My heart is an orange peeled,

bringing scents of sunshine everywhere.

It grew up in the summertime.

Not clockwork but wild,

with vines trailing sideways

reaching and running

until they hit something they can crack though.

I am insatiable and I'm holding on to a ghost

but that's another story.

Right now it wants to give you everything

you've ever thought you'd needed.

Blossoms and seeds

held in a fist you've made

and I don't even feel

confined. I don't mind.

This isn't about you

and it couldn't be about me

I'm just a tool used

in an attempt

to do anything gentle

that a summer fruit is capable of.

You've become more

than the sum of your parts

and I hope you'll think

to pocket these seeds and bring me along

for whatever unreal

dream of a journey

you're going to start on,

via the hands

of those who love you

and turn the wheels of creation

just to see you smile.

I'm happy patching holes for others

the ones in myself can wait.

'Cause doing good for you

doesn't get you very far

if you're smugly sitting cross-legged

by yourself on someone else's lawn.

So I work for other people

asking them what else I can do.

Really, please give me one more thing,

A labor I can complete with love,

and certainty that the traces I leave

on a person or room when my fingers

aren't busied by their objects

will be more than they were when

they were with me. Or at least

longer lasting, not a thin veil

of wavering sensibility

that couldn't really affect anyone

unless it was keeping them from breathing.

Maybe if I let myself go a little soft

you know, loosen up a bit, stop caring as much,

then everything else will follow from that.

Soft is a good word. Nice and warm

Not weak or offensive or tired

just simple and yielding and there.

Soft just is.

I'm so goddamn lonely.

And I can't just fucking let go

and be among people, as peers,

or as friends

that could possibly take me

to be anything other than a base

immoral

immature

bitter

sarcastic

profane

unattractive

rough hewn patch of a person.

I don't give them a chance

so why should I ask for one in return?

Warm bodies to stand in for friends.

I just want their representation there

for me to turn to and smile at

sincerely, but emptily.

I'm just getting along

until the next time my hibernation ends

and everyone else crawls back in their caves

right as I'm emerging.

What even is winning. It's cold.

I have a right to be sullen

I have a right to be a lot of unpleasant things

that I complain about other people being.

I don't mind that these things contradict each other

because they're both true.

I hate them, and I sometimes hate me.

But that's the way it has to be

if I'm going to be happy and free

inside the tyranny of my anger.