It's 3am 
and I am crawling on my knees
sucking confetti from the floor
my kneecaps bruised
but I can't feel it
I am learning not to fear pain anymore
cause if I do
​it's all I'll do.

Play pretend I've met you:
now we're best friends and we get to
figure out the whos and whats and whys and hows we ought to be

half the future c(o/u)m(e/*)s to me 
the other half is up to me
to fill in all the blanks
you know it's hard to be an optimist these days.
Is it so violent
as my mind is implying it?
I don't even know you and you don't even know me.

--

I recoil 
you recoil back
I recoil
you recoil back

Pride, confliction:
have to be right
Pride, conviction:
no, hear my light

I reach out
​you reach out back.

take it
don't break it--
I am yours for an hour
and I hold all the power
and despite my stature tower.

You are left with
memories
soft and sweet and
reveries
half-said thoughts and
pleasantries
I am bridge between our years--
I am made of lips and ears 
hollowed out and filled with tears
in my crook you creak and coo
masks do crack and so may you.

Though you are formidable
weakness is admissable
softness is forgivable,
oh spectator invisible.

Swing my sorry sword
swing my sorry sword:
to take me at my word is absurd.

I know I am lured
I know I am heard
I am just a bird in your world;

I know I am lewd
I know nude am rude
Eros thus imbued am I h(ewe/ue)d? (I know.)