I have been throwing around tolerance
Like a flower girl tosses her petals.
You have taken advantage of it
And learned the wrong way to treat me.
I feel your boots stomping all over me,
Stomping so hard that I can no longer speak.
I am squished, I am flat, I am buried.
The only direction I can go from here is down.

consciousness
we try to recognize the hands that lended it to us
and fear the day when we must return it
but we forget to cherish it, the sacred gift

how could we think, feel, and love without it?
it defines for us what it means to be human
what it means to be alive

Our intimacy ebbs and flows
The ebbs, the drought
It pulls us away from this
Dries us up, we both know

But there are moments when it flows
It pours, the monsoon
We’re caught in the rain
And we’ll stay as long as it goes

Last night the cicadas sang
For us and summertime
Your eyes showed me
The truth in my lies
Your tongue is poetry
It leaves poetry in me

Crazy:
You want it, I’ve got it, I need it.

You’re everything I asked for.
I’m not worried about them;
I only want you more.
They will try to look in and see,
But the windows are foggy,
It’s just you and me.

Pull the knife out, please
I don’t know if you can tell
But you’ve done enough to make me feel it

Stop twisting it into me, please
I know that you want it to hurt
I’ve been hurting for a long time now

When I’m with you,
You swallow the whole world,
Including me.

When I’m away from you,
I want nothing more
Than to be swallowed again.

Everyone’s caught up in things that don’t matter
I don’t care who can shotgun faster
People are dying, there are lives at stake
There is only so much ******* I can take
Complacency chews us up and spits us out
It’s so hard to figure out what life is all about

My arms are sore from trying to reach out to you
The stillness of being loved and ignored
You’ve said you can’t pick up signals
But they are all that I have left

When you worried and said,
“Are you still happy with me”
My heart crawled up my throat
How could I make you think
For one moment that I don’t
Want you more than anything else

I’ve been coughing my lungs out
Hoping that you feel the same way
I’m not scared of dying
I’m afraid of being alone
A life with none of you is the
Worst nightmare I can create

Your sweet rhythm in my bones
Leaves me singing your song every night
I am so lucky to have a beat that
Matches the tempo of my own wild heart

Sometimes
Speaking with you
Is like yelling into an empty cave
All I get back
Are my own words, mumbled

No one desires to be looked at
With a tired pair of eyes:
Grazed over, thrown away.
Everyone desires to be seen
With brand new eyes:
Analyzed, every detail noticed.

Do you see me, love?
It’s been a while since
You first laid eyes on me.
I long to be recognized—
Open up those weary eyes
And you might see again.

when we remember how the
universe stretches itself out,
we realize how close we are.
135.8 miles is nothing, really.

how lucky i am for closeness,
moments against your chest,
in your arms and on your lap.
i would cross the sky for you.

we’ve been chipping away at each other
like old paint falling off the walls
we have become two naked fools
who finally know how average they are

when most things become aged
they are thrown out and replaced
yet for some strange reason
i love you even more than i did before

Where did the questions go?
I have searched everywhere,
On the tip of your tongue,
In the dark parts of your eyes.
No questions, only answers.
Finally, I looked
Inside of your gym shorts.
There, I found it! A care
For me as a human being
But only when my pants
Are on the floor too.

These stiff covers let in so much air
If you wake me up, I won’t care
Waking up to the sun staring back at me
Is the only kind of morning I want to see

You’re looking at me again with those eyes.
I know what they want.
There is no meat left here.
Eat up anyways, hungry boy.
I hope you like the taste of skin and bone.

Looking ahead and realizing
How little I want to follow
The plan I set for myself
I want to pull over at the next exit
Get out of the car, wander
Feel the wind and the sun and the grass
Take my time
Stop thinking
Stop worrying
Stop stop stop

Who invented you,
O critic who reflects
The lies of my body?
Our ancestors searched
for the truth deep
inside of themselves.

Please, mirror, show me
The sun in my heart
The heart in my mind
The mind in my soul
Free me from the
Shackles of discontent.

I tried to take all of you in at once
But you just go on and on
Give me a compass, a telescope, a map
So I can I find the rest of you
I will go to the end of the earth
To know every last bit of you
The good, the bad, the ugly
I want it all and I want it forever

Our ancestors survived
On kindness, generosity.
Sharing their harvests,
Holding onto each other.
Why is it that, today,
Survival is dependent on
Selfishness and power?

You filled my quiet place with smoke
****** throat and salty tears
The silence isn’t silent anymore
Your laughter and smooth words
Suffocation, persuasion
My fingers forgot how to escape
My voice forgot how to say “no”
My lungs forgot how to breathe
Swallowing fire instead of oxygen
And exhaling regret

I believed that I had etched out exactly what I needed from you,
When my grandmother stopped working in the back garden last year.
You misread every feeling that I sent to you across the night sky.
Somehow, you did too much and not enough at the same moments.

Dear God, I pray that I can fall in the crack between and love you the way you need to be loved.

The balance beam between
The strange misery of love
And the peace of anger.
I am no gymnast, but
I cover my limbs in chalk
And climb on again and again.
The falls leave bruises
That will never go away,
But I choose to continue.

She runs into the wind
With the glare of sun
In her bright eyes

You picked up my *****, cracked,
******-up glasses from the concrete,
Wiped them off with your sweatshirt,
Balanced them between my eyes,
And everything became a little clearer.

Laying on my back under the covers
Staring at the popcorn in the ceiling
The sun is peeking through the blinds
The dust is swirling through the air

Feeling the thumping of the broken fan
Breathing in the stale afternoon
The air is rattling through the vents
The pup is snoring through her dreams

Is the ceiling spinning, or am I?
The sun lady says, “Patience.”

When your fingertips graze my skin under the covers,
I forget where my body begins.
Melting into you as the wick touches the
Wax of the vanilla candle in the corner.

Laying on your chest and
Listening to your heart beat
Like the ticking of a clock,
I can feel the time slipping
Through the vacancies
In between our fingers
Like sand in an hourglass

When a fragile thing is dropped,
It shatters and becomes a weapon.

Love, the entire universe is you
Your eyes are in the sun
Your heart is in the moon
Your soul is in the stars
There is no escape from you now
You are everything

Another lonely eternity has passed.

When I see you next, please
give me your warmth.
Start at my fingers, my toes.
Work your way inward.
Go to my shoulders, my calves.
Kiss me harder and take your time.
My *******, my thighs.
Find home and love me until
the sun crawls over the horizon;
when we realize that
the world never stopped spinning.
Life needs you back from
This small, momentary heaven.

Another lonely eternity has come.

Mark my words
Never fall for a heart
Filled with music
They'll turn the car radio
So high that you'll drown
And they'll unplug your
Favorite song without knowing

Sleep holds me as my eyes
Reflect and absorb the light.
I'm driving, sleeping, eating
blind and deaf and complacent.
I am only here when you are here.

I waste centuries waiting.
Finally, you come to me.

Love, take me with you and we'll
Crackle and burn and smother ourselves
Together till the end. You have kissed
Your princess awake from her slumber
And your fairytale has become your own.

But, what of when the night ends?
Am I only alive when you're breathing into me?

I can see the future. Someday
Your stale eyes will glance over
Mine and finally decide that
They're looking for another.
You deny, deny, deny, but
I know what lives inside your
Mind and finds desires that
I have left, unable to fufill.
I'm waiting in limbo, knowing
The What but not the When or the Why.
Therefore. I'll lick up every
Last drop of affection and hold it
In the back of my throat
Because nothing lasts forever,
Does it?

I used the Big Dipper
To scoop the darkest part
Of my universe out
For your eyes only

But you focused on
Orion and Saturn's Rings
And avoided the space
Between the glowing

You, shouting into the crevices of my being.  
Your words bouncing against my insides
like the metallic spheres in a pinball machine,
knocking out what was left for me to say
with small dings that echo in my ribcage
and fill my skull with absolutely nothing

Me, thoughtlessly regurgitating your own voice back to you.
Wasted energy, heaving empty thoughts onto your white sneakers
with small parts of me that are now gone forever, leaving me
with the ***** aftertaste of absolutely nothing

Come here, love.
Let's try to make something
Out of our suffering tonight.

We are two
Dead, dry sticks together
That hope for a flame.

I traced a note on your stomach last night:
"I hope this lasts forever."
The words will never cross the abyss
between my tongue and the world.
The other "forevers" live in the gap;
Only time will tell on this one.

I never want you
To feel sad
Because of
Me

So
I will feel sad
Because of
You

warm weather
fresh flowers in your hair
sweet sunshine on your lap
soft honey in your mouth

first freeze
wilted petals at your feet
leaves through your fingers
grey clouds in your eyes

you'll carry me inside

How much longer will you stay

You have barely touched my wounds
They are awaiting your attention
Many are old, some are new
Trace your fingertips around them
Get to know them
Get to know me

Keep your eyes on every part of me
I'll be embarrassed at first
But grateful in the end
Memorize all of my blemishes
Get to know them
Get to know me

I don't need a hickey tonight
Your marks are beautiful
But appreciate my own
Kiss my scars with soft lips
Get to know them
Get to know me

How much longer

Tell me more of your stories
Stuff them into me until
My existence itself is a reminder
My life
Buried under thoughts of you
I'm okay with that
You can have the shovel

Your brown eyes are my warm coffee
Your smile is the sweetest sugar
Your touch is the richest cream
I'll hold you like my favorite mug
I feel so full when you are here

I didn't understand that
avoiding the truth was lying
until I told you everything
I opened my heart and
you poured yourself into me
Keep going love
Pour, pour, pour

Your hands are clumsy but the look is sincere
Hold me until you understand

He gutted me but you filled me

I am the sea foam slamming into your rocks

The language of my love
Is in my beating heart
The sincerity of my laugh
My fingers in your hair
The sighs in my kisses
My genuine smiles
The nervous stuttering
How tightly I hold you

You are not here
You cannot fully understand
I struggle to translate