shin splints

lover, please don't cry
i didn't mean it
when i stopped loving.

it
was just a test, the same as
last january, last june
nineteen years are enough
to learn how to be abused.

keeping tabs

at one or two a.m. (we're never sure), little things
stupid, dumb and funny things
they pull at me, the muscles off my bone.
have you ever been a skeleton?
i have. i pulled my mouth back and stared
so hard i saw mandibles, crania, my zygomatic arch
and i knew i'd look good in a lab.
under your microscope, in your latex-hands
i knew i would never stop looking good.
but sometimes i think
that's not all that matters.