you are not searching for love! 

you are searching for a buzz, a little god, 

fifty million dollar bounty on her head, and you’ll be the one to kill her.

anytime, anywhere, the possibility of a good-time-gone-girl is waiting to be found.

hung between hot-blooded hours in the heart of the woods or

sweat-dyed sweetie splayed out on the highway, flesh aged in a basement,

blood drained out in a bathtub, or skin shelled into the street.

smoke her like a pipe dream - someone

squeezed her neck like grapes and sipped dregs of her breath,

or rolled her into thrift-store sheets like a half-smoked joint 

and stomped her out before the embers hit the stars.

same spirits, different bodies - 

mellow and smooth, strained through her doorframe 

and downed without a shout.

or maybe this one’s got a little kick, claw marks tattooing her skin,

spine snapped like a question mark,

jawbones whining like door hinges, cracked ajar so the vultures can

come home. pearly-white pageant queen or paper-thin pill popper, 

put your mouth to her bruise-burnt lips and believe she would’ve kissed back.

coroner’s cocktail: you pilfered graves before it was cool, 

trawled through her room and found 

a diploma to mark the graduation from girl to responsibility,

dollar store rhinestones chipped like her front teeth, 

pearlescent dresses sewn from taffeta and velvet and sorrow,

leather-bound journals yawning wide enough to fall into,

love letters and lead-laced diary entries, 

snake-forked tongue and acid pens,

dust-molting trophies and sun-faded photos,

a bulletin board with enough space to tack yourself onto.

pop her skull off and shake it up like a gin martini - 

you can’t get hungover if you always stay drunk.

you get to piece her together, make it fatal or destiny,

a porcelain chalice of disposable fingernails and unrealized futures, 

your leaking little anomaly. you never liked her ‘til she was blue. 

you never wanted her ‘til she was dead.