poem: I do not want to mistake another boy’s kindness for love

Welcome To The Bottom of the Erotic.
The Mood Swings
Pure Chemical Hormone.

I lose skin and I
am watching the curtains
make double-colors:
the red too fresh, too fake
the black like insomnia,
the artist’s friend, climbing in
for psychotic kicks.

I make my reflection in crescent nails
I find that
(once again)
I am knocked into a caricature
of a caricature:

girl waiting
des
per
ate

we are the archetypes, sitting behind finished
portraits, waiting for the hags to confirm
what we knew first. how exhausting
it will be to exist
for another forty or fifty years;

I am not suicidal but I want
a break from my head, a break from
the false things that go mad
when I am not looking, when I am trying
for peace.