Beautiful.
Does he even know what that means?
Does he stop to consider the weight of that w
I’ve spent days hunched over pages and drenc
Fever-dreamed my way through great ocean-w
I have chased beautiful across ice-thorned fore
crumbling layers of stoic sediment breathe me in like
I know that its edges taste like molten sunligh
Like dive bars and vast jewel-encrusted skies s
I know that it lingers on my lips after I kiss the
I know that I will never hold it in my arms or w
to the next, I will never clasp the Pacific in the sweaty
my chest
And yet, this man thinks he can gulp that word
acid-bloated stomach before coughing its rotten carca
Like a mangy dog panting proudly at a pile of
Do not call me beautiful.
Not unless you are prepared to write a twentycomposition
Not unless you will spend hours deciphering w
And whether I accomplished my goal
Not unless you want to paint the stars that pe
into my back
Do not call me beautiful, because you have no
In your eyes, I am not a painting.
I am not even a person.
So I would rather be invisible than be looked u
And if you can’t see the worthwhile pieces of
Then I don’t want you to see anything
At all.