You and I,

We die every night
Picking apart the picture frames on your wall
Trying to help you remember the names of every face as we lay breathing.

You stand apart from me across the room, fully clothed
As you undress me with your eyes,
Every lick of hunger that haunts the bones of your cheeks and the curve of your lip–

I had always known to stand by the window
So I could feel the endlessness of the stars against my back,
Or the one between us, separating our pretenses.

At night I hear their calling, thin-lipped words trapped in wood and paint and lingerie sprawled across the floor, strands of hair in dark spaces turning and turning and turning–
Just bodies in a grave.

I never asked why you chose to bury them in your bedroom,
Or why you hang them from the wall,
Every pair of soulless eyes betraying the smile painted with teeth clenched.

Me,
I am new every moonrise, naked and shameless while your skin is still shut in behind glass
Sheets.

You hate repetition,
So I die every night for you, to be new.
I’d like to think that you die with me.

But you snap a picture with a flash of smile
And usher me out while the card is still developing,
I can practically feel wooden frames closing in, can smell the varnish so toxic.

I thought perhaps we could be friends,
But I suppose your imagination ran away with you, when your eyes lingered a little too long where they shouldn’t,
When they settled on others who shared only one thing in common with me.

So I die every night
In hopes that when I wake up I don’t hate you for who you are,
For the wall of nameless faces of your conquests.

In your room, between you and I,
I would break the window glass and hurtle myself through space,
Breathless with the wonder of stars than to be undressed by you.

I die every night hoping you die too,
The flames of our phoenix flight incinerating wood and wall and paint and lust
And then you and I, we can admire the universe together.

-Mien

Lusting of a Different Kind (They’re all the same.)

Postcards speak nothing of the majesty
The physical location holds.
Describing the color of wine does not
Satisfy the need to drink

The damned alcohol of life, the high
Of such things.
Wanderlust, they call it
Photographs and the blaring of television shows
Barely quench this incredible thirst

Parched throat like sandpaper,
Can almost feel the wood carvings float
Down to the stomach
Feet like Hermes, cannot wait to flit away
Like moth looking for the object of life

The world is an oyster
A great hulking thing all spongey inside
And rough and ugly out
Lips unyielding to those unworthy of the
Tasteless shining pearl on the inside.
Or the chance of it, anyway.

Next, the stars, my guess
The ethereal light of the north star
Prancing about, happily, content
I am a firefly, separated from a darling attraction
My tender-loving mate
Who may also be harsh and merciless

I can hardly endure the wont of feeling
The unknown texture of such unrequited romance.

-Mien

Wanderlust.