a letter for someone who hates thinking

in the beginning i wrote poems
about death and darkness and
the complex metaphysical arithmetic in which
that would equate to the love i carried for you,
beneath the headaches brewing like bruises
between my eyes, my ocean eyes;

even after convincing me the planets
were dead gods, powerful skeletons with
internal expiration dates and the stars
were their lingering parables, their stories
blinking out years before we were born, i knew
you were a nuclear angel, atom bomb
savior sent to save me from

me.


there is no more mystery
in the world. i sent you
five letters to the PO box you told me
about in florida, the first

was a catalogue of every
angsty song lyric or campy postcard
or description of a flower
crooked in just the right way
that reminded me of you,
the second was a retelling
of every dream i woke from
forgetting who i was,  the third

was an apology-- i'm sorry
for who i'm not and who you
need and that your dad always
reeked of bacardi, i'm sorry
for my bukowski-wannabe complex and your
infatuation for unattachment; the fourth

asked why you never responded,
asked where you hid the letters
and if they burnt prettier than the letters
from your other lovers, asked if you still
scratched your name into every hotel
you ever stayed at and if you stopped traveling
once you decided the world was really flat,
asked if it was easier to forget than
try to remember and if loss was really like
amnesia with time, as you lose yourself
in memories like death of the mind, and if
i still looked happy in the pictures you took
because god, it felt different, now;

the fifth said
i'd changed and you'd
changed and that disgusted me
and there was something

heartbreakingly normal about that.