It kills me, the way the world is.

Literally.

I sat down to write about it, about how
every 15 seconds a woman is battered in the United States
about how a woman is raped every 1.3 minutes, about how
1 in 8 women develops breast cancer
and what I wrote was
I like you.

This is a problem. The world already has
too many of those. I already have too many
of those.

I sat down to write about how
desire and hate killed Matthew Shepard
and when I write desire
I think of you
I like you
my pen sprouts snuggly kittens and spring flowers and
I hate myself for it

I like you so much I had to have
therapy for it
and
I like you so much
I fucked other people
to get rid of it
and the weekend you went to Disneyland
I tried to grow mouse ears
I tried to be your e-ticket
I tried to grow up to be your
full-service hotel except
I won’t throw you out for
using bad words like they do
so if you say
oh, fuck me
oh, god
oh, take me
I’ll take you back to bed

I like you so much this
isn’t in my agenda; I like you so much but this
should be a poem about breast cancer
and I like you so much this
should be a poem about genocide
and I like you so much this
should be a poem about ending capitalism
smashing the state
stating the obvious
getting smashed
to tell you
I’ll fuck capitalism and patriarchy and totalitarianism
to get next to you
I will deep throat my politics
I will get more therapy that I won’t need if you’re near me
because therapy and politics are all about
making the world a little more perfect
when I close the door and it’s you and me
the world is a little more perfect
whenever you smile at me
in a world that doesn’t offer many smiles
the world is a little more perfect
the world is perfect
whenever
I’m with you.