i can see your bones from here

There was a thunderstorm
but nobody wanted it. It just sat there
brooding and dark, in the corner,
just begging to made into an important meteorological event
that could split open the freeway, spilling the blood
of the innocent all over our streets. She said
What more do you want?
Things got very quiet. I listened
to the sound of her breathing. She said
When I ask you What more do you want I want you
to tell me what it is that you want.
I said I want to have sex with you. She said
We can talk about that later. I said I want to know
when that will be. She said After I break your legs
and arrange you in a chair just so.
She said Tell me a story. I said Once upon a time
it was the summer and everything was hot all the time
and there was lots of grass and it was very green and our love
was a bunch of birds stitched to our backs and in the morning
I prepared us breakfast. She said breakfast sounded good.
I wanted my legs to be broken already. I said
is it time to break my legs and have sex yet?
She said Not yet. She said Have some patience already.
She said When you were talking about birds,
did you mean these? and gestured to the many birds
pinning me to the ground.
I said It is dark and I am uncertain.
She said Good, and then turned out the light.

while you were out

I am writing this note to tell you
that our five hundred children have been stolen by bandits
from right under our noses. We assumed
that a safe deposit box was a good place to keep them
but I guess we were wrong. I have alerted the police
and they are doing what they can. Dear bandits
when you stole our children did you realize
you have to feed them three times a day?
Do you have any idea what sort of budget that will require?
Dear bandits you should be aware that our five hundred children
are full of book learning and a quiet desperation
that will terrify your insides right out of your body
and there you will be, on the floor, incapable of movement
and wishing with all your life that you had any idea
how to love anything at all.

i have often thought of you as a sort of mountaintop or peak

I know that you have got a switchblade for a heart but listen
that’s just fine with me because I don’t even have a heart
so there is no basis for comparison in this situation.