She wept maps onto her face that lead nowhere at all.

Hunting Season

Chapter One

The Unacquainted
River Dance

It is well known that the most effective solution to any problem is a

bottle of strong spirit, a good record and a back porch everything
else is just bad advice. So it is here I now write you; two bottles in
too late to be writing anybody but these words are relentless, and
though the alcohol may be dangerously low, my spirits are high,
because the music is okay and the cigarettes are on fire and I have
fallen for the words that spill from my fingertips whenever I begin
to miss you. I remember skin that smelt like wildwood, a kiss so
toxic that it burned into my lungs and throat for months, and
hairpins that inhabited all of the dark and impossible places. I
sometimes wonder what the goddamn point of it all is we all hate
each other eventually and love is just a brief moment between
desire and incredible resentment. Were all caught in the same cycle
of beautiful oblivion; everybody praying theyve got game like its
hunting season, everybody hustlin love away at house parties in dime
bag quantities, everybody sweating the same songs, in the same bars
and fucking for the same hopeless cause. But you were different.
You were a fault in the equation. I remember for a time happiness
was hearing the symphonies in your breathing: Beethoven and Bach
and Mozart, all of the classics conducting as one in the great hall of
my heart. I am writing to let you know that losing you was like
leaping from a bridge. I am writing to let you know that I believe
most lives are only spattered raindrops of greatness amidst an ocean
of passing the time and you were a downpour. And I believe I now
understand why people call them skin cells, because each time you
touched me now feels like a terribly lengthy sentence from which
there is no parole. I simply cannot forget a thing. From where we
stood each time we kissed, to the force behind your lips, the times
you closed your eyes, and the times you didnt. I miss them all. But I
understand now why you had to do it, because the simple, terrifying
truth, Ive learned to come to terms with is writers are old even
when they are young, poor even when rich and full of loneliness,
even when in love.

Hunting Season

Untwined
And that was it you know. Smiling
over coffee steam. Had you paused
the moment there you would have
had your happy end. But life doesnt
often work out that way.
See,
it flashes by quickly. So fast you
know that thinking back on this
will feel more real than the reality
of actually being in the center of it
afterwards.
You take pictures of everything, the
violet sinking into your nostrils and
the rain pouring out of sun.
You dont talk.
Your mouths dance; their corners twitching
into sorrow.
And you say goodbye,
before you run dry of hellos.

Hunting Season

And

then

you

kissed

me

like you were saying sorry

or goodbye

or both.

Hunting Season

Marlboro Lovers
kisses with ex lovers
are like cigarettes on back porches
addictive
stress releases
secret
and on fire
and you swear each one
shared
cuts 24 hours off your lives
but you don't quite care
all that matters is tonight
and him between your fingers
or her in your lungs
you breathe each other out
in great plumes of smoke
and secretly you pray
you hope the other chokes.

Hunting Season

Last November
I knew a girl who was even skinnier than she was sad
imagine that
and her knees sounded like wind chimes
when she walked
and when she cried
it was always in her inside voice.
I wished I could take her away from it all;
a forest or a lake or a nowhere town
somewhere beautiful,
somewhere she could start over.
She was in such a broken state;
a smothered flame;
snowflakes spilt into ponds
under warm rain,
and I wondered if she
remembered what it was like
to smile under her own strength.
Nobody else seemed to comprehend
that you could not mend
a gunshot wound by firing off
more rounds into it.
Their answers to her pain
were limited to
more pills
more 45 minute therapy sessions
with men who had
more doctorates on their walls
and zeros in their bank accounts
than the words she
most desperately needed to hear:
"It's going to be okay,"
"You are beautiful,"
"I am here."
And
I wish I had have spoken up,
I wish I had have written her,
more than a too-late poem
and a eulogy
last November.

Hunting Season

7 Places I Might Find You

1) Perhaps I might go to Europe. I may find you in a tavern pouring
pints of Pilsner in Norway or reading Les Miserables by Lake
Annecy in France or riverdancing in Ireland; your skin as white as
snow covered Greenland and your hair as red as a sunset in
Barcelona.
2) Perhaps I might board a vessel headed towards the frozen oceans
of Antarctica on the bottom floor of the earth and fall in love;
standing side by side on the bow of a ship fighting to protect the
blue whales from the cruelty of the science researches, all covered
head to toe in coats and scarves, our hearts melting at the exact same
alarming rate as the continent itself.
3) Perhaps I might fly to South America and find you in the lost city
of Ciudad Perdida in Columbia, ascending 12,000 steps slowly like
my fingers were sliding up the bones in your spine from the back of
your waist, or maybe I might find you in Brazil by the sea, cooking
underneath the suns heat and sipping from a bottle of cachaca, or
covered in gold and peacock feathers, dancing the Samba in a street
parade for Carnival.
4) Perhaps I might make the journey to the plains of Africa and
sweat beads as big as your heart underneath a burning sun as I watch
you carry a child in your arms as skinny a model in Hollywood only
twice as beautiful. I might find you in Uganda with a scar dragged
down your cheek from the bayonet of a child soldier who thought it
the only way to prove himself a man. I would love you with all wild
and majesty of an entire pride of lions and together we would show
the country what TIA could really mean.
........................................................................

Hunting Season

7 Places I Might Find You

5) Perhaps I might travel to Asia and ride with you on the steppes of
Mongolia, and travelling together in the wide open spaces of a
country that once thundered underneath the hooves of the most
powerful conqueror the world has ever seen, we would conquer
each others hearts. Or maybe I might find you in Japan, swaying
underneath a cherry blossom tree and I could write you a haiku that
gets your heart beating with the speed of the Maglev bullet train.
6) Perhaps I might return to North America and watch you burn
brighter than the lights in New York City or maybe we could barely
get by in Mississippi or even live by the Muskoka River bass fishing
in Ontario, Canada. I might find you hitchhiking on route 66 or
singing for a travelling country band in Nashville Tennessee; your
accent southern and sweet and your eyes as green as lake Michigan
in the summer.
7) Perhaps I might stay right here, find you in Melbourne or Sydney
or Adelaide or Perth or Brisbane, all of the places and cities Ive
broken hearts, and broken my own, in before. Maybe you will feel
more new than old. Maybe we might build a house in the hills or the
country or the city or suburbs. Visit all the places we know and
some places we dont. Your hair could be dark or light or a little of
both. Perhaps we might travel the world together, arm in arm, rather
than alone with the hope that we might find something more
beautiful somewhere else when there are 22 million people at our
front door.
........................................................................

But for now,

I know
all I need decide
is where I will go.

Hunting Season

Your Secret Journal

When you kiss me,
I want it to be the same way
you write in your journal,
when the light is low,
and the night is late;
scribble in my margins,
pour me full of your secrets,
erase me into pieces
when you get me wrong,
dont hold back,
I want to be personal,
hidden,
I want to be yours
with all of the intimacy
and fury that brings.

Hunting Season

Sleeping You Off

Nobodies allowed to leave
my heart unattended especially you.
Fireworks launching from out
between our eyelids in mostly shades of blue.
I sing you like a dated song
on a station nobody tunes in to.
The with-it kids are locking lips
like doors in mental hospital wards.
I could break you like a knuckle
and restore you like a wall.
Youre the only thing I could get close to anymore
and that is why Im gone.
Our love felt like a very long
one night stand so when
I scoured the floor for clothes and
snuck quietly out the window you
did not miss me at all
or
even stir.

10

Hunting Season

Bad Anthem
We wasted hours;
gripping each other like shotguns
shoved in the form of
burning questions like how
many lovers before me made you
scream like you were skydiving off
one of Saturns rings and the
thing about new love is
its like just about everything else
that is young and raw; a freshly planted
rose seed easily displaced in a soft wind
or
a newborn hatchling scurrying down
the hot sand to the ocean, it is
too young to hope for success it
is only instinct and adrenaline and
a death wish. That is what we
had created, a chemical storm
unabated and racing through our veins
and if hours became days,
if days became wedding vows and
wedding vows became shared
lots in the cemetery then that is all
well and good, it doesnt change that
moment one bit. In that moment we
were inside it. In that moment we
were sparks in electrical circuits.
In that moment we were wasted hours,
sharing skin and organs.

11

Hunting Season

Oceans With No Floor

There is a place in my heart that I keep for you that all the oceans in
the world could not
fill and boy have I tried. This morning my skin swallowed the
sunrise and I
still didnt come close to rediscovering the way you burned through
my insides.
Your mouth was God; bruises bloomed like May flowers wherever
your lips met my
body. There is a single molecule of you in me that has not yet
extinguished and
that is the only reason my lips can twist into something that still
looks like a
smile. The heart wants what the heart wants and mine wants to be
devoured
and broken in between your body and the bedpost; electrons
crashing with the
headboard, our breathing fusing together with the words we
reserved only for each other.
Ive slept in too many arms that feel like chains keeping you
away from me.

12

Hunting Season

A ThankYou For Smashing Me Out

Of My Skin
my magic word is my name out of your mouth
in the middle of the night. say it
and my
knees will swim, say it and my heart will spin
so fast the scars shake right off
and god,
in the middle of last night our bodies moaned like floorboards in old
homes, hands were dragged
down spines like we were smoking menthols. your mouth swallowed
mine like it was a warm
ocean and mine was an iceberg, I lost all form, broke each and every
law of the universe
with my bones bent around yours. sweat storms
poured out from our pores in such volume
buckets overflowed. Everything rocked out of swing and our fingers
grew around each others
throats like flowers burning in the dirt. I think I needed you to hurt
me sweetly and I think you're pretty
unusual and I think that's what I liked about you
and i haven't smiled in between somebody else's bones in forever
so thank you.

13

Hunting Season

Headlines
i. the morning
you packed
your things
and walked out
the door,
everything
stopped making
s ! ns
e.
ii. if i knew that
was going to be
our last kiss, i
would have
SWALLOWED
your face.
iii. do not
believe the
headlines, i
only jumped
into the ocean
because there
was nothing left
up here
for me

anymore.

14

Hunting Season

Wishes
we own king size beds
with the expectation
that they will someday
be shared but instead,
often we spend the long
nights slinging from one
side to the next, staring
through phone screens,
waiting on them to flash,
one text message unread.
some nights we get so
desperate that we
actually count the seconds
between them and when
they come we pounce like
foxes, taking much more
than we need, so much
that it begins to spoil
and gets us sick in our
chests but it is best
that we remember
the bliss in crawling
into bed, spreading your
arms and legs end to
end, salt lamp glowing
like a deep sea fish in
the ocean and the
incense burning thick
smoke into your every
breath. if that is what
you call loneliness, then
i do not wish for anything less.

15

Hunting Season

Stage Mic
a smoky red roomful of liquor and you
are making all the boys stutter. your mouth
is looking like the barrel end of a burning
shotgun and i'm thinking it might just taste
like one too. i want to fuse my bones to
yours like molten rock to a lakebed and
there ain't a thing you can say or do that
will stop my heartbeat from giving out when
you shut your teeth around my neck. honey
our notoriety will be boundless, our love
will be narcotic. no remedy
for the removal of you from my organs only
a brick and a rope and the bottom of the ocean.
you whisper something dangerous into speaker
blown ears and i nod so hard my neck snaps
like a snare drum and in that moment it
becomes awfully clear that falling in love with me,
and falling in love with you, will be like jumping
off the empire state building into the roof of a
parked car on thirty third, but it will be beautiful.

16

Hunting Season

Keep Me Like A Secret On The

Backs Of Your Teeth
We switched sundowns for sunups, slept naked, skin against pulse.
In the moment, infinite energy roars between our bodies
(And the night was so young it still spat baby teeth).
You showed me your scars and secrets and
I kissed them all, snatched them in a jar, and watched them glow like
fireflies and my smile was so crooked your tongue could ride it out
like a water slide. This was chemistry of the explosive kind.
Sweat drowned skin, mouths bled blood red. We wrecked each
others waists in the best kind of ways. The lateness of the night
gives way to the beat. Teeth sinking whiskey, we twisted our fingers
around each other's shirt buttons. We were clawing our nails into the
bed sheets like we were digging to hell. Or somewhere near. We
figured the heart is a muscle: if it is not worked out often it would
shrink and boy did we give our hearts a beating. Leave the churches
empty and load the gun chambers quickly. We are breaking a sweat
like bones under too much pressure.
I worked to get you wetter like a desert underneath an ocean.
You were so damn quick with your lips they felt like fiction.
You fucked my brains out cos you knew how tired I was of thinking
too deeply. You loved me so sweetly you gave my heart diabetes.
But the next morning, we picked our clothes up off the carpet,
never spoke again, simply
went about our business.

17

Hunting Season

Forecast
It is funny
how lonely
people,
gravitate
together,
when nobody
ever cured
a cold by
running
out into
bad weather.

18

Hunting Season

A Reminder
you said,
"never forget me"
as if the coast
could forget the ocean
or the lung
could forget the breath
or the earth
could forget the sun.

19

Hunting Season

Home Sweet Heart

when i think of home i do not

think of four walls,

or a fireplace,
or even a front porch, i

think of your arm bones,

your beating heart,
and your very loud snore.

20

Hunting Season

The Late Hours

one night is all it takes. sweat melting back to
gold like we were a couple of alchemists and
we crashed our waists together so hard the earth
spun off it's axis and everything became instinct. this was the hunt, the kill and the feed,
all rolled up tightly between the bedsheets. We
made love like the gods made the oceans and the
beasts and the goddamn entire cosmos and i
pressed my lips to your lips like the little red button
in the presidents office that puts an end to everything.
our clothes fell to the floor burning like bullet casings
and our bones begun a war where there is no loss or
peace only victory and we screamed things that have
never been written down in an earthly
dictionary because we were hell rising from the
basement of the world to our bedroom for a moment.
you and me, catching
infinity
in between our breaths.

21

Hunting Season

Chapter Two

Honeywater

When it came right down to it, I didn't have the courage to say
goodbye. I'm not entirely sure why. Perhaps I am truly so self
centered that it is preferable to be unhappy than risk you going off
and making something of your life with somebody else and dread
the thought somebody better than I am. One thing I do know, is
that love can be a form of self harm an ex-lovers kiss can be the
touch of cold steel on soft skin that sparks a sad and lonely heart
back to life and I believe that is why we find ourselves panting and
pushing and sweating and swelling against each other's skin time and
time again. But when I am lying face up in that swimming pool of
stormwater we poured out in the night, I wonder if the heroic thing
to do is in fact to break a heart, and hope at least one of us learns
something. The dawn will swallow the liberties we took in the dark
after all. There will be no escaping the act, the awkward smalltalk
and too-bitter coffee. Perhaps a brief instance of blinding pain is
preferable to this slow draining between us. This is the great
question hidden between the teeth and behind the eyelids and
under the fingernails of so-called romantics everywhere. We are such
goddamned liars. Preferring oblivion to the inevitable, we hide our
intentions and disguise the truth in bad poems and iloveyous and
bouquets of red roses. There are those who do not even have the
decency to wipe last nights mistakes off their mouths before
whispering Im sorrys in scattered showers hoping one catches and
drowns out the consequence of their actions. Thats the trouble with
relationships whether you put in all or nothing youre still just as
likely to win as you are to lose. You forget which side youre on his
or hers or yours and in the end youre fighting for nothing.
Sometimes the only sensible response is to run and for some of us
that is a drunken text message one hundred times more honest than
any of the bullshit you spilt sober and for others it is hours of
showers crying soapy water out of your eyelids and for others still it
is just forgetting about the future and the past and the present and
what you expect or hope to happen and to instead just look over to
the person lying next to you and come to the conclusion that
maybe they just arent supposed to be in any of them.

22

Hunting Season

Landmarks
she showed me the carvings in her wrists
like they made her less lovely
but the truth i told her was human
beings are not like old belongings
tarnishes and markings do not diminish
the value of her body

23

Hunting Season

Noisy Joints
there we were, a couple of wasted and misguided youths with a bad
case of the munchies. Clawing into
the cheapest junk food you can find this side of the sun, honey
whiskey bubbling in expensive glasses and so
goddamn badass the cigarettes smoked us.
when we snuck into your room our bodies fused like
two halves of molten metal thrown into a
miniature swimming pool and when you wrapped your
mouth around mine it felt like i had been
plugged into a lightning storm and jolted back to life.
you and me all black everything as if Johnny Cash wedding
crashed the bat cave then swallowed the night
and chucked it all up into the bottom of the ocean. you had a smile
so big it caught light and bounced it around
the room
and you had a kiss like a kite in a hurricane i chased all
morning but whenever i caught it, it would be
like i were just watching it soar high while everything
stormed down around me and
baby, when you wrapped my fingers around your neck, shit got
real and to me you're kind of a big
fucking deal and i want to dig my heels into the sand and let
your tsunami take me and i want to know
what you taste like next week so call me.

24

Hunting Season

Sweet Things Grow Here

Years ago, Galileo once said that the sun, with all of the planets
revolving
around it, and depending on it, can still ripen a bunch of grapes
as though it had nothing else in the universe to do.
This is what I think of when you say, I love you.
I wish I could hang lanterns to the wall of your throat
so every time you spoke,
everybody else could see your words shine as brightly as I do.
This is what I think of when you say, I love you.
My body is covered in bruises and burnt bridges blacken
my heart and you have got me weak in the knees
like your body is a goddamned baseball bat and I am behind on a
gambling debt.
This is what I think of when you say, I love you.
The very first time we kissed I slipped out of my skin and watched
because there was something beautifully tragic about
seeing the way my pulse stops at the touch of your mouth for
myself.
This is what I think of when you say, I love you.

25

Hunting Season

Heaven Would Be Hell Without You

Stars explode, years ago.
The flash of light is only a ripple,
Its origins oceans
Apart from you.
When I woke to an empty room, there were
Still ripples of you in the linen, I would know, I
Traced them with all five of my fingers. Cruel indentations
Covered everything, dust gathered where your
Clothes were and my bones ached where your touch circled
Like sharks swimming in so much sea.
I have a fear of dying alone, I want to rot into
Somebody's bones, come back a honeycomb and
Carry swarms of you; sweet and dripping wet. Oh,
The failures of the past will outlive the successes of now.
Funny how we're taught wishes are down wells rather than up
In the clouds, like the Devil is the only one who
Can get shit done. Counted
My blessings by the days since you first
Poured into my lungs like
Cigarette smoke. And love is cancerous so
I mean, bad luck.
Fuck and make love and tear apart; they're
All the same in the
Eyes of God, and we're all going up or down
Or round and round, so
I suppose I should be used
To falling in and out of you by now.

26

Hunting Season

Cosmetic Product Boys

you kept rubbing him into your skin
like he was the cure to something
and wondered why you got a rash.
he kept leaving little blue bruises all
over your body and you made out
like they were lakes.
you often like to tell yourself that
you are his to break.
when i tell you that you are beautiful
i do not want it to be like a setting
sun or waning moon
and though
it is a tough thing to save somebody
from a nosedive into hell, if
i have to i will strap cinderblocks
to my ankles to beat you there
and catch you.

27

Hunting Season

Tiny Marks

Lovers are like piercings,

they mostly heal over

but always leave a tiny mark.

28

Hunting Season

Fireflies
Most days we feel like moths rolling in paint
and that's okay
because then we are beautiful for who we've
become, instead of who God intended us to be
and please know that whether you burn
like the sun, or soak
like the moon, that you are still who i
look up to when the wind is blowing strong
through my window morning, evening or
afternoon and maybe
this life can often feel like a stone in the sole
of your shoe but that's okay too,
slow down, remove your shoes, lose the stone
and feel the earth spin
under you because we are most beautiful
for who we become
when we
are the most unsure of ourselves.

29

Hunting Season

HangoverHearts
tonight there are more apologies in my body than bones
but i would spill both
if it meant you would not leave me alone because i
am just so afraid of what i might do and
by that i don't mean sleeping pills or lakes at night i
mean i might fuck each and every pretty young thing
in sight and
how anybody passed the age of nineteen is
supposed to associate goodbye with anything other than
the taste of cigarettes and whiskey is beyond me but
i will sleep on the couch and eat a truck load of takeout
until the rings around my eyes are so thick they could orbit
a planet because
that is the only alternative i got to nailing my bones
to yours and never letting go and neither of us
wants it to come to that (well maybe i do).

30

Hunting Season

Heaven Knows
when i said you have my heart
and meant it figuratively, you
were disappointed so
i disjointed all of my ribs for you,
cleared a path and let you tear it
from my body.
you stood there holding the bloody
still beating muscle in your
fingers and you told me
that you no longer want it, like it was
something that could be returned
or rewired. it couldn't. so i
watched you drop it, and i am not
sure who hit the floor first but i
just know that we both
watched you turn and walk with ruby
smeared across your mouth and
a bag slung against your hip
like a hunting rifle out into the night
to find some other boys parts
to play with.

31

Hunting Season

Inhale You, Exhale Me

When you told me that to you,
love was like oxygen,
I knew that my fate
was to be drawn in,
used up and
ultimately replaced but
that was okay, see i
wanted
to swim down your throat and sleep
in your lungs, because to be
inhaled and exhaled by you
would be better than to simply pass by
on the wind.
and to sustain your beating
heart for even a moment is
much more than most men can
hope to achieve in a lifetime.

32

Hunting Season

The Bones Of A Catalyst

Tonight we misplace our maps.
Charter a new course. We release
Our hearts; beating like white
Knuckled fists against the prison
Walls of those solid bone cages
That contains them in isolation,
Out to the void. Our insides
Will scream like misbehaved
Children, pelting great drops of
Liquid gold from our eyelids, shed
Straight into the dim-lit vaults
Of our consciousness but there they
Will compound in interest. Our
Eyes will redden like pellets of burning
Molten iron in our frustration, but
They will form into cities free of the
Tyranny of a world that wishes us
Chained in pieces. We will become
Strays, haunting by the doormats
Of an owner crueler than can be
Imagined: Ourselves (and our doubts).
We will breath the sound of
Brass bells, signaling our arrival.
Flowers will storm, rooting themselves
Into the wet fertile ground of our
Bones and we will crawl out
Of the long black night brand new.
And if we do, we must thank that
Which threw us into the wall with such
Force we broke right through.

33

Hunting Season

A Concerned Lover
"But to be in love is not a leisurely activity,
it is an obsession and since I've learned
hearts are like gifts; they need to be given
before they can be torn into pieces, I will
go against my better judgment and confess
to you this evening that
darling,
I want amnesia. I want amnesia so I can relive
what it was like to fall in love with you over
and over. What it is like to trace the
outline of your bones and skin and breathing
for the first time, learning the lengths of
your smile lines,
familiarizing myself with those big brown eyes
burning like a nickel hubcap underneath a
southern-state sun. I want your nows. I want to
cover my lungs in your name like rust on
a car hood kissing the years off. But love,
you've crawled out through
enough windows to learn a thing or two
about opening up. You look as lonely as an
insect trap on a front porch that kills whatever
gets too close and I think that is why you think I
should back off. Like hell I will. I won't. But I
need you to know that
you are the only crowd I ever lost myself in.
And the only thing to ever leave my lips and
matter was your mouth but how could I
expect your heart to beat for me, when you
do not even wish it to beat for yourself."

34

Hunting Season

My Golden Record
You're beautiful like
how everything sounds
better on vinyl. i
Want to play you in
the dark, let you fill my
ears and head and
Spinal column. i want to watch
you age and weather and
grow in value every
Day, from now until
the universe and all of the
music in it collapses forever.

35

Hunting Season

Aokigahara Heart
You ditched me like
a half-smoked cigarette,
said you had a dirty
habit to kick. Your
smile looked like a
goddamned firing
squad but the joke is
the shot missed. See
I don't think you understood me, I don't think
you meant to break
my heart into so many
pieces that they could
cover the entire ocean
floor of the lonely Atlantic, but
that does not forgive
the fact that you did. I
don't know what to tell you
except that you had a
smile as thick as a
textbook that took just
as long to read and you
had a touch like a rose; wilting
away in the winter and
flowering back in spring and whenever you spoke my name it
was like a storm cloud full of
rain and I only wanted to be
the blood pumping through
your veins.

36

Hunting Season

Matchstick Kids
Tonight we were matchsticks sparked
off boot soles, burning
into the floorboards like truck wheels
on rain-washed roads. The room's full
of liquor and blind faith, like it's an
ice-dammed lake melting underneath
the strobe. She is concentrating
hard, moving her bones fast in
great arcs of burnt gold light like an
entire swarm of fireflies surfing on the
crest of a tidal wave. I think she is the way
the oceans teem and the forests crawl but I
am the way church halls vacate at the
first sign of god. Everybody's got their
bruises; the only difference between us is
how some people let them keep their
backs to the wall, and others battle through, and
she's got one on her ankle that can't do
shit to stop her from spinning like a tornado
through the room. We sweat our hair into
broomstick thistles and ride the winds out
like witches and wizards and the backs
of taxi cabs shiver underneath our bodies
shaking to the sound of the road underneath
the tires and the headlights set to high beam.
I mean how am I supposed to think of
a goddamned thing else than her
lips squeezed tight to mine like peach juice
ground with shots of tequila and teeth
crushed like ice cubes into cocktails
sucked up through long black straws into
the night because we were a couple of young
things; reckless and full of mischief and high on living.

37

Hunting Season

And Then There Was You And Me

And God Threw The Towel In
listen closely, we are
infinity.
we are miracles
the world can believe
in.
wherever we dance
the earth quits spinning.
we are light off the
moon.
we are fireflies
at summers dawn.
we
are anthems singing back
to the throats they
spilled from.
we are shotgun shells
loaded into pea shooters.
we are not gods
but we are grander.
whenever we speak
the skies ignite in
fireworks and thunder.

38

Hunting Season

Heaven's Neon Vacancy Signs

A boy was born in a hurricane.
The hospital held him close. Word
Was he may have been the last hope for the human race so
He wrapped his little fingers around his tiny throat.
The world once wild is now alone;
A better tomorrow swallowed in the bottomless mouths of nows.
We attempt to dislocate ourselves but the joints are welded down.
The second coming will be a combination of unnecessity and bad
Timing and anyWay, sequels are mostly always tragic.
We are tone deaf, singing off-key, but all the same, beautifully,
Because
The words hold more meaning than a pretty note or face could ever
Hope to carry.
Let me know when the world is ending because I
Will destroy everything before the stars explode and the universe
Begins
Crushing atoms like nail heads under hammers. I
Cannot fathom meeting God and enjoying his company, and if
Anyone can, they are fucking lying. I mean
What is that conversation even going to be, "Thank you for giving
My
Grandfather throat cancer and wiping out populations with HIV,
What
Are you up to this weekend?"
I mean Goddamn.

39

Hunting Season

Hummingbirds For Hands

I got a headrush but I don't know,
Whether it's blood or gold.
Writing you Shikigami goodbye-notes.
Because they will follow you
Further than I could ever hope to.
My heart is a picket sign but you
Are kissing teargas. For a time I
Almost shook you but I am afraid
I relapsed.
I have forgotten a time when feeling something
For you was less like a curse and more like a blessing.
I bare everything for you to see
Until you have seen crowded clubs in red light districts
With less skin showing.

Thing

About love is, it's played dirty even

When it's clean.
But then it comes easy to a pretty
Face don't it darling.

40

Hunting Season

Cara Delevingne
Cocaine dime bags in your hands like holy crosses.
Nightclub bathroom stalls are the new confessionals
(we're visiting often).
Your God is the boy in the dark shades and Doc Martens.
We are swallowing 8-balls until our heads do the Harlem.
I want to prescribe myself to you like Ambien
When you don't get much sleep and
Steal a motorcycle and ride it out from here to
The world's end.
I want to kick it with you so hard they
Call us the Beckham's and
Tonight let's pile up our bodies like
bibles and burn them
And I want to be on your
Tongue like an anthem
And the night is young just
Count the rings on Saturn.
See if this life ever had a point it is surely
The shape that your tongue makes
And nothing was ever so pretty as your
Lips Like Pink Lakes
But I digress,
You bruise my neck so bad my
Blood blues,
And each of them echoes a
phase of the moon.

41

Hunting Season

Sugarcane
Heres the thing Sugar,
Ive rubbed my eyes so red over you
youd think I were handing
you bouquets of roses every time
you told me theres somebody new
and my heart is heavy
because it carries you
too
and
my blood is blue
because youve sunk
through
and
and
Ive got a dark room
and a bottle of
bad news
and I want you
somewhere
between the two.

42

Hunting Season

Chapter Three

Silver Crickets

What many fail to understand is that writing is not an occupation or

passion or pastime. To us poor souls, us midnight maniacs, it is like
breathing or dying and usually both. It is born into our bones and it
is with them that it forms and grows or fractures and stunts. Our
imaginations are infinite and that thought saddens me; I will never
have the time to dream up all that my mind is capable of, but I will
do my best and slip the harness that holds us tightly to the breast of
so called real life as if eating and fucking and working your hands to
the bone is in any way more tangible and corporeal than books and
adventures and romances and kissing the lips of somebody you've
loved since as far back as you can remember. I believe once you
accept the notion that you are not special, that you are only ordinary,
that your destiny is not written in stars, you are set free. Because that
notion means that anyone who ever achieved anything great begun
just like you and me, ordinary and full of hope and ambition and
determination. We make our own destinies, carve our names into the
stars ourselves. And home doesn't have to be four walls and a
fireplace, it is our breathing and our pulse and our skin. We're all
looking for the same thing, something insubstantial, something so
delicate it cannot be touched but we know is there. We are such
fragile things, we are not designed for strong weather or great falls
let alone broken hearts or bad news. See I believe the closest I've
come to something indestructible is my ability to nap in any given
circumstance, at any time of day, for positively no reason at all. And
don't let a single goddamned soul tell you that isnt okay. And I
believe that making something worthwhile of yourself is much like
lighting a fire strike the match too fast and it will snap, throw it
into coals and the wind may blow it out but if you are patient, if
you shield the flame and let it breathe, I promise you, there ain't a
goddamned thing you cannot burn to the ground. And do not be so
desperate to find yourselves how dull why rush to solve the
greatest mystery of all ourselves. And even if you have acquired all
of the friends and lovers one could need, keep a secret affair up with
loneliness, sneak out and buy it a drink now and then. I promise that
if you do, it will be kinder the next time its needed. But most of all
inhale and exhale, sing in showers through hair comb microphones,
write through the good days and write through the bad ones, court
death and break its heart remember that this life is a grand
firework show and its all ours.

43

Hunting Season

The Seven Wonders Of The Ancient World is a title bestowed on a

collection of remarkable constructions of classical antiquity now, for the
most part, largely lost to us, yes
sort of like how
you are now
lost to me
Because see, to me, your hands are the Hanging Gardens of Babylon; great
high walls and stone pillars covered in paradise; the shade of tall trees
blocking out the burning sun
and your bones are the Statue of Zeus at Olympia; strong and mighty, carved
in the image of a God and the times I have knelt
before them with my head bowed in prayer are numbered beyond count
and the locks of wild auburn hair cascading over your collarbones are the
Temple of Artemis; a sanctuary built in resplendence and dedication to the
goddess of the wilderness. Plus, Antipater of Sidon
once said, "The Sun never looked on aught so grand," so there's always that
and your ribs are the Mausoleum of Halicarnassus; a grand tomb housing
your dark beating heart and the memories of all your past lovers. There is
much death here but also great beauty and what I would do to discover the
way in and sleep forever
and your smile is the Colossus of Rhodes; a tribute reaching from earth to
sky celebrating the victory of you over me while straddling the harbor of
your cheekbones. I know that when I gazed upon it
I shook with fear and marvel all at once
and your eyes are the Lighthouse of Alexandria; guiding me home from dark
oceans, always promising safe harbor from an often-cruel journey. When I
looked upon them I felt warm in the knowing that where I had been could
not hold a candle to where I would soon be. These
were the last to leave my memory, see though all of these things stood for
what felt like centuries, the moment you left they began to fade from me
but,
your love,
your love is the Great Pyramid of Giza; still
standing for what feels to me
like over 4000 years since you vanished from
my head and heart and skin. This is the part of you
that will never leave, long after our bones dust and
our skin rots and the last thought of what we once
has vanished from the memories of all who knew us,
your love will stay with me. You, truly, the greatest
among the Seven Wonders of my Heartbeat.

44

Hunting Season

Apple Seeds
It's the way I
think of you
when I kiss someone else.
My tongue only moving
because I trick it into the thinking
that it's on the inside
of your mouth
and
Love is blind,
is really just another way of saying I
want to run my fingers down your ribs
and across your wrists
and around your cheekbones
until I have you read inside out
and my fingers cramp up
whenever I attempt to write
a poem about somebody else
and you
make me wanna scream Hell yes
at the top of my lungs
before I've even heard the question.
This is the kind of love that God intended
when he first let it
loose from the center of
each and every sun
in the entire universe
and shut it tightly inside our chests. I
want to smother you in proposals
that make knees bend
and tears jerk.
I want to be the man
that you deserve.
See this is not a love poem.
This is a you poem.
Always was.
If the thought of you
was window glass,
it would not have collected
an ounce of dust.

45

Hunting Season

Memory Lane
One. When you tie your hands around me it is like a bandana to a
man before a firing squad but I do not give a fuck.
Two. Good luck is waking up beside somebody who wins out on
anything you have the imagination to dream up in your sleep.
Three. My imagination is something else.
The night before last I dreamt of
honey bees
swallowing the sun
and
the galaxy and
the entire universe,
pollinating new ones in
shades of colour
they don't have
names for
but hell,
waking up beside you was
incomprehensibly more
strange and mad in comparison.
Four. Our love was chalk art on a sidewalk. Really fucking beautiful
to look at ruined by a raindrop.
Five. Your mouth tastes like the barrel of a gun.
(You taste like a desperate way out)
Six. I am yours, only I am not talking figuratively, I mean
more like a house or wallet or dog.
Seven. You are an ocean without shores.
Eight. I was foolish enough to let you run riot
in my heart but not expect the overthrow.
Nine. I am drink driving down memory lane.
Again.

46

Hunting Season

Raven Feathers
You deserve everything there is to give.
breakfasts in bed,
diamonds on your doorstep,
little secret notes hidden everywhere.
I want you to have all of my secrets,
and all of my demons,
because you especially deserve all of
the parts of me I'm too afraid to share.

47

Hunting Season

Making Out With You

would be
kind of
like a
science project;
an experiment
in discovering
whether or
not it is
possible
to smile
this big
and kiss
you real
deep with
the same
set of
lips at
the very
same time.

48

Hunting Season

The First Night

you said it was like
hiring a hitman on your heart
to assassinate the love.
you throw out his things,
scrunch up his notes,
you bury his name deep in your lungs
and it feels like hell
swallowed heaven whole.
you wonder
if you gave him everything of you
then what are you supposed to do
with these scraps and skins
he's left
smothered between
bedsheets and bad television
and day old chinese.
and you miss how he
kissed your lips raw
and you hate that he left you with
red eyes
that cry
into your palms,
so hard,
they could water the planet
and all
of your nerves are
screaming,
and all
of your bones are
burning
so you check yourself in
to the madhouse
of the memory
of you and him
and tell yourself
it's treatment.

49

Hunting Season

Dead Christmas Trees

you and me,
we were just
a couple of
dead christmas trees
we were too
softhearted to
tear down in
the new year
and though
we kept all of
the ornaments
and all of
the fairy lights
that new
evergreen scent
had vanished
and our
leaves had
blackened
covering the carpet
in pine needles like
we were proof
that even the most
beautiful things
must end.

50

Hunting Season

This Life
It is a string instrument,
Requiring careful affection,
And your fingers may bleed
A little before
You learn a tune
That can carry
An audiences attention.
Every breath should taste like
Little victories, love even more so.
If you find somebody
Who gets your heart beating
Hold onto them
So you won't need
To work even half as hard to.
Style is important.
It let's the people know
That you are a success
Mostly when you are not.
And we are nothing if not
Cosmic Creators.
Anyone who ever
Put a shotgun to his mouth
Was only trying to
Create a final work of art.
Now and then
Make love in the mornings,
And nap in the noons,
Eat breakfast foods at midnight
Because it fucking tastes good.
And we're all just living or dying anyway
But if you're doing it right
You'll know the difference between the two
and youll do just fine.

51

Hunting Season

Silver Screen
Your kiss
was like a film;
Id seen a thousand times.
I knew every line;
each twist,
each surprise,
You simply
passed the time.

52

Hunting Season

The Young Sisterhood Of

Northern States
I'm mostly sure
That God tore a page or two out
Of my favorite films and folded
Them into the four of you because
Nothing else makes any sense.
All I know is that now I am alone,
In the basement of the country we call home
With a rainstorm hocking at my window
Like a smoker at a street curb and
All I can think of is how I know it's so wrong,
But I want to sink my teeth into your lips
Like a doomed ship and wake up in the afternoons
With you curled up to my chest and
I want every stranger we meet to secretly
Wish they had what we have built
Out of 412 bones, two beating hearts
And nowhere else to go.
Our days would be coffees
And long naps and love making
And poetry and cigarettes
And we would spend our nights
Wondering how it could get any better than this
And it wouldnt but where most good things
Must come to an end ours would be the exception.
When I saw you swimming through a crowd
With three of your friends, I only saw brilliance,
Like a headlight in an attic, and I want to
Get to know that. I could get used to it. I
Would wait 24 months and count each minute.

53

Hunting Season

You Complicate Me
Listen. There was no me before you. There was only matter and
molecules and wasted energy; unfocused universe. Each Saturday
evening rehearsed to precision pretending to belong in some
strangers arms and drowning sorrows in a tall glass I had forgotten
how to be touched and feel it in more places than one.
Then there was you. Waking up beside you for the first time was like
remembering oxygen after an age under ocean. You swept
hurricanes into my knees, destabilizing the order
in my heart to revolution, red flags blowing in the color of my
cheeks.
Before you I was afraid of letting people in; my heart was a vault
with a passcode only I knew. Yet you taught me how hearts are like
houses, they are designed to be inhabited, made a mess of, even torn
to the ground now and then; a rusty drainpipe or broken floorboard
only adds value.
She taught me to admire my damages.
Did you know that the Grand Canyon was formed by rain
and wind and sea, cutting into the earth over millions of years,
she'd say, see even our planet
has scars, and look how beautiful that can be.
Listen. There was no me before you;
a yellow bird without a song to sing;
a sun with an empty orbit, burning for nobody.

54

Hunting Season

Miles Between Skin

Most of my friends say I should be
over you by now but you
are not an ocean between two destinations,
there are no maps to circumvent
my desire to revisit you or destroy the
longing in my veins. Certain smiles can be
as permanent as scars they do not just go away.
My heart is not an element
with a half life, you are still radioactive;
mutating each electric buzz in my body and brain,
each bent in slow sways
like young lovers
on smoky jazz bar dance floors,
and when I catch sight of those
cheekbones like deathblows
I want to kiss your mouth hungry
under the same May moons that
birthed you two decades ago.
Most of my friends say that I am supposed
to learn from my losses, so I
suppose that explains my recent penchant for
exchanging saliva like souvenirs with strangers
and sleeping in other states
with a wider smile than I do at home.
This poem is long overdue,
but less like milk gone bad
and more like a library book I
just didn't have the heart to give up;
read it back to back
more times than I could count
and see, there's something very
romantic about the thought of
calling you off a pay phone in the rain
to say that I will see you soon.
And old sweetheart, I've learned misery
is something very
close to missing you.

55

Hunting Season

Same Love
Two blushing girls
splash
in a pond smothered
blue by sky.
One keeps a secret
and the other a waistline
that could weaken the knees
of anyone nearby. One
studies the architecture of
the others bones; the ribs curve,
the palms shallow dip,
like satellite dishes circling her planet.
She wants to kiss
all of the
wrong answers
at Sunday school
onto her lips
and spark a love
on her mouth like matches.
She's thinking it's funny how
she's got the courage
to fight the world for her right
to love the girl in front of her
but not enough
to declare her heart
and risk losing it all
so she swims in close,
water droplets falling off her shoulders
like autumn
and smiling confidence in great rays
of light; i swear you could see the gold in her eyes.
Her heart is racing
as they stand face to face
in perfect symmetry and an aura that could reinvigorate
an entire flowerbed of unwatered roses.
She reaches out to sweep
black locks of hair off her sweethearts face
and opens her lips
and says, "The moment I lost myself in you
was the moment I found myself
and no law of god or man can tell me
that isn't love."

56

Hunting Season

A Mourning Coffee Poem

I really wish people would stop
asking what my "type" is
since it only reminds me of you,
and when you left I think
I starved myself paper-thin
because of how desperately I
wanted to slip between the cracks
in the floorboards
and fall straight
down to hell. I hid letters
signed your one and only
in my drawers but now you're
just my only and
nobody bothered
to tell me in school that
love is like a line of coke
and loss is dying slowly
and holy water I'm sure
is something like a
puddle of your kiss and
my heart is a fistful of thorns
and this is the part where
I split into so many
separate pieces
it would take an armada
of thimbles and thumbs
to stitch me back together
even if I wanted to
and you don't even know how
I still think of you
like a body breathes
and a garden blooms
and a blue bird croons do you?
I am not half of who you are
or who you will be
or even who you were
but i would crush all of the
planets in the galaxy
down to the size of pearls
and string them up with
a thousand stars
to prove you were my universe.

57

Hunting Season

How I Remember The Morning We

Met
That evening, I went to a bar
nestled between buildings so tall
they blocked out the gps
I maneuvered the dark alleys the
old fashioned way; navigated
the stars with a head hazy on brandy
and the thought of your body
burning like a sun drenched coastline
on the horizon after 48 months of
ocean. I light my last cigarette to calm
the nerves; the smoke crawling
down my throat and into my lungs,
exhaling the extensive list I
had marked down in my head
of all the things that could go wrong
in the first few minutes. I
had spoken a grand total of six
words, one smile, and two nods to
you when I saw you smiling coffee steam
over a newspaper headline on the
7:58am morning train and asked for
the ten digit code to the little black
box in your left jacket pocket that would
allow me to ask you out without
the little trouble of tripping over my
words or falling onto my face or
making a fool out of myself in front of
an entire carriage of bored men in
business suits. I have been rehearsing
what I am to say next for the last
six blocks. I want to let you know that
when I saw you in the corner of my
eyes that morning, my vision blurred
like I was staring directly into the sun,
and when you looked up from the
paper and into my eyes for the first
time I saw my entire future in
fast forward and when you read your
cell number out loud all I heard were
wedding vows and whoever
said love at first sight only got it
half right because when I heard
you laugh sweetly from the far side
of the carriage I just knew, that
whether you were 20 or 60 or even 102,
I was already in love with you.

58

Hunting Season

The Social Loner

I am nothing special. There are far too many people in the world
dying to leave their dent in the earth when we would be much better
off spending our time mending it instead. It's not easy finding a
point to it all but it becomes immensely clearer the moment you
begin finding them in the corners of a lover's upturned mouth or
water so still in the morning you would swear the sky fell down and
cradled itself in the lakebed's curve. I heard that love is like the wind
and I have encountered one too many hurricanes and I have been so
alone in my head the sound of my own breathing has frightened me.
At times I sleep for hours because I once read that energy in the
universe is somewhat finite and I can not justify wasting another
molecule of it on me. If only you knew how badly I sometimes
wished I could be saved you would strap a cape around your necks
and fly from each and every city just to tell me that it's going to be
okay. That is the reason I get up each day. I think the loneliest
people must communicate with each other in some form of sonar
because when I am in a room with you and see you in the corner,
smoking your cigarettes, kissing your boys and shaking your body
with your heart completely still I hear you, I see you, I understand
you in all of the ways nobody should. But the truth in it all is this
world is cruel to most of us some are just better at
hiding it. As for myself, I'm out in the open, running between
trenches, dodging stray bullets and land mines, thinking back on
home, all the while with the knowledge that nobody really returns
from the war that is growing older and losing more than you ever
believed you could hold. This life is learning that the first one to
ever say if you love them let them go was almost certainly God. Yes we
are alone. Yes that is beautiful. No we are not slaves to time or death
or anything else. We are rogues and vigilantes and pirates and
fucking everything that means something close to freedom in a
world gone bad. So smile wide and show you're teeth like they're
little white flags you're waving in surrender to all of your doubts and
insecurities and pressures and deadlines because you are here
for you and nobody else. We are all of us our own heavens and
our own hells.

59

Hunting Season

I Can Do All Through Her Who

Strengthens Me
She is a celestial event,
a brief moment of burning light; one
which I would not exchange for
even an entire eon of summer suns.
She is something else, young and beautiful.
She could
be in a stand off with the fastest draw
in the Wild West and win without
so much as reaching for her gun.
She's got big dreams like
a star on Hollywood Blvd.
Me too,
I pitched myself a small role
in her heart and I hope to God
I get the part.
And the moon, I learnt in preschool
it circles the Earth but I have reason
to believe that ain't true,
it circles you.
Yes, you.
I keep finding myself changing the pronouns
in my poems
half-way through because I know how somewhere,
some day you
will find these words and know
they were written for the way your skin
beams like June moons and
your eyes are proof
that all the biggest things in the world
are blue;
like oceans
like whales
like sky
and you are
who I
think of when
I am asked
what I would like
to do
with my life.

60

Hunting Season

Chapter Four

Dark Flowers

The air of mystery about you could choke lungs. Though nothing
was ever so deceiving as the freckle on your left cheek. There was a
study in Sweden: 9/10 said girls with freckles would make it to
heaven. I wonder if that is the beauty of them; blank checks for
mayhem; a personal gift from God. I think what I found most
beautiful about you was that you could have been whoever you
wanted, but instead chose only to be yourself. You smiled like red
roses by old gravestones; nobody was sure who put them there but
man were they beautiful. It was all quite strange white blonde hair,
garden green eyes, doll-like dresses, a tiny waistline there was
nothing quite so dark about you but Id be damned if the inside of
your head didnt read like a Charles Bukowski poem. I remember
how when you were very sad, you would soak in bathwater or stand
out in rain, for hours, as if your sorrow were sunburn, or a house up
in flames. I remember how you wanted so badly to be touched but I
was afraid you might break. And so things pass. And time heals all.
And sometimes they dont. And sometimes we write books about it.
And I apologize but sometimes scratching ink into a page is more
effective than carving a scar into skin. And sweetheart, I dearly miss
your impressive talent for making moments feel like forever
particularly the ones I knew never could.
So heres to your memory Ive never come across something so
hard to remove that was neither a weed or a wasp hive, and to your
old pictures, lost hairpins and forgotten clothes I wish you
wouldnt keep finding new ways of saying goodbye.
Anyhow, I hope there is a place for me, somewhere, someday, but if
theres not then I would like you to know that you were my favorite
of all the nowheres Ive been. And as for you, I only hope the
Swedish focus groups got it right, I hope you make it to heaven old
darling, or wherever else. After all, its funny all the good ones go
to hell.
So I suppose Ill be seeing you.

61

Hunting Season

TOD: 6th of June 2013, 11:57pm

The day and night are fundamentally connected yet forever apart
and I cannot for the life of me figure out whether or not that is a
curse. But one thing I do know, old darling, is that when you said
goodbye and I went to respond, the weight of the word broke my
jaw. You said you hoped I'd meet a girl some day and that I'd fall for
her like twelve months of autumn. But this letter is just me letting
you know that my lungs, they don't breath right when your name
ain't in them, and I can count the moments we spent together in
nanoseconds, and some days, I still feel you on my body like a
phantom limb; each touch and sensation sparking electric up my
skin like little biological reminders that you belong here, that without
you I am only partly me. Well lately baby, I've been drowning in
bottles of whiskey and I've got salty leaks underneath both of my
eyelids and I cannot bring myself to let somebody else hear the way
my heart beats after-hours between the back post and the bed
sheets. I don't want to sweat into anybody else's skin. Please don't
make me. If you were everything then without you I'm nothing. But
in writing you I have now learned that though like the day and night
are doomed to follow each other around the earth until the end of
time we will never touch or kiss or laugh together again, you will
always be just a moment from me, you will live on in the clouds of
my breath and the corners of my lips whenever they turn up and I
don't know where to address this letter so if you are somewhere up
there watching down I hope you're listening close, because I need
you know that some day soon when I catch up with you, I promise
I'll never let you go.

62

Hunting Season

My Lovely Blueprint
nothing ever compared
to the rush of blood
i felt
when your
mouth met mine
or
my fingers
navigated the inside
of your thigh
or
when your eyes
and my eyes
caught the light
off the fire
but i would like
you to know
that night has burned
into my skin
and you have
become the blueprint
to everybody i've
taken to bed since.

63

Hunting Season

You Got Stuck In My Throat Like

A Song
i was afraid to ask if
you loved me because inside
I knew that you did not
and
it was very hard to let
the words leave my throat
when
every kiss on my cheek
felt like a goodbye note
and i think i preferred to pretend
there was an "us," because the
only alternative was
"i'm not good enough."

64

Hunting Season

Shower Hours
on the other side
of the shower door
we would kiss so hard
we couldn't be sure
if the fog came from us
or the very hot water
and
she would wash
my problems off
of my skin
and
wrap her
arms around
my ribs
and i don't think
i've felt that clean since,
see,
i don't think
i've ever felt
dirtier.

65

Hunting Season

Separate Cities
somewhere
our names are still
carved into the thick bark
of an old oak tree
and we sleep
in strangers arms
in separate cities
but see when you
weren't looking i
etched you into my skin
and there aint a
blade, body or
bottle that can rub you
out of me.

66

Hunting Season

Vices
if i could bottle up
the feeling of you on
my skin
i would give up
on cigarettes, pills
and drink
and all of the
things i
now take just to sleep
because we all have
our vices, and
mine was your love
and I never had
the self-discipline
to give you up.

67

Hunting Season

The Survivors Song

somewhere around 12:45 a.m.
late last night
you turned up to my house
with a bouquet of bloodshot eyes
you had swollen bruises
on your lips,
your arms,
your neck,
your thighs
you said this what
coming home a little
late looks like
he does this all
the time,
but when i asked
you where
it hurt
the most
you simply
said, "inside,"
because the love you know
now is no longer
quiet films
or honeymoons
or romantic dinners
under candlelight
the love you know
now is only a matter
of surviving
another night.

68

Hunting Season

A Goodbye Note Exchanged Between

A Moth And A Butterfly
On an evolutionary scale, butterflies and moths are
remarkably similar, sharing many characteristics and behaviors.
Some species can be virtually Indistinguishable to the untrained eye.
I want you to know.
I want you to know that late
at night when you wrapped
your wings around me tight
like a cocoon, I never slept a wink.
The cold evening wind sang for me.
And each grey-feathered wing ached to
navigate the quiet world
while you were long asleep.
I want you to know.
I want you to know that in
the mornings and the
middays you were beautiful;
great veins of yellows
and burnt blues stormed out
from your body like Anvil Crawlers,
illuminating your insides
like X-rays. Your elegance
was a symphony but it was
a song I was not born with
the vocal chords to sing along with.
I want you to know.
I want you to know that
we were different and
that was okay
but it was time we said our goodbyes
because the day came where I was made
to choose between you and something
a little more dangerous,
a little more on the wild side
and I think deep down you knew
that I would always choose the light.

69

Hunting Season

Describing Her
She had lips like two large slices of ripe watermelon
you just wished you could bite into on the beaches of
a hidden island somewhere in the north Atlantic and
collarbones like rolling hills you could climb with your
fingertips and be rewarded with the most beautiful of
views once you reached the top. She had a mind like an
ocean you would navigate for months on end and it
would not matter one bit if you got lost or even drowned
because the seabed of her thoughts was so much more
than you could ever hope to see up here, and the secret
corners of her heart were cave tunnels that carried more
light than even the most sun drenched deserts on earth
but if I were to describe her perfectly, in one simple
turn of phrase, I would hold my tongue in silence,
then whisper you her name.

70

Hunting Season

Unfaithful
I remember summer and burnt amber afternoons;
fire pits and sand underneath our fingernails and
despite the kind of permanent soft rain
that showers in my heart, those 90 days we spent
were the closest I've ever come
to waking up each day and feeling good about it.
I loved you so much your hellos felt like hurricanes,
and holding hands with you
reminded me of the great universal forces
which hold planets in orbit.
Sadly, a lesson in flying must also be one in falling
and I learned the worst thing about the words I love you
is if they are spoken and meant once
they will be swallowed as truth even when they
are only dried vacant husks of the promises they once were.
I do not know when the last time you said those words
and meant them was;
you were very careful to keep the bruises he kissed
onto your neck invisible.
Perhaps it's not important.
You were pretty.
I was not.
And sometimes bridges are meant to be burnt.
Even the beautiful ones.
But I've learned forgiveness and forgetting
are entirely different things
and I cannot seem to master either.
And I've learned that love is not meant to be dammed
like a lake it is supposed to run like a river,
and honestly I am grateful for the time we spent
together- it was never in your nature to remain still.
And finally, that although I don't love you anymore,
perhaps I always will.

71

Hunting Season

Method Actors
The blood is pounding
like two brass bells in an old church tower.
You are disconnecting
your head and heart and
siding with neither.
His hands on your bones are old
captains at sea navigating
bad storms on stomachfuls of rum and he
has plans to go down with the ship.
He is drinking you in through a clumsy tongue,
swishes it around his mouth as if
he is savoring the taste of the moment
and nothing else.
His scars are permanent just like your smile
and his skin smells like tobacco and pine
and your eyes are rolling so far back
all you can see is him in the back of your mind.
These are the death throws
of the stowaways,
kissing the lonely out of each other's veins
and you think he may
be the greatest accomplishment
you've made passed 3 a.m.
and he might just think the same.
That is what you hold onto
because this is sweat
and noise
and nothing more
and in a few hours or so
one or the both
of you will be gone
but this moment tastes
enough like love
to get you through
the next few months.

72

Hunting Season

Eye Lashes
I cannot for the life of me
stop wishing on your lashes
found one
stuck to my rib cage
another
caught in my throat
And when I watch you
undress to your bones
slow dance
in my room
or kiss me
when I'm cold
I can't help but notice
that perhaps one came true.

73

Hunting Season

Daisy Buchanan, Part One

He looked at her, with the same longing that comes with
the sight of land after months of ocean.
The two of them, both of age enough to know a thing or two about
life and love. But with so much youth in their blood,
they did not give a damn.
The summer dripped in grandeur; swift winds cradled her white
dress and the heat wet skin in all of the creases.
There was food and drink aplenty; crab and duck and champagne
in ice buckets, all laid out
on a large yellow silk sheet that hugged the grassy hill.
She was quite beautiful,
with just enough misplaced to entertain the eccentricities
of a man with more money than time to spend it.
He was well spoken,
well dressed,
well everything.
With each word hurricanes leapt off his tongue
and swept into her heart.
I never imagined a life so extraordinary as one with you in it, he would say,
and I have been told to have quite the imagination,
he would finish with a smile that seemed
to carry itself more in his eyes than his mouth.
She laughed, covering lips painted in red and champagne and a
greeting kiss she wished had lasted a little longer,
and cut a little deeper.
The park was crowded, children flew paper kites and
couples walked pocket sized dogs.
It was a Sunday afternoon after all,
and there was no time in the week quite so suited to
pausing and swaying with the spin of the world.
So that is what they did.
He parted her lips like so much curtain,
inviting in a morning sun
and they kissed with the
fragile and ill-fated infinity
that comes with this young and endless lust.

74

Hunting Season

Rib Bones Like Heavens Gates

she had secrets hidden between her teeth
like fire lanterns coasting the sea
and reflecting off wet champagne lips
but never quite reaching out far enough to
leap off them. she was a deep bruise kissed
onto my skin, one I wished would never fade or leave.
I wore her palms after hours like gowns,
growing like vine around each others arms we knew
the longer we lay the more trouble
it would be to come apart.
but that was okay
we were handsome
we were young
we had no where to be.
I could taste her tongue ripening on my lips
like peach trees and she breathed
ripples into my nerves
that could travel the length of a sea.
she was troubled, eyes blacked out like
empty galaxies and when we fucked
everything
made sense and also
kinda not.
when I lay with her
I wanted to go to heaven
gather everybody up
tell them to shut it down
because something better had opened up.

75

Hunting Season

Visiting Hours
The hospital hall between her and room three zero four was an
unfathomable ocean, each step constituting a thousand fathoms of sinking.
She hadn't seen him since the candles on her birthday cake numbered six and
you could count the years of his absence by the absence of bruises on her
pale white skin. She was very beautiful, though somewhat sad, her eyes hid
the majesty of a mid-autumn afternoon and anybody who spent more than a
moment with her bared witness to the deep and wide scars left by the brutal
abuse of her cruel past. Hospitals had a habit of hiding misery in plainness;
the hall was vacant aside from a disillusioned nurse hugging the corridor
scanning a clipboard, perhaps accessing a patient's troubled heart rate, or
perhaps not, all that mattered now was that the nervous young girl was
nearing her father's room and her own heart rate was spiking something
terrible. Turning that last corner felt like a thousand mile free-fall. There he
was. Not half the man of the monster he once was like a deflated balloon
stuffed with matches and water. She approached him cautiously like a hunter
carefully approaches the carcass of a vicious predator always aware of the
danger in the terrible death throes of a cornered beast. He breathed through
tubes and machines and nothing else and all of the windows in his room
were open as if he were already somewhat in the burning heat of hell. He
noticed her enter through the doorway and went wet around the eyes, waving
the two fingers he had the strength in his arm left to rise. This was a man
who created a very strong argument against the phrase respect your elders, since
all his age really proved was that he was all too adept at staying alive. He had
peace in his heart like the border of North and South Korea; quietly violent
and always on watch. He coughed heavily as if all the pain he had ever caused
others pounced out at once from his throat. The young girl was confused.
She came here with hate in her heart and burning anger on her tongue, but
now that she was here she had no words, only mercy and silence now held
sway in her lungs. And with that the old man wept. He gave notice to his
heart. He shut his eyes and breathed his funeral songs
I will not sleep easy,
my daughter, I know where I belong,
but Id like you to know how relieved I am,
you turned out nothing like the man I was.
I will not ask forgiveness,
I could not make this right,
just know Im so very sorry little darling,
I love you and goodnight.

76

Hunting Season

On The Misfortune Of Wanting Only

What We Cannot Have
You burst into my life
on a sunny day
in a pretty bow
with a freckled face.
We talked for hours
our dinner went cold
you laughed at my jokes
and i laughed at yours.
We traded numbers
and i kissed your cheek
but i never made plans
or even bothered to ring
Because
It is always the love
that falls easy at our feet
that we kick the furthest
and with the strongest swing.

77

Hunting Season

Sad Eyes
crisscrosses
and
red roses
blossomed
on her wrist
as if her skin
were a canvas
for her pain
her sad eyes
like long
stretches
of ocean
I prayed
I had the
strength
left to drain.

78

Hunting Season

Good Book
She had eyes like an opening line in a good book
I was hooked
I could not put her down
from the long kisses she peppered
like warm rain onto my mouth
to the way her hair
smelt like sunflower gardens
and dried apricot.
I dwelled on her every word
searched for meaning between each
godly crafted smile
and elegant movement.
She was all i could breathe
all i could see when i closed my eyes
all i could hear in the music on the wind
but like any good book
I completed her much too soon
when the magic in her dulled
I moved on to something new.

79

Hunting Season

To My Readers
To begin, I would like to thank all of you, my readers, for a reason to write
and breath, which Ive found have become synonyms as of late. I would like
to thank my dear mother who I care for deeply. I would like to thank
Samantha Thompson for the wonderful photography, which covers this
collection, and I would like to thank my amigo Joel Grant for his unsinkable
friendship. I would like to thank Joe Knott for writing this books
accompanying song and Daniel Kelaart for his work behind the desk. I
would like to thank Michelle Lucart for her excellent illustrations and finally,
I would to take this time to tell all of you, honestly, I apologize for writing
the world another book of poetry on very lonely girls, and hopeless romantic
boys, and the love that is seemingly doomed to tear them apart, time and
again, but this one is different, this one is personal, this one belongs to you
and me and I only hope that you keep it close and I only hope that I have
made some kind of very small difference in this strange and crazy world.
Goodbye.

Links
webstore: aboywithouthisfeathers.bigcartel.com
photography: samanthathomson.com
illustrations: instagram.com/michellelucart
blog: afadthatlastsforever.tumblr.com

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