swallow me up in the flames of the fire
betrayal’s cold, but it feels so warm
around the embers
valley submersion
no ask for coercion
i stared at the midnight sky hoping it would burn bright
and ache my bones
to rid of this contempt
to rid of this distaste in my mouth
from your cruel intentions

the devil’s in the silence
in the rush of an arsonist
the devil has a surefire way
of making it gray
of bringing the ire

the bitter lick of the wind
a butterfly flees from the milkweed
a woman is crying,
a man’s bad at deciding
upon that hilltop, as it slowly burns
he turns in his grave
stupid mistake
to singe the small oak trees i grew from my labor
i’ll do you a favor whether you’re a skeleton or a ghost
no one knows

back then we were fighters
hands held instead of lighters
gleaming eyes and joking goodbyes
the house by the water
the transient sorrow
waltzed like a ghost under my bed
calm and collected
now brazenly fearless
relentless ruin in ash crumbling kingdoms in my hand
you left me dead
in the garden
a mysterious labyrinth
blood rushed in faces
scalding heat in the churchyard
i burnt every remnant of you
in hopes of forgetting you

it’s in the burnt wood left behind
the trace of evidence in my mind
the spirit of you lingers

never meant to break you like you broke me
with eyes full of hatred, ferocious fire
i believed in the magic we had
the lasting fever of love
embedded into our veins
you must not have gotten the memo
to be doves above the flood
i can’t blame you for an escape plan
racked of pain  
you were treachery in disguise

masked as a partner, now a liar
with the blame carried on my shoulders  
a dormant volcano made active
with the intent of annihilation
flattening lands with lush beauty
hope has four letters, but it’s impossible to believe in
always on the tip of my tongue
i have pushed beyond repair
almost clinging to the idea of you
still alive, real and believable
why do i fail at keeping—the things that matter most to me?
almost like i’m on the slow road to redemption
but my resurrection continuously forsakes me

it feels like freedom, almost cathartic
there’s fire in me
a phoenix, a bird of rebirth sits deep in my stomach
waiting to fly away

that hour is black
it is the hour to singe clothes, arsonists
the hour to burn houses and towns

that hour for children
to bolt from their swing sets for cover
the hour to board up windows

girls with guns
pistols in sweaty palms
deliberately weaponizing silence

that hour is red
a baleful war fought with ****** fists
sanguine faces flushed

that hour for isolation to prevail
to spread and slither into the crevices
the hour to bathe in ***** waters

cleanliness is seen as abrasiveness  
shadows of girls with guns
vile offspring with foul mouths

that hour is emerald green
months fly past like moths
roots sprout with intensity

that hour for desperation
the hour for skeletons to roam
piles of revengeful bones

the flies are swarming
on corpses

the hour is black in shadows
red in ****** waters
emerald green in dying beginnings

we spent our summers in a daze made up of sugarcane and promises lost in the wind
the heat soared above us, free and untamed
we didn’t ***** our fingers on the thorns
we swung till the sun pierced our skin
sunburnt and snakelike peeling specimens
we danced in the ashes, a feasible effort
baked in our button-ups,
American flag wielders, Jesus lovers
half deceased in a pile of audacity
dresses on girls with the actual embodiment of the word
we were outright outliers on the brink of independence
we were broken, but we felt like stained glass
a beautiful portrait of veneration
they showed our faces to the president and he sighed with relief
some days we laughed until we got sore
under water fountains and jet blue skies that made us forget our melancholy
and sometimes we swore we would never speak again
the sun was burning holes in our soles
we breathed in the smoke, it felt holy in my lungs
we regretted to regret if we would ever lose this charm
but i guess we all figure out, you have to pretend until you’re gone
we were still indigo sparks in the Fourth of July sky at midnight
we saw the statue as it beamed for opportunity
and we smiled back in common courtesy
i even showed my teeth
in the summer we were folk songs
word of mouth enchantresses
flying high above the canopy
we remember when the piano started to weep
the sweat on our brows used to slide down our cheeks
for sore eyes they would’ve looked like teardrops
though time has passed
through a narrow mindset
i still remember how the roads got wet on a Saturday morning
and the sprinklers quit
because their jobs were fleeing
it’s crazy she’s dead now
summer dreams only fade
we lost the look in our beady eyes
i missed the last train to freedom
hearing my name be called by you was like having my heart ripped out in front of me
but for summer she doesn’t recall such a memory
i would’ve loved to hold your sweaty red hand for the last time knowingly
as the season set and invited the breeze
for now it’s just like a reverie
a hazy afterthought
splitting through the atmosphere like a comet
it wasn’t glory, it was gory
the summer sunset stuck in our frizzy hair
we lost the feeling we chased for so long
behind an alley that smelled of redemption and cinnamon
an island lost in legend
a girl with loose intentions
whose fists fight hyperbolic battles
sweaty recollections of a faint moment in space  
a storm weathers
forgiveness is flowering in my palms
and we used to be so good at that

how was the picnic in the wide expanse of country land?
did you cry with your mother and beg her to agree with you?
the garden withers, the flowers wilt
beneath your callused hands

in the pile of firewood, what a sign to see
it was your jawline, sharp and refined
you bled from your eyeballs
blue, the color of your bones

fountain of truth is visited by you
you toss rocks inside, pennies and wishes
do you see the reflection of your firm shoulders in the water that tells no lies?
that one woman on the street corner gasped when you tied your hair back
but you gave her a reason to weep
twiddling your thumbs
you undermined your fragile expertise

you don’t get to be me.

you don’t get to wear my nightgown so you can smile pridefully as i bleed into my knees
you don’t get to use that vocal authority to silence my concern
you don’t get to laugh in spite of my own definitions, confined in your delusions, all happy and carefree
you don’t get to disillusion me into worshiping your inconsistency and make me loyal to your sovereignty
the sky knows you’re lying, the sky knows your smile hides piranha teeth
the earth knows your structure, the earth knows your mortality

you don’t get to be someone like me.

silky skirts and powdered makeup and sparkly high heels
you even start to consider how that makes me feel?
to feel undermined inside my own mind, inside my own fibers of being
twisted force, villainy, how does it feel to surrender to a falsity, a bogus claim, a nonsense meaning?
how does it feel to steal my countryside, my silhouette, my solid truth, my skin, my body?

you don’t get to be me.
you don’t.

even for a glimpse of a minute, when you think you’ve conceived it, it died
the freedom came crawling, came screaming, came then leaving, starting shooting profanities out of the barrel of a gun
you still pirouetted, ballerina in shoes too small for your foot
fireworks went off when you sighed
it’s powerful to sabotage the weak
it makes you the king of hypocrisy

you don’t get to me.

you don’t get to be me.

white lies in a tall cornfield
roll with fallacies in deep wet swamp with alligators
you punched one a few months ago, so hyper aggressive so ruthlessly

you don’t get to be me.

and for a second there, you nearly had everyone fooled
if i hope hard enough, that’ll be how it turns out
everyone will scowl at themselves for participating
adamant with fury, so much so that you burned down the village
resorting to pillage in a mysterious war effort
you don’t get to ransack my belongings and claim them as yours, as yours to claim, as yours to change
up in flames when a simple contemplation becomes your reason for existing

you don’t get to be me.

how sad is it that now my bones are stolen from my coffin to make room for the aspersions that you cast on me?
in decease, there is
there is solace in that

you don’t get to be me.

my skin has red blotches of scaly patches all over my arms and my legs and my face and my neck and everywhere
they dwell as if they own my body and i put a do not disturb sign on my door and i locked the windows and i bolted the door to the moist ground in hopes they would never return
i thought i evicted their jaws out of my property, but they return like an unfinished disease
these skin problems linger and travel like rockets around my disgusting body
multiplying, in deadly divisions, making me claw against my skin, feeling like the human kind of razor blades

and here i am, red and angry and beyond eager to get this over with

i’ve known you more years than you’ve ignored me

the clock ticks into the lonesome hours
hung up on a single midnight prayer
lingering on the lips of a bandit
the strange humanoid breeze stirring the silky curtains
swear i can hear harsh whispers underneath the sheets

elusive, like time
you racing along cemetery roads
rainy fog splashing quickly upon your rosy face
i see a lighthouse glow coming from the depths of your soul
it blinks twice, for help, but when i come closer
the sea turns jet black, with only the moon as a fickle witness
unreliable narrator, strung on the words i’m convinced are true

i remember the phone ringing and my feet sprinting to pick it up
now you hanging up on me instead of the line
the cord snapped off, a strategic static
six different rings and betting that it is you
on the other end,
but instead it’s just ghostly noises and faint memories hung out in the yard like wet laundry

i’m crying the bullets you shot into me
they come out of my pores, into my shaky hands,
and i lose every sense of my existence
it feels rare to belong, so impossible to fit into the correct puzzle piece

the floodwater so murky and enigmatic
the clock ticks and i start to hear your laugh
from the sky
it dives into the walls of this crumbling house,
singing as in amusement or sheer fear

devote my life to migration
moving to places where your feet have stood,
but it’s never permanent
the fire is almost so inviting,
gifting a warmth that no human being ever could
hot coals and embers, but it doesn’t burn
it feels like belonging.

nightgown histeria
soft wavy hair falling as it sways in the wild wind
the peach trees
and she’s vibrant, isn’t she?
wander the halls of the empty house
counters tall, sink’s rusted
blueberries are in the ill-functioning refrigerator
and she inhales the summer wood scent
bark, smoke, and a little cherry.
lush green goes for miles
but she picks autumn leaves.
the shorts gripped to her thighs in the sizzling heat
she grapples with reality
on picnic table squares
light brown baskets bought and borrowed sit upon the blowing grass
creaky floorboards as she moves so briskly, but so sure.
of the holistic nature, she is meant to be perceived
in lavender fields, she hikes up her nightgown as the sun dips down
following the fireflies to her destination
quite possibly her demise
but she is golden like the sun rays
she is bluer than the ocean
but she is untamed, untrained and bold
the literal depiction of moonlight
she’s an attic of great antiquity
with hopes and dreams and reasons to fly in the wind
and it’s melancholy to watch yourself
crumble in a lonely house
left with your fearsome doubts
and it’s pouring rain
and she’s going insane
with her white nightgown now stained with rouge blood
around the heart that she once carved out of her body
to avoid her insanity
guess she climbed up the sycamore
to catch of glimpse of her brother
the sun was setting, fire burning, chimney smoke rising, hazy feelings
she adores this rope swing.