You’re inside the oil pastels
I stole from that old school
Before the summer of the end
Of our childhood in the suburbs 
Cause your eyes glistened 
That same dark sepia on the box
And I wanted to draw your face
To hang on my wall like a graven image
As some sick form of self expression 

You’re inside a trash can
Set alight on the outskirts
Of this dirty outgrown town
Cause I still wonder 
How many times it took you
To strike a match on the used
Math textbooks and The Velt
That summer when you burned
Them like the Bible or American flag

You’re inside the tiger-red daylilies 
That stand by my bedroom window
Like peeping toms, silent and swaying
Cause I wondered if you were watching
Me move around the empty house now
Undressing myself for a white screen
Or the voyeurs reading this

You’re inside my closet
Searching for some secret
Buried in the Church Camp t shirts
That I never grew out of 
Cause you knew that one day
I’d give up all of your secrets 
For nothing at all aside from
A bag of salt and vinegar chips

You’re inside my medicine cabinet
And right now you’re judging me hard
And you’re wondering what this cocktail
Of technicolor pills is meant to fix inside me
Cause you’re the thing inside me
That I’ve been trying to purge out
By writing letters you won’t read