kiss me like the ocean
touch each tooth
polish me with your lips
until I am bone white as a beached whale

teach me how to draw
use my freckles as connect-the-dots
use your finger to point out
the many constellations on our skins

show me what melting snow sounds like
lie down with me on these white sheets
allow your hand to fall on me
as gentle as a soundless avalanche

correct my grammar
tell me what’s wrong with this sentence:
how much love can a bad boy share
if a bad boy knew what love was?

listen to the sunrise
chirp back at the birds precociously
then pounce on my chest when I wake
like a cat who steals my breath from sleep

**** me like the tide
drain me of myself
bite my ears like I don’t need them
to hear the jungle of your drumming chest

leave me behind you
call back to me like an explorer
disappearing around the bend of a river
where all I ever hear is an echo of your voice

I found this poem on glass bottles,
sunken like crystalline boats
in the fathoms of my cabinets.

I found this poem at the bottom
of a salt-fringed shot glass.
I have been thirsty ever since

for the words that will raise the dead,
bring back the ones who forgot me,
or drown out memories of my failure.

I can only slur my apologies now.
I can only watch blurry-eyed, raw
in the face, fire burning blistered lips.

I have been drinking saltwater,
dashing my hopes upon the rocks.
My shiny bottles are as empty as I am.

I thought about making a ship-in-a-bottle,
but if I did I’d have to fill all of them
with oars. I would have a fleet.

Instead, I imagine them there. I try
to hide them away from the daylight,
capsize them into the recycling bin.

They haunt me. They float above
the kitchen counters, buoyed trophies
of sadness. I cannot raise their anchors.

I can taste the kiss of last night’s rain,
its touch so gentle, as if my body
were a pond rippling from drizzle.

We humans have a language
we choose not to speak,
a brimming tower of gestures meaning

nothing, at least, until we say them.
Hands that float like foreign syllables,
twitching legs that jitter in time

to the anxiety of others’ conversations.
Posture can hold an argument of its own
the way it makes us sturdy as bronze.

In this darkness, I shake my silence
like a bad dream. I want to be honest.
I want to be a silver thread sown

into this patchwork quilt world. The rain
whispers yes. It says let me kiss you
so that your lips feel like they’re dancing.