THE UTOPIA HAS ABANDONED THE SIMILE

everyone knows heartbreak hurts like

a bitch. like a motherfucking bastard. 

like hell, like grief, and don’t get me

started on grief. stings like bile, like

bleach, a blackening tooth. betrayal

cuts like a heat-sharpened circular saw,

like nightmarish intelligent spines deep

in flesh. do you understand? the poems

said you would, spoke of the tasseled oaks,

sun-spangled sex and blue nighttime:

either all of it’s language or none of it is.

somewhere a sparrow is tired of song

and longs to say need. a star prays

for hands. where are we headed?

here is the world where loss hurts like

loss hurts like loss hurts like loss.