antony and the johnson's "the cripple and the starfish"

Mr. Muscle forcing bursting
Stingy thingy into little me, me, me
But just "ripple" said the cripple
As my jaw dropped to the ground
Smile smile

It's true I always wanted love to be
Hurtful
And it's true I always wanted love to be
Filled with pain
And bruises

Yes, so Cripple-Pig was happy
Screamed " I just compeletely love you!
And there's no rhyme or reason
I'm changing like the seasons
Watch! I'll even cut off my finger
It will grow back like a Starfish!

robert hass' "poem about the body"

The young composer, working that summer at an artist's colony, had watched her for a week. She was Japanese, a painter, almost sixty, and he thought he was in love with her. He loved her work, and her work was like the way she moved her body, used her hands, looked at him directly when she made amused and considered answers to his questions. One night, walking back from a concert, they came to her door and she turned to him and said, "I think you would like to have me. I would like that too, but I must tell you that I have had a double mastectomy," and when he didn't understand, "I've lost both my breasts." The radiance that he had carried around in his belly and chest cavity -- like music -- withered very quickly, and he made himself look at her when he said, "I'm sorry. I don't think I could." He walked back to his own cabin through the pines, and in the morning he found a small blue bowl on the porch outside his door. It looked to be full of rose petals, but he found when he picked it up that the rose petals were on top; the rest of the bowl -- she must have swept them from the corners of her studio -- was full of dead bees.

excerpt from shane koyczan's "if"

Because if if had anything at all then I was not pushed and I did not fall, I jumped out of grace and I landed on my face because there was no safety net...

But don't draw a chalk outline around my body yet because if if had anything at all, if I was in hell I'd still give you a call because even if this is the greatest poem that I ever wrote I'd still have to write a little sidenote saying, 'It is not enough simply to say I love you.' That kind of shit just ain't gonna do, because if the universe has no beginning, has no end, has no bottom, has no top, I would jump from somewhere, I would drop through infinity, because I'm not just saying I love you.

I'm saying I'll never stop.