14th floor on a NYC rooftop

I’m not going to write a poem

rhyming tragedy

it rhymes with, what, suicide?

can you even write about dying anymore or does it have to be

the confrontation of each piece of love

maybe it’d be better if I just quoted Blake

so some of you could relate to the romance of expiration

debating god and byzantiums and who’s gay

leaving behind the trickle of a metaphor

the wanting to be everything exactly like it is

just a literal waste of a flower or a star or a silly explanation

of why you announced your mom sifting through the sand

of why when I turn the corner you’re there like a cadger

without a verb to archive every damn essential life moment

your fake trees and fake silk and fake intersection of need

drive the philosophical cause for a simile

even though I expect to be rejected from every poetry contest

every agent, every piece of sarcasm I could muster

accepting every furrow I slit into my skin

so I refuse to share the deep, dark secret you want

don’t take it personally

that’s not what writers do