Sudden cold or the sudden sense of having been cold for a long time

He said he was getting back some things that had been lost like what

Love oh great looking out across the river he wouldn’t meet my eyes either

Something flashed up and fell back down into the water there look no

I told him about the time I saw them feeding the crowd up out

Of the dark water of paler mouths opening closing like what

Getting the strength to say lost he was beautiful the play

Of that muscle I make you tense don’t I just under the tan skin of his jaw

I keep coming back to the surface that river your wrist I must have

Pressing my mouth I can’t look at your hands thinking of how you

Touched me hurt you a lot love like what those memories

Saying you’re wearing mallard colors after I chased to frighten

For no reason the ducks because I can’t stand still enough if I could

I would be so still you would think I would never hurt you

Screaming what was her last name what was her name

The wind-scarred surface of the water

What I'm not allowed to feel what I’m not allowed to say pressing up

As though feeding my heart is everywhere under my skin

And rising up to the surface of the water clenching and unclenching

The thick grey muscle the dense shoal of fish brought to just beneath

The surface the grotesque bouquet of their rapidly blossoming and

Shutting the crowd but as if behind glass so there was no sound

Of people screaming I feel helpless and cold saying please believe

I did not mean to hurt you you could say that to me too in Orphée

The poet presses against the mirror which wavers like water which lets him in

^{Answers crowdsourced from the author’s Instagram. Italics denote direct quotes.}

Absent parent(s) 
and the man who made me 

mistrust every man after. 

I haven’t earned it yet—
what is love if not a salary? 

The sweet treat we get 

for being demure.
It feels too selfish,

too vulgar, unladylike 

to gorge myself
on the moist cake of it. 

I’ve got bad credit, 

a prettier sibling, a rank 
history of mistakes,

each one more foul 

than the last. The timing
was all wrong. 

The timing was right 

but I was afraid 
of losing it.

I am disorganized.

My brain is broken, 
and it was stuck on something 

I thought was love.

I’ve spit out it before
just to prove that I can.

I believe I am ugly.

and in the end, 
it’s just easier this way,

familiar as a callous, 

tongued over like 
a cracked tooth:

suffering feels cleaner, 

because if I start to believe
I actually deserve love,

I’d have to find 

unacceptable all 
those incapable of 

giving it.

A month or twain to live on honeycomb 
Is pleasant; but one tires of scented time, 
Cold sweet recurrence of acceptance rhyme,
And that strong purple under juice and foam 
Where the wine’s heart has burst;
Nor feel the latter kisses like the first. 

Once yet, this poor one time; I will not pray 
Even to change the bitterness of it, 
The bitter taste ensuing on the sweet, 
To make your tears fall where your soft hair lay 
All blurred and heavy in some perfumed wise 
Over my face and eyes. 

And yet who knows what end the scythed wheat 
Makes of its foolish poppies’ mouths of red? 
These were not sown, these are not harvested,
They grow a month and are cast under feet 
And none has care thereof, 
As none has care of a divided love. 

I know each shadow of your lips by rote, 
Each change of love in eyelids and eyebrows;
The fashion of fair temples tremulous 
With tender blood, and colour of your throat;
I know not how love is gone out of this, 
Seeing that all was his. 

Love’s likeness there endures upon all these:
But out of these one shall not gather love. 
Day hath not strength nor the night shade enough 
To make love whole and fill his lips with ease,
As some bee-builded cell 
Feels at filled lips the heavy honey swell. 

I know not how this last month leaves your hair 
Less full of purple colour and hid spice, 
And that luxurious trouble of closed eyes
Is mixed with meaner shadow and waste care;
And love, kissed out by pleasure, seems not yet 
Worth patience to regret. 

I know I have been happiest at your side; 
But what is done, is done, and all’s to be. 
And small the good, to linger dolefully,—
Gaily it lived, and gallantly it died.
I will not make you songs of hearts denied, 
And you, being man, would have no tears of me, 
And should I offer you fidelity, 
You’d be, I think, a little terrified. 

Yet this the need of woman, this her curse:
To range her little gifts, and give, and give, 
Because the throb of giving’s sweet to bear. 
To you, who never begged me vows or verse, 
My gift shall be my absence, while I live; 
But after that, my dear, I cannot swear.