i. i've been praying all week for my shaky bones to harmonize with the crash of the city downpour, but right now they just yearn to collide gracefully with the strong bones of someone who has yet to learn the meaning of 'rhythm'. i ask myself, staring out at the rain, "what does it mean? to conduct an orchestra of chaos? of thunder?"

ii. i've been praying for this grief to be good to me, to solidify my roots, to ground me & make me the version of myself that i couldn't be when my heart was still at its fullest. i can't stop begging for loss to be what makes me before it breaks me.

iii. i've been praying for an autumn angel again, to remember how it feels to be so fragile beneath the cool & careful touch of another that i can't help but shiver / revive / shrivel / fall / die. (one more fallen leaf lain to rest among the others.) maybe this month i will rest again, my ghosts whispering "suddenly" or "finally", knowing it is all the same.

winter
the wreath’s rustle interrupts my sleep. in my dreamy shiver there is lucidity. between my toes there is carpet; I can feel its green, sense its virginal cool as I shuffle across the hall. I have the urge to scream, to tear the milk-matted blanket muffling my fervid anticipation. I hear you, then: the creak of the door, the friction of skin and silk, the sapped wail of youth’s wasted power. starlight pierces the linen curtains and casts my shadow ten feet tall, two feet tall, not at all. I crawl into bed and feel your breathing but it is not you. you are the unbroken hum of the furnace.

spring
the sugared smell of candy fruit depresses my throat and ***** threatens. my eyes search the window for a stranger but only rain knocks; my clothes are still wet, dripping one, two, three on each step. they dry more quickly than the boards creak; more quickly than I can find the storm drain, my translucent skin sloughing off at your touch. you are the static of broken vhs, the rattle of the closet mirror door as it slams, the easing cries through a premature mouth. I scream again, only to feel you in my ears as cotton, in my limbs as rigor. you whisper my name and I turn like a dog.

summer
dandelion seeds litter the dew-fresh yard. sing louder, you say, and I run faster. the wet heat is psychoactive. I trip and fall and you are the grass; you are the mud, the leaves, the water, the worms. you are the earth who protects my knees, careful to keep pristine my blue-jean jumper, careful to capture every moment of fleeting touch. oak leaves sway above. as intently as I gaze at it, the sun gazes at me and my doe eyes well. maybe there is something in them. maybe there is something in them with your crystal reflection, an eskimo kiss to speak what I cannot.

fall
afternoon sun rules my body and becomes blistering, unbearable; I stir, pressing against the heat, pressing your fingers into my skin, seeking to relieve the thrill. steam curls from my eyelashes as they squint to see you through the illuminated dust. it accumulates. you are the sudden cognizance of the windburn on my cheeks, lingering october air sharp behind my eyes, forcing tears I cannot help but to explain incorrectly. you are their singed, sweet-hot puddles in my hair. you are the residue they leave long after your sublime touch made them invisible.

it's just us in this hazy bedroom. me & you, your mouth & my neck. i know that these bruises are the kind only love leaves. your teeth, they sink into my skin like i am a fruit forbidden from your tongue, like i am a fruit you needed to taste even if it meant succumbing to the shame of sin.

but there is no shame here, & i'm only allowed to glow, i'm only allowed to sing (to bleed) when you leave me little stab wounds onto my bare skin with the sharp edge of your canines. with your animalistic passion. & when god turns the other way, my nails scrape your skin, digging through your flesh to search for the paradise that lies underneath. you ask if i have ever felt so holy, & i can only respond with this hot spring of tears down my cheeks & eyes that beg you to devour me.

you stab your way into my fallen kingdom. you wash over my collapsed temples. you bite into my fruit. you cry amen & my choir follows suit.

i.
if i came to you with a shroud over my eyes, would you ask me why i’m hiding? there’s a whole lot of love, you used to say, and i would stay quiet, while my eyes overflowed with the least of it.

i’ve got lessons to learn, i’m trying to escape it. i’ve got a lot to grow, but i swallowed the seeds- hey. will you kiss me again? you used to tell me that the world is our constellation, that we are all dots connected. will you go? or will you craft me into your grand masterpiece, because i’m still waiting.

the best of us lies in between my sheets, in words i can’t say because they burn my throat. i’ve always been good at swallowing **** whole.

ii.
this is where it started: her lips on my neck, her hands around my neck, doors locked, eyes locked, fingers interlocked, then wandering, but then:
     high dives.

and her skin is soft beneath her t-shirt, and her eyes are heavy beneath her bangs, and her body’s weighted blanket as i lie beneath her. some bit of drowning, and i wanna swallow her whole, hold her quiet shaking in my palms, i’ve a palm on her chest and suddenly we’re
                  just gone.

so all i remember is her mouth and her skin and her, and all i want is her mouth and her skin and-

next time she asks if i’m alright, she guides my hands. she leads me to her jannah, to her atlantis. my hands are under her skirt and my eyes are nervous and she tastes the way she did when we were drunk in her kitchen and i ask her what’s okay and she says it’s okay okay. and for a moment i’m all she wants.