It’s spring so you think you fell in love again,

pruning dead buds from your appendages.
Make way for the new king, and the
name associated prince, neck broken under the crown.
Like a neighbor clutching a cup of sugar with a hand on the latch,
scared it might be a wolf knocking at the door,
Your sense scared me, but didn’t make me beg.
Hand-me-down, late night serenades and makeshift first dances,
Stick a pin in it and watch the petals of a memory shrivel and freeze.
You couldn’t forget it even if you wanted to,
anxiously licking your fingers when you turn the page.
Not a kiss, just a poetic secret stolen through your lips and a

wrong like a worm writhing in my stomach.
Under the snow you postponed my smile,
But I told you not to wring the rag that used you to clean itself.
Sun shone through my old empty shell, ripped black lace and
Tear stains on the front seat of a mustang,
bruised like a fruit.
Slave to the vicious whip of your tongue, just to
peel back your smile to seedy teeth.
I can’t sum up, can’t do it justice, they were just

Rorschach heartbeats.
Just figure in a truck bed to keep warm or nuggets of sand that fool
with their solid appearance to slip through your fingers and
join the masses washed away with the tide.
A card to add to my deck, another mistake to learn from.
A coulda-woulda-shoulda I tried to snatch of the shelves.
But it’s the darkest hour just before the dawn,
I’ll taste the sky and feel alive again.
Under the bed, in the closet, only in the dark-
purer than your intentions, but monsters nonetheless.