falling over me like stars

Sometimes people are so beautiful that it just takes my breath away,
and I almost wish that it would
so that I could drift into an unconscious world
where maybe, we’d peel ourselves like oranges
and squeeze ourselves into streams
so that the burden of flesh and the awkwardness of gawky limbs
and bumping into a stranger while walking down a sidewalk
wouldn’t keep us from connecting to someone in a way
that mattered more than just sticking a hook in an eye
or having their dick in your mouth.

Or whatever.

Because humans disgust me but it’s only because they put up this façade
of skin that we hide behind like children playing schoolyard games
and I wish that I could look into your eyes and ask you the questions
that I truly think matter, like
“what color would you bleed if you didn’t know what red was,”
or “what is the deepest shade of sorrow,”
or “are you the big spoon or the little spoon?”
and not have to start off a friendship by trivial matters
like what my favorite drink is
and what brand of smokes I buy
because that makes me feel cheap,
like a small talk whore.

I mean, you know you’ve reached some sort of dead end road
when even talking about how beautiful the stare are
seems fake to you, like trying to force
something poetic about sitting
knee-to-knee on an empty football field
at three in the morning
half-drunk
and wondering if the world is spinning
or if that’s just you and that bottle of rum
that you hid in the sleeve or your sweatshirt
as you told your parents you were going
to watch some movies at a friends’.

God, please don’t bring that up again.
Not how small you feel in the grand scheme of things,
or how beautiful it is to be this young
because I’ve had this same conversation so many times
with my parents and myself and my ghosts
so much so that the most beautiful things have become redundant.

Like the moon,
and the alignment of the stars
or how I could find the root of all my inner turmoil
in not having enough fabric softener
to do two loads of laundry.

Maybe I’ll just move to a city
where everyone is too scared to turn off their lights
so that I never have to see the stars or talk about the things
that only mean something when you’re stoned, sitting on logs
or clutching the heart of a man in your palms,
so close that you could rearrange his ribs.