you can’t keep looking for me
because when the holograph of my screen
illuminates your dark room
i can see all the cracks in your paint
and when i fixate my eyes
on a single point of your ceiling
i know that
even parallel lines
intersect at infinity.

you can engulf your attic in flames
and believe we are all just antiheroes
in a dostoevsky novel
you can keep my dirty underwear
and memorize my diary
but you can’t make me
your ocean floor for everything.

i just want you to see
that there are fields of carnations
after forest fires
but if you bathe your eyes in methanol
i will watch the sunset
all by myself.

you know who you are on the inside
this is for the kid
who has nightmares unless the hallway lights are on
the one who drops acid at his fraternity
and walks away from the half-conscious girls
pressed up against him
this one’s for the boy
whose teachers caught him passing notes in class
only to read them aloud and realize
they were all written in binary code

this one’s still for you.