Keep Your Basket Covered in the Woods

I no longer need you to fuck me as hard
as I hate myself.

Make love to me
like you know I am better than the worst thing I ever did.
Go slow.
I’m new to this
but I have seen nearly every city from a rooftop without jumping.
I have realized

that the moon did not have to be full for us to love it.
We are not tragedies
stranded here beneath it.

Burn all of your bridges
just so that you can build them again
with thicker ropes.

Hurt all the people you love
and then commit every felony to win them back.

Drown yourself in bleach until not even Heaven’s light
can compare to how bright you can burn.

Turn yourself inside out
and paint your organs the color of what you see
in your dreams.

This is the art of
living with a ticking heart — a grenade you
throw through windows to make a
point that language
has no room for.

This is how I destroyed you. And this, is how
I kept you alive.

Dig yourself a ditch, six
feet deep, and bury everything that you’ve ever
said, everything that you’ve never
meant, and everything that has
burned you and left you with nothing
but ash.

A thousand wolves have eaten grandmother, a thousand princesses have been kissed. A million unknowing actors have moved, unknowing, through the pathways of story.
It is now impossible for the third and youngest son of any king, if he should embark on a quest which has so far claimed his older brothers, not to succeed.
Stories don’t care who takes part in them. All that matters is that the story gets told, that the story repeats. Or, if you prefer to think of it like this: stories are a parasitical life form, warping lives in the service only of the story itself.

Don’t talk to me of love. I’ve had an earful
And I get tearful when I’ve downed a drink or two.
I’m one of your talking wounded.
I’m a hostage. I’m maroonded.
But I’m in Paris with you.

Yes I’m angry at the way I’ve been bamboozled
And resentful at the mess I’ve been through.
I admit I’m on the rebound
And I don’t care where are we bound.
I’m in Paris with you.

Do you mind if we do not go to the Louvre
If we say sod off to sodding Notre Dame,
If we skip the Champs Elysées
And remain here in this sleazy

Old hotel room
Doing this and that
To what and whom
Learning who you are,
Learning what I am.

Don’t talk to me of love. Let’s talk of Paris,
The little bit of Paris in our view.
There’s that crack across the ceiling
And the hotel walls are peeling
And I’m in Paris with you.

Don’t talk to me of love. Let’s talk of Paris.
I’m in Paris with the slightest thing you do.
I’m in Paris with your eyes, your mouth,
I’m in Paris with… all points south.
Am I embarrassing you?
I’m in Paris with you.