Oh, The Thinks You Can Think

 

When I think About You

 

When I think about you

I wonder if you feel whispers biting at your ear

Attempting to notify your heart

Do you hear

That you are the pinnacle of a little boy’s thoughts?

I fear

Every time my memory drops an ice cube down my back

Kissing each vertebrae cold

That you are thinking about me in a shade too close to black

Because in my thoughts exhausted by you

I only concoct colors of yellow and blue

I wonder if your mind paints pictures of me

The same ones I draw of our fingers wrapping warmly

Do you see

The ocean that I’ve composed with an island for two

Do you think about me like I think about you?

I hope not.

Because thinking about you is like

Waking up from a four year coma

And having no one to say good morning

Like staring at a knife and not seeing a knife

But instead only a free ride to heaven on a kite

Like holding your own hands in a horror movie

And pretending that your blanket is not your only companion

No,

I don’t want you to think about me the way that I think about you

Because every place I visit

Becomes a scene I want to be seen with you

Slow dancing on this cliff I found right above the highway

My way down a back road that leads to glacier waters

Father, I’d like you to meet the man I’m in love with

But you could never go with me to visit my family

Because you’re touring cliffs above highways

And secret glaciers hidden in forests

And meeting the parents of the man

That you have claimed to be in love with for 3 years

No,

I don’t want you to think about me the way that I think about you

Because thoughts of love are for lovers in love

Not for whores whose love is a temporary purchase

No,

I don’t want you to think about me the way that I think about you

Because I can smell your thoughts from a continent away

And the scent would only infect my heart more

And leave my body with only an infestation of hope

No,

I just don’t want you to think at all.

Because I don’t want to know that I’m never in your thoughts

Never in your dreams

Never the one you want to fill the spaces between

Your fingers

Are so small

They fit right in mine

But my hand will never be the one you would kill yourself to find

Because even though you don’t love him

You will always say that you do

So if I’m the one that can actually hold up your heart why does mine always lose

Because when you think about me

You think about how much younger I am

How inexperienced I am

How stupid I am to think that poetry is a form of affection

You don’t see that I could be the Hero to point you in the right direction

When you think about me

You blame those thoughts on being drunk

You blame your words on being drunk

You blame our relationship on being drunk

You blame ever reaching out and getting to know me

Becoming the older brother I so desperately needed

Guarding a castle that no one had ever dared to protect

Did you really mean to keep these stones standing

Or was that just one big drunk fuck up

Yet

When you think about me

And say things like this:

“If the world were perfect and correct, we’d be together”

Like piss

On my heart do you realize how its poison

To sleep on your couch

Next to you and his noise

And being so close to your skin intertwining

Like a blade pressed to my tongue, cheek and biting

And in the morning,

As you separate the recycling from the trash

Please finally pick one to toss me in

And stop placing me in the forgotten middle stash

And when you think about me

I hope you remember how you stopped my tears

How you saw the blood stained ocean

I’ve been swimming in for years

Well,

Thanks for the raft that only helped me drown

Thanks for picking me up just to push me back down

Thanks for making me feel like I actually exist

Only to leave me with nothing but initials carved into my wrist

No,

I don’t want you to think about me the way that I think about you

Because in my thoughts

I dress you as Superman

And send you over rooftops

To the sun

Where you stand

And hold me when I start to cry

In your arms

All turmoil is pushed aside

I can’t help but think

That there are much easier forms of suicide

Than taking a moment

To think

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