I love you in a way that feels against my will
But also in a way that feels part of my design
I love you in a sense that is primal, innate, instinctive
Like we’re a pairing
The pepper and the salt
In a past life, we met on a tabletop in a diner
In another, we met as equals in a rocks glass
***** and orange juice
Sharp-tongued meets bitter-lipped
I love you like someone carved your initials into the trunk of me
With a rusty trusted pocket knife
Like a subtle proclamation
On a landmark that doesn’t belong to us
But serves as proof
I plus you equals forever
I love you even though I’ve resisted
Denied for being difficult
Or too circle for the square
I’d carve corners off of me
To make it make sense
But somehow my rounded corners
Met your angled edges
And now our shape commands room for itself
I love you like I’ve done it before
Habit, practice, addiction
A dog-eared page
I feel you in my spine, fixing my posture to pride
Just how you feel me in your ribs, fixing your spirit to your sins
I love you come sun, or stars, or noontide
My knotty pined boy-
“I love you, despite the parts of you that are complex”
“I love you, despite the parts of you I don’t understand”
“I love you, despite the parts of you that are weathered”
“I love you, despite the parts of you that are unforgiving”
I could never love you like that
Every skin you’ve shed becoming who you are
Every bit of potential you hold in the dream of you
Every version of you that I have yet to meet or may not ever come to know-
I love you there
For they are all extensions of you
And the only thing better than loving you
Is having more of you to love
Then, now
All that you’ve been, are, or have yet to be
I love you in the hours less thought of
And in hours thought holy
Come sacred Sunday mornings
Or weekday convention
I see you in the ordinary
And in the outskirts of sanctity
Do I love you… boy, do I
For how could I not?
Apr 4
Apr 4, 2026 at 11:50 PM UTC
The way we met was organic
“I have a friend, I really think you’d like her”
Meeting you, shy and rosy-cheeked
Falling for you was easy
The way you held the stem of a wine glass like a cigarette
And the way you tipped 30%
Sharing lipstick in the car on the drive to my dad’s house
Splitting appetizers
Exchanging laughs like currency
Our home, filled with warm candlelight and perfectly placed pillows
You let me paint the kitchen green to match your eyes
Heart of the home - where love translates to a plate
And oh how I love to satisfy you with a perfect bite
We make pasta on Sundays
You teach me how to make sourdough
I, the chef, and you, the baker
We buy flowers at the farmer’s market on weekends
You pull over on the highway to get a picture of the orange painted skies
Sternum to sternum
You hold me like a secret
But you speak of me like truth
You trace the scars on my spine like brail
Reading, learning, understanding me
Forgiving the claws that left me this way
I claim the corner of your collarbone as a safe place to rest
I braid your hair while we watch movies
My father loves the way you root for the Broncos
And your mother loves the way I root for you
We take turns dealing with the spiders
Never killing them
Always returning them to the Earth
Because our love is gentle
Because our love is merciful
Because our love is so generous, we must pass it on- even to the bugs
We smile at the young boys with their hands interwoven, tied in knots
We ignore the disapproving glances when we kiss in the produce section
Violets in a jar on your nightstand
Your favorite sweater drenching me in your scent
Amber, honey, and soil
From tending to the peppers in our garden
Sometimes, the basement floods
Sometimes, our plans unravel and laugh at us
Sometimes, the heavy stones make their way into our pockets
Never dissolving
Always, together
For what is love if not enduring the many shapes of cruelty-
Simply for the sake of being the one who gets to unzip your dress
And bearing witness to the crow’s feet that grow each time I have the pleasure of making you laugh?
Dec 28, 2025
Dec 28, 2025 at 12:01 AM UTC
I love to gaze above me
The sky abundant with orange and pink and blue
Right around 8 at night, I watch the colors deepen
As heaven prepares for darkness
The ending will always be the least favored part of such a performance
Even though it is expected
And just when I prepare for my own darkness
A starless sky
An encore emerges from the clovers, the grass, and the gardens
Fireflies
Here to say, “if only you’d look down- you’d see there are stars here, too”
Jun 5, 2024
Jun 5, 2024 at 9:46 PM UTC
I drank you in like you were a Paloma
Bitter, strong, hot in my gut
Something about you tasted like vacation
Something about you made me feel like I should chase you
With a lime
The salt on the rim and the salt in the sea- both cleansing and burning
Paradise has a slow death
It lies stagnant while I pack my suitcase
You chose to get lost here instead
Wherever I go, I'll always know
I kissed you the same way the tide kissed the shores
The same way my lips kissed the rim of those Palomas.
Aug 9, 2018
Aug 9, 2018 at 9:33 PM UTC
After she fed her flesh to the beasts
All that remained was bone
Even still, they picked their teeth with whatever was left
Until she was merely a rib wedged between a thirsty canine
Here lies the framework of the unchaste
Cracked clavicles scattered amongst the copper pine needles
Her fragmented femurs discarded into the frozen autumn saplings
With every passing sunrise comes another fallen leaf blushing with winter's approach
By the first snowfall, the outline of her has already capsized into the mire
One day
Spring will drape himself over the soil
Gracing the morning with a promise of enrichment
She will emerge newly entrenched
Diamonds of ice will thaw to reveal her cage dusted with florets
And she will effloresce, reborn
With her face towards a sky of entrancing tomorrows
The shadows shall cascade behind her
As she reforms into a kind of brave even the evergreens grow envious of;
An entity so free, that even the wild things will lose their appetite
Nov 13, 2017
Nov 13, 2017 at 5:48 AM UTC
I felt him the way I exhaled and destroyed the dandelions.
In the summer sun, everything was beautiful.
But by morning, I was covered in weeds.
With the rain, came taller grass
And heavier stones
And braver trees
And enough mud to sink into
To give back the life I shook by breathing.
Oct 26, 2017
Oct 26, 2017 at 3:38 PM UTC
Once, there was a balcony your body clutched like a tree limb
But there wasn't enough inertia in your heels
There wasn't enough sorrow in your heart
There wasn't enough of a gust to send you over.
Once, there was the earth my body burrowed into like an urchin
But there wasn't enough soil to cover me
There wasn't enough gravity to immerse me
There wasn't enough wanderlust to keep me digging.
More than once, we had sighed in the glow of a lonely moon
We had misconstrued misfortune for opportunity
And we had became immune to the idea of repose
More than once, we tasted salt; in tears, in seabeds, in seared skin of the heart
We felt faulted, in both spirit and in brooding sincerity
We thought the worries we were haunted by were causeless
We've bared scars on our palms from digging
From gripping on to any bit of the world to stop it from spinning
But when our fingers interlace, and our wounds overlap, you will find a map of home.
Once, we were on a balcony with a bottle of bourbon.
A gust of faith was enough to push you off the edge
A surrender was enough to unearth me.
And together we drown into the pool of how beautiful it is to get lost in vulnerability.
Mar 4, 2017
Mar 4, 2017 at 6:19 AM UTC
There is a rusty I Love You in this hollow voice of mine
Like an old record in the jukebox in the corner of the tavern
I dust the binds of time off my skin and I spin wrecklessly
For you.
The Irish whisky croons how relentlessly your heart sinks into my sound
But the sober croak of morning deems my heartstrings out of tune
Cracked, dry
Yet still I sing,
For you.
Still I spin
And spin
Until dizziness is all there is
Because you turned my hum into a rumble
And although you're not drunk enough to drown in my melodies
I'll compass on this needle
Until the stars stand still
Until the stars lie silent
Until our symphony is the only echo we know.
Apr 25, 2016
Apr 25, 2016 at 7:50 AM UTC
I found it in the way my name stumbled out of your mouth like it had weak ankles.
Almost like it had been stuck in the hollows of your cheeks.
But it wasn’t stuck.
Just lingering.
I found it in the way you unfastened the brass buttons down my spine and slid the tough skin off my shoulders, like a wool sweater I never grew into.
Almost like I never knew how sticky and hot my woes were.
Until I saw them piled on the floor right at my feet.
The chill of the air hitting my bones.
I found it in the way you unraveled my grief, and used the same tattered thread to hem patience into your heartstrings.
Almost like the fabric of my intricacy kept you warm.
You and I.
The same cross-stitches of unvarnished truth.
I found it in the way you uprooted the weeds nestled in my soul to make light for the marigolds.
Almost like you always believed in my potential garden.
Despite the monsoon rain and my uncanny inability to tend.
There was always room for growth.
I found it in the way my hands extend towards you, until my fingers coil into vulnerability.
Almost like I sought solace in the holes of your palms.
Being entirely, immensely, forever
Tangled up in you.
I found it in the way the fog draping my irises lifted when your kisses graced the corners of my eyes.
Almost like you unveiled a galaxy of color I never knew I painted.
Brushstrokes of clarity.
A reverie of us.
I found it in the way you delicately dismantled all my fragments to polish them.
Almost like you salvaged me from my own wreckage.
All this time, I dreamt I was wandering.
But I was undoubtedly misplaced.
Tucked away in a wrinkle of solitude.
Until you, my love, unearthed me
And in return, I found my heart;
A vestige of our pearl in the oyster.
Nov 6, 2015
Nov 6, 2015 at 2:17 AM UTC
The clouds are the same shade of purple as her bruises on her knees
From stumbling around
Drunk. Always drunk
The sky spits on the roof of her top floor apartment
Heavy rain leaking from little cracks and corners of the ceiling
There's a *** on the kitchen floor
A bucket on the bathroom counter
An old ice cream tub on the couch
All collecting the steady drip from the walls
Sometimes she kisses and feels nothing
Sometimes she kisses and feels her ribs crack open
Most days, she feels hollow
You can see her, a smoking *** of boiling water
Her blood bubbles boiling to the top
Rusting thrift store cookware flooding onto the floor
Even after you empty all those buckets
They will always fill back up
**** I wish it would stop raining.
May 2, 2015
May 2, 2015 at 6:24 PM UTC