how i love you
densely so
it’s my special nasal Os
a certain richness of the tone
that exits powerfully and slow
how I love you,
yeah, you’ll always know

that on days it’s a mess
an apartment of unrest
I feel the love in empty chests
A trash bin used to hold the rest
How I love you,
When I show what’s not my best

Or my chambers of those
Who scraped by in years I hold
I’ve sensed the warmth, and known the cold
I drank a thousand beers alone
How I love you
As the crease within the fold

A space beneath
Area in which we keep
to our lives and what they bring
I drift off and there you’ll be
How I love you
Though I know we are distinct

_______

In the middle of the night I was sleeping sitting up
When a doctor came to tell me, "Enough is enough."
He brought me out into the hall, I could have sworn it was haunted
And told me something that I didn't know that I wanted:

To hear that there was nothing that I could do to save you
The choir's gonna sing, and this thing is gonna kill you
Something in my throat made my next words shake
And something in the wires made the light-bulbs break

There was glass inside my feet and raining down from the ceiling
It opened up the scars that had just finished healing
It tore apart the canyon running down your femur
I thought that it was beautiful, it made me a believer

And as it opened I could hear you howling from your room
But I hid out in the hall until the hurricane blew
When I reappeared and tried to give you something for the pain
You came to hating me again and just sang your refrain:

You had a new dream, it was more like a nightmare
You were just a little kid, and they cut your hair
Then they stuck you in machines, you came so close to dying
They should have listened, they thought that you were lying

Your daddy was an asshole and he fucked you up
Built the gears in your head, now he greases them up
And no one paid attention when you just stopped eating
"Eighty-seven pounds!" and this all bears repeating

_______

in some time
i’ll be alive
after bumpy rides
carrying bliss like spring break tides
carrying bliss through the winter skies
in some time i’ll catch the surprise
[whenever this subsides]

in some time
we’ll butt heads
eating frito pie
by the whistling speeds of the western flies
take me with the hollowness inside
in some time, i will surely die
[and in a grave we’ll lie]

_______

[follow your nose
watch the refrigerator close
feel the cold down to your toes
as angels lower down the rope
how i love you is how the toaster makes the toast

the distance between
chapel floors and praying knees
is how close you are to me
strictly metaphorically
how i love you, as the verse arrives complete]