Star Stuff

[People always ask if my poetry is 100% true, and I always say that parts of it are real and parts of it are fiction] [This is a rough draft] [And also meant to be performed] [Brackets are cool]

Star Stuff

VZ

1460 cherry reds and a jean jacket torn at the sleeves,

I stomp through your dreams

Disturb your peace

Kiss you to sleep

You’re always asking why my hair is so magnificent 

Magical

Marvelous

Maddening

And I just shrug and reply, “I don’t know, I never brush it.”

“Of course,” you say, “of course.”

Like I just answered

The most important question of the universe

(And your eyes shine bright

And your lips stick to my lips

And you pet my hair)

And maybe you’ll never understand why I love you.

Why I love you, black button-up.

Why I love you, watermelon tongue.

Why I love you, greased hair.

Why I love you, cigarette-between-teeth, stealer-of-sheets, foot-massager,

cunnilingus-enthusiast, never-eats-sweets.

(Well, except for me)

You think I’m too young

And wild

And talented

And beautiful

And bloody fucking brilliant

(And you’re right, you’re goddamn right)

But so are you

So are we

And ever since we met I’ve never been able to see

a tree the same

They call to me

Entice me with branch and leaf and shady caress of tall and green

And I can hear you whisper, “This is Nature’s sonnet. Nature sings.”

Like that time in the park I brought a blanket

And we lied

Under a sycamore under the sky

Blue

Scattered with clouds

Scattered with faces we knew and

Didn’t know

Your wife

My mother

The son of god

Your dead brother—

Who you say would’ve loved me ‘cause he was like you but

better

‘Cause he was like me but

older

And that makes me think of all the parts of you I don’t have—

Will never have because they’re dead

Because they’re lost to time

(Because they’re not mine)

Like your first cry as an infant in the world

The fibers in the carpet you first stepped on

The fibers in the carpet you first vomited on

(From too much liquor)

The face you made when you first got your shit tattoo

The noise you made when you first came

The thought you had when you first saw my face

The way your brother made you feel about you

Made you feel about life

(And why you didn’t just wait for me when you decided you needed a wife)

And sure, I know a lot about you

More than anyone, anywhere knows about you or

Anyone, anywhere

Not just that you’re in love with cheese

Or that you used to be in a band and sing

Or that your favorite color is black

Second: red

Third: green

I know the exact shape your brows take on when you cry

And the diameter of your pupils blown-wide

And your most treasured, sacred-secret lines

kept in your

Most treasured, sacred-secret notebooks—

Morrissey and

Neruda and

Henley

And I know the tremble of your hands across my skin

Across the breadth of me

And I know what you fear most in this terrifying, gorgeous world

(It’s the same as mine)

You fear a wasted existence

A half life

A life spent behind the posts of an open door

Symphonies unwritten

unplayed.

A soul undiscovered

unnamed.

You fear places unvisited

Homes and parks and shops revisited

Day after day

An endless, hopeless cycle

You fear strong, steady hands filing papers

Not filling starved bellies

Not holding dying hands

Not tilling the fields in foreign lands

These are the things we’re most afraid of—

You and I.

I can hardly separate us, can I?

Some say that opposites attract 

but you and I are the very same

We were born of the same star-stuff

Split delicately by the hands of God

Thrown into the void

to find the void

(Left by each other)

We’re not soulmates, no

We’re more

We’re Twin Flames

(And when you’re inside me we've only one name)

And I don’t care

I don’t care if this sounds crazy

IAMCRAZY

I may be the only person who ever fucking pulls my teeth out for love

For you

For sunny mornings, cheek-flush, thousands of kisses lost in my hair

Thousands of kisses lost in the skin spaces

For the dust particles stuck to your nose like little freckle-blessings

Like little mole-constellations

For the sighs muffled by the chirping birds outside

For the supernova orgasms and the nebulae in your eyes from all the star-fucking

(We can’t ever seem to stop doing)

And finally, most importantly,

for the silent dialogue of you and me

So, if I stomp through your dreams like some parody of a punk princess

You write all of mine, Sir Cosmic Cuddler, Love-of-Mine

And I love these dreams best

I loathe these dreams most

And I pray to them to take you out

To make you right here

(Next to me)

And not so far away