us is a royal princess on a couch cushion. We will build a blanket fort in paradise. I lay my head on your chest.