That night I held you in Timbuktu,
my fingers spun your hair
like a Greek silkworm god,
commissioned by the aphorism:
love is all you need.

Bullshit.

I swam in those inlets of dusty gold
only to find myself shipwrecked.
Your scalp – adorned with bumps –
kind of bitchy:
a field pumpkin left in November.

That night I held you,
we breathed coffee instead of air.
Our clothes were fragrances left off.

You made the mistake of looking me in the eye.
Of sparring with my ghostly white toes
under the sheets. Of returning me to port.
I loved you last Wednesday.

That night,
the languid morphine-drip of rain off
my roof did the talking.
And for some reason I thought of our hands
forming a tourniquet instead of a heart,
something alive and running.
The peach shine of your inner thighs
radiating salvation and sin.

I’m praying you suffer.

Now your teeth are all I can think of.
How today is now Thursday

and you’re still lost at sea.

Tyler Kline