Tilting and turning, my perspective slightly shifting.
Questioning what’s happening.
Hating that for a moment I trust your intention
More than
Every bit of myself,
A strange shuffling that sounds
Like a collapse,
I don’t understand deep inside my self,
I clutch my chest,
But I ignore it, eyes low deserting my
Self-respect.
Trying to process feelings from my stomach
In my head.
You lied about listening to the silence,
This one was screaming broken by past violence,
Perhaps that’s why I felt like crying.

We go on like we don’t know,
Like I can’t taste the acidic tension,
Like you were to deaf beyond empty chatter
To hear the shatter,
Of my fragile trust, the slow dyeing of my gentleness.
Pleading with myself to let it go,
To carry on like I shouldn't know.
Wishing it didn't feel like lying to never let it show.
But I was shrinking, and shifting, and hating myself
Because it happened and it was me.
Because it happened and it was you.
Because I was nearly silent,
And it breaks me up, to hear you crying.
*** I only want to bring you higher,
Don’t let yourself become a regret
And I won’t become,
Everything I should have said.

Nothing matters,
I’ve seen you,
All the movement and stillness,
All the serenity and forgiveness,
All your health mixed in with the weakness
In your walls. I know
The texture of half the scars
On your tender heart.
You can have whatever you like,
You deserve so much more,
Than I could offer,
You are so much stronger,
Than I can explain,
You can take up space in my heart
If you wish,
Fill this distance with want of a kiss,
You can have my hesitation,
My trust.
You can have my aspirations and my lusts.
You can do with them whatever you like,
Please, though, please don’t cry.
Never cry.

Her name is Tiffany.

We met when

our orbits collided

                                  and crash landed,

on a wooden picnic table

                       in the dead of night.

I saw the world in her eyes—

and she had this spirit about her
       that made me want to follow
                her with an umbrella
                       the rest of my days
                             so she wouldn’t
                                    even be
                                      bothered
                                                by the rain.

I swore, I’d make her believe in                        h u m a n i t y.

Conversation, spit-balled from her lips like a machine gun

trigger stuck—

we tore through topics

                    like bullets tear through skin,

I tried my best to keep up.

We dead ended on the subject of children.
She grew silent, pale.

                      “I should be the mother of twins” she stammered.

I’ve been told I have quite the poker face, but in that moment

                                                                               I know she saw.

Turning her head as if to answer my unspoken question

“Miscarriage”
                        she breathed.

I spent the next however long soaking in her story, like a sponge.
I could tell,
                               she doesn’t do this often.

I have no respect for fathers who stain the honor of father
with a ******'s blood.

For boyfriends who can’t hear the word “No.”

over the sound of their
                                          d e s i r e.

These men painted her the color of smashed hymens.

On her wedding night,

she won’t forget.

She can’t give                                            what’s been stolen.

She finishes.
I exhale—breaking the silence first.

She looks at me, with all the innocence they must have stolen from her,

and i wonder

if she can

hear me

b r e a k


This, is the kind of story you read about.

I had no words to fix her— I couldn’t fix her.

All I knew was I wanted to sear my flesh and

m
   e
       l
         t

into the crevices of her broken self

and convince her

It will be okay.

“I swear, I’ll make you believe in
**h u m a n i t y.”

It’s a deep blue, with ties and lace,
Silky smooth, it reminds me of a reflection of the moon.
It looks like anticipation,
It tastes like wanting and yearning,
It looks like the water that starts the fire.
That starts your desires burning,
Clothing marked by lust and worn in trust.
I wish  I could see your face when I slipped into it,
Or when I slipped out of it,
If I could get you alone,
would you moan?
And then my heart stops and the tears flow
And I remember..
that its just sitting a crumpled mess on my floor
Sitting a reflection of my own cold distance,
His cold indifrance
And I am here I’m alone
And not for lack of wanting
someone here to show.

I woke up today,
And for the first time I didn't miss your smile,
I didn't cling to my tattered pillow and think
Of my cheek on your rising falling chest.
Never once did I think you’d be my best.
I can’t remember your smell, or the exact texture
Of the fire in your hair.
I can’t remember a lot of things,
And that feels just fine.
I woke up today finally feeling all right,
And free like a fresh start,
With healed scars
Where an entire existence used to be,
To be honest I woke up today,
Feeling lighter, free.
I woke up today to find
My heart belongs to me.

I am tempting, intoxicating,
Admittedly I know I am so,
With all my edges exposed,
All my light, my darkness spill
In radiant hues around me.
I’m all those memories of heaven,
Of hopes and dreams and things
Lay to rest by my rational dissection,
mourned over by my quivering emotions.
Bad luck I suppose that I saw it coming.
Placing myself and so your eyes, onto ground level.
For perspective, for stability.
Why then do you appear disheveled?
Eyes wander, fingers pacing, lips bit with anticipating,
Torn there in your quiet reverie,
When I’ll lend any part of me to keep you together?
You shudder, at the thought of my touch, the words I mutter
Its true I lust, you lust.
You, like me, are irrevocable,
You exude humanity,
Your light sprays and twist over your dark pool,
I want to reach out and touch you
If  he exists, forsakes you, then know this,
I’d rather burn in the fiery pit eyes bright
Than miss my life, myself, this chance, your kiss.
No matter, I refuse to be but brighter.
I’m sorry your not sure,
I’m sorry you don’t know like I do.

I'm suffering through my own frustration,
I miss the feel of a physical connection,
The feeling of soft lips lightly pressed,
Of hearing heartbeats and rising breath,
I miss being close to bliss when hands brush
I can’t deny my body yearns to touch
I think of who I am and who you were
And how every day I’m more alone.
How can it be wrong that I want to fall into someone,
Someone who can for at least a moment see me,
Trust me, kiss me, free me.
I just miss being Wanted and felt,
I miss
Being
kissed.

If I’m being honest,
whenever we speak and you let truth
breeze through your pursed lips

you
move
me.

Move me like an earthquake rumbles the earth
when it dares show off its beauty.

Speaking with you is like reading a book backwards
there is no need for exposition—
i hear my smile in your rustic voice,
and if I ever traced my pale fingers
along the maps of your mind
it’d feel like
home.

I’ll be your resolution.

I want to write love letters
d
o
w
n
your arms
so you’ll finally learn the truth about yourself.
Paint your future on the inside of your eyelids
so when you close your eyes, searching your soul
for something worth living for
you’ll be reminded
not to hate yourself so much.

Every sigh your battered spirit releases
I promise, I will swallow it whole.
Let it dissolve in the pits of my stomach
and call my soul now to stand.
I want to keep you close.
                                        Come closer.

You
You’re an internal conflict
just waiting to erupt.
Fire and water
drop in your gut
like Armageddon.
You are too big
for your own skin.
u
  n
   w
    r
  a
v
e
l

it is beautiful to overcome
in a world where
struggle is just a synonym for
weakness.
Be solemn in a world that
has forgotten how to value silence.

You hide behind abstraction
but i see you come alive
on stage.
you just want someone
to stick around long enough.

I aim to bring you from behind
the walls you cower,
tell you that
you are the most beautiful
combination of DNA
if only I could arrange the
twenty six characters of the alphabet
to do you justice.

You just want someone to figure you out.
Don’t give up hope.

I’m desperately trying to.

I am from paradise

which never failed to include rainy, cold summers

and heatstroke winters.

Where mountain ranges were as small as pebbles,

and pebbles,

were only meant for skipping.

I am from that spot in the sunset

where the

rustic oranges meet up with the rolling blues of the ocean

and have coffee.

Where endless meets infinity

and everyone wears ugly Christmas sweaters.

I am from where Harriet Tubman

and Nat Turner type dreams take root.

Where black and white meet to make purple,

green, and everything in between.

I am from where dreams fly

and people never stop laughing.

From two way conversations with strangers

and love letters instead of obituaries.

I am from here.