just like a cup of mint tea

he’s just like a cup of mint tea.

he wakes me up and comforts me the same, the same.

he’s a hand on a grumbly tummy, and he smells delicious and fresh and i can’t get enough so i touch his hair and his skin, and i constantly find reasons to put my face into his chest.

i tuck his hair behind his ear and smile at him like a crazy person because he’s all pepperminty and perfect even with his crooked eye and wolfy smile and small hands.

i think he’s so beautiful and he just doesn’t see it and that’s ok because he thinks i’m beautiful and i just don’t see it with my clenched jaw and big ass and short little legs.

he makes me a cup of mint tea because he knows i like that and he knows i like it plain, no sugar, no nothing, just like i like my conversation and sex and people.

you don’t have to tell me something that isn’t true so i will like you. if we are talking then let’s talk. don’t flatter or feign interest – let’s talk about sex and fucking and dirty jokes and what you think about death and god and the bible and cocaine and if you ever tried it, even just once in front of those people and you thought it might make you look cool. you know that song “i took a pill in ibiza“? yeah like that but worse and avicii wasn’t there so you didn’t look cool. talk to me about your dead dad and your dead friends and that time you were gonna blow your head off and how you hate your mom and your body and that one reality tv show everyone is obsessed with.

tell me about horror movies that made you cry and that vintage sewing machine you bought that one time at a flea market in paris but you never used it so wasn’t that a bit weird?

anyways i liked him i liked him because he was real and kind and he was my friend when all my other friends had cut and ran and turned off the lights and didn’t return my calls or my texts even when i was the one that should have been really mad at them and instead they were mad at me! at me? yeah, at me.

well sorry, my father died, and sorry i lost it a lil bit.

i’m sorry i thought i had it handled when i didn’t.

i’m sorry for my hands that twisted into claws when i was lying on the cold kitchen floor with unwashed hair and unbrushed teeth and a cup of mint tea because i couldn’t eat and i couldn’t sleep and i couldn’t do anything other than ache and get shingles and then i ached even more (must have been the shingles)

i’m sorry for the laundry that piled up and i’m sorry for the forks i didn’t wash stacked next to old tea cups and minty tea bags going moldy inside of them.

i’m sorry for the way i yelled at work and made people cry because my grief was masquerading as anger that day and i kinda ruined christmas and made myself look crazy.

i’m sorry

i was drinking mint tea when i went on reddit and asked for a friend and he was there and he didn’t ask for anything in return and that made me want to give and give and give and so i gave and i gave and i gave.

he saw my pain and climbed into that hole with me and sat there too.

and he’s sat with me ever since

he makes me mint tea and asks if i want it and i say yes

yes yes yes i want it and i want you and i want this and i want it all

i want this ocean between us to turn into mint tea so i could maybe swallow it all or drown in it with you or we could drink forever and become mint tea mermaids except the scary ones with big teeth so we can chew away the gristly grief that’s filled both our mouths for a long time and i’m tired of chewing so let’s rip out our teeth with those pink pliers from the craft store instead

i wonder if his father would have liked me

i think my father would have liked him but we won’t ever get to know, but my dad kinda liked everyone, didn’t justin bieber have some lame ass song about that shit or something, fuck off his music sucks anyways

anyways they say the pain of loss gets a little better with time

but i don’t know really, maybe it does

but here i am sitting at my $200 macbook from facebook marketplace and i wanted to write a powerful poem to inspire the feral wild thing inside me and talk about blood and rage and all my sharpened elbows and fangs

and yet i’m writing about mint tea and grief and love

(what like some kind of fucking girl?)

and i’m drinking mint tea

and i’m thinking about grief

but i’m thinking about love too

maybe it’s all the same