i'm pretty sure
that Love is the way you bought me
watermelon bubblegum, keep it
in your car, melting,
because I mentioned once
that it's my favorite flavor

and the way it snaps, scent
filling the air and swept away with the breeze
from the open windows, yellow lines
blurring,
just as fast,
vicious and Fake

like the color of your hair,
black and blue,
like my hair, red
like the feathers of the hawk, kept
behind glass  and wire at the museum
growing old, but not yet old enough
to forget Freedom, still
a symbol of escape
which is why i hold your hand
hard enough to hurt
when we visit
the birds of prey exhibit

he's watching us move, those
lightning cracking eyes
watching us move,
like there's something off, one
of his clockwork machines ticking four seconds slow, one
of his studies fucking behind glass and mesh, one
last burst of Passion in the throes
of a very short lifespan

he's looking at us, like
those problems on the IQ test like

palms churning, stomach sticky
or is it the other way around?
and you throw up when you get home,
throat closing walls closing
in like you're trapped
under his looking glass, under glass and mesh

one of these things is not like the other. You and I
are birds, Tropical Fantastical Hysterical

you're leaving the ruddy morning alpenglow tomorrow
for ruddy desert sands and palm trees
and the way your father's whiskey
Burns its way down your throat
like swallowing the Sun
but you're gonna be fine.

and he's watching me
from the corner of those tempest-eyes,
he's giving me sips of his cinnamon coffee in the morning
when the stones are cold, and rough
he's watching the hem of my skirt
ride up when I sit, swallowing spit and want all the same
i'm going to be fine.