all my sins all present all accounted for

1. i told the story of you to people who know you, to people who had been in your house, opened your doors. it was yesterday. i wonder how long we will continue to speak each others' names. i will tuck your name behind my tongue where i have put so many other names. i will water my silence. saliva gathers in my mouth. i will not spit.

2. i've never kissed anyone. my hair always smells of cigarettes. i always have a headache.

3. i will lie. i will not lie but i will try to put off telling you the truth for as long as possible. this constitutes a lie.

4. the blood approaches the surface of the skin still inside the veins, taps at it with a sluggish punch. i don't shift shapes, i was not built of clay, summoned from the sea or pulled out of the air. it is very possible that creatures from other planets would cower in front of me because i will live an absurdly long time for a carbon-based life form and my nails keep growing after i die and i and my ilk have been known to put metal in our faces and our genitals. all i know is that i have always been bad at sleep. too much too little, though doctors would say it matters which. the blood is always a dull push after i walk for years. for minutes. i meant minutes. i am trapped in here.

5. DRAMA DRAMA DRAMA

6. i mean it won't seem dramatic, but i am terrrrrriblllllle (you know this word as it is breathed at parties or over coffee). although actually i have no idea what other people say about me. is this normal? though, no, i can say for sure "chronic inability to take anything seriously" is somewhere in someone's thoughts at the times when i am alive. maybe my ass and eyes and hair. i get that a lot too.

7. do not repeat this to anyone. i cannot control myself. but i wanna be a nice person. life is so long. i don't think i can go to parties for another forty years. i've never kissed anyone. my hair always smells like cigarettes. i always have a headache. i take really long showers! i am killing the earth too, you and me together, murderers. natural born killers.

8. once somebody said to me, "you're giving me this look like, this right here next to me is my brother and we're together." what was that about?

9. i don't want to talk about this.

10. don't talk about her like that.

11. there's a forest in the bed time tale. in this forest are creatures that can smell the souls of the people who live in the village. these creatures shift shape, are built of clay, were pulled out of the air, and summoned from the sea when the sea is near. if you smell right they send you certain thoughts. when you don't want to wake up, which is a lot, you will see your body peeling back to reveal a smaller you trailing a cord of blood behind you. your body will peel back and back and back until you are too small to be counted. or you will see knives sliding into your flesh but you will not bleed because you are made of marzipan. you become a porcupine. when you cannot sleep, you will conjure your hand pulling the trigger on a revolver. you have never seen a revolver. you have never held one. there is no magic in this world.

12. it'll be okay, i'll be driving all the way there.