a list too long to read

i wish that everyone could
be as intimately excited by myself,
so absolutely infatuated and repulsed
as i am. 

i wish i could erase my desperate 
cries and push my howling laugh and
my ridged bottom teeth that i've grown to love
right back in place of the horrible things
they seem to see. 

if they could taste my tears,
if they could feel my heartbeat under
their cracked fingernails, would they
like me a bit more?
would they stay a little longer?

or would they grow sour, like i have,
and decide that i'm easier to ignore than
i am to love, like a plant that you can't
be bothered to water
(my bedroom is a graveyard)

and i wish i could change
the way
i seem to cry every morning in front
of the mirror just to remind myself that
i can still feel something, or
the way
i seem to destroy every good thing that
comes my way because i let myself
get carried away.

i wish-