You tie up the stars with your earlobes
And tell me the only reason I'm not poetry is that
I try so hard to be
But when my fingers find the pulse in my temple
My temple collapses into my brain
I will burn my blood as incense and take shots of
Holy water
Because maybe if I take baths in bible verses
And magician my life into a poem
I can draw a rabbit from my hat trick
But it will probably look more like a stick figure

I want to begin feeling squeaky-clean
Like light-up tennis shoes in the hall after recess

I need you to leafplummet away from me
So I can pretend I'm a tree
But the only person I can push off a building is my maroon sonnet asphyxiation brain
Stephanie told me she was going to kill herself

And I went dial-tone-deaf
In an opera cacophony
And her phone wouldn't ring her phone wouldn't ring her phone wouldn't ring

I keep my very best friends in a drawer but we don't talk anymore
And I tell people like Stephanie that all my knives
Are for butter and the sunrise
And try to act surprised when people point out new scratches on my arms

Build me a sandcastle moat with your throat and lullaby my doors locked
Darling