after his lips
brazed mine, i understood what
churches meant to saints;
death and rebirth and homecoming and
ease. the artistry of our
flesh meeting flesh,
gentle grassroot heartbeats finding
heaven in the moles on our shoulders, our
inner thighs. he hums a hymn of becoming and i
join the chorus: a
kingdom of quiet wednesdays and
leaving forget-me-nots on my pillowcase to bloom.
murmurous, he sweetens my melancholy; our
naked bodies left bare to the seasons,
over and over again, unafraid. i
part my gracious fingers and
quilt for him a makeshift
rosebush beneath blue eyes and
summery glances. our
testimony is this:
underneath july starlight,
victory is found in the
warmth of our
xanthic chapel; a
yearlong love story left
zen in our delicate rapture

I pine for,
     crescent moons
     and star-peppered skies.

I notice and hear,
     swaying silhouettes
     and whistling night breezes.

I anticipate,
     the expiring hours
     and dew-scented earth.

I only exist in,
     extended silences
     and shattered lenses.

.

Everyone’s faces are folded under the surface of the concrete
I can’t make sense of any of this

There’s a barrier to the plaza
Air blows through
Too fat to fit
So little pieces peel away and litter the ground like skin
Everyone just goes around it

They said it’d be 18 degrees today
But I think it’s going to rain

There is fire in my bones and lightning
in your lungs. When we kiss it’s like
a thunderstorm. Two tectonic plates­
crash against each other and
somewhere in the world starts
quaking. Seismic waves are quicker
than calling. Continental drift is the
earth’s defence mechanism for
commitment. Static electricity, like
miscommunication, is simply friction
in motion. I am crushing sandstorms­
between my teeth, breathing in
hurricanes like oxygen, swallowing
the volcanic ash of survival; to think
we are all made of liquid love and
some will never feel the force of a
tsunami. Sometimes I am stuck
in the eye of a tornado, others I am
spinning in it. Either way, we are a
whirlwind of skin and bone; flesh and
blood; bruises and scars. Laying in
the fresh rubble of our own creative
destruction, I realise, our love is an
oxymoron; a natural disaster; a
phenomenon scientists could only
dream of understanding.

Why am I a joke to you?
No really, because my admiration seems to be undermined
and it’s not because you don’t care,
but that you’ve seen it before.

I’ve told you these feelings many a time
like a book you’ve re-read.
But the words have lost meaning,
my words are dissmissive.
And the whole story is good to you,
but now following the process
just seems completely pointless.

To you, I’m
dispensable.

my stomach is sick, so sick with tears,
like they're filling me up after all of these years
of holding them back, filling my soul
so i suffocate and overflow,
and i want to leave, i want to escape
but there's nowhere i can truly go.

i want to drift into the stars
where it is cold, and so so far
away from this, and i am numb,
and the only thing i feel is from
the soft brush of starlight on my skin
so dull where sadness wears me thin.

i'm worn away, an empty shell,
no matter how i scream and yell
my mouth won't move, it won't obey
i wish i wish i could go away
sink to the floor, sink underneath
sink blissfully into death's smooth teeth,

he'd scoop me right into his arms
and i wouldn't scream, i'd be so calm
and smiling, i would go with death
the sadness cannot reach me there.
But up above, or down below,
right here on earth i overflow.