OPEN-BRAIN SURGERY

excuse me. (i think you're so beautiful!)

excuse me but, i think you're so beautiful—

beautiful like,

stop-you-in-street, you're beautiful, like

can-i-take-you-out-somewhere to eat? beautiful, like

i love you, you're my only one, beautiful, like

love you better than the stars love the glue sticking them behind an orange sun; beautiful; love you like

an orange sun

loves me, beautiful. love you like flowers and fall leaves, beautiful, love you like music, music that sings to me and i for her and us and we,

beautiful chords like bows on gifts, on lips like christmas;

and you say, beautifully,

i make you know beautiful. i

open your top shelf jewelry box to the left of a

bible a hairbrush a love letter

eyes up to what's waiting right

in front of you, slow and steady and taped in some places, scraped in others, threads hanging loose on the sides and stains tracking the covers — sugar-dusted everywhere, split like

pretty milk, crooked death, a nation between them, or an angel's

rough draft of constellations all beneath your eyes —

i make you see the beautiful, reflecting as puddles in a plush ground.

beautiful like

i'm dying or i'm choking

on pinked affections, on cool water ready for

a red-scorched heart

beautiful like

i wanna live inside the palms of your hands. beautiful like a supernova, like a skeleton born anew. beautiful like my good God and his whole universe.

excuse me, but i think you look so beautiful today.