embrace me

drizzle syrupy whispers in my ear
press powdered lips to the back of my neck

your candy shell around my creamy center,
our licorice legs twirl together,

drift to sleep on egyptian cotton candy


I can't sleep

but I'm not sugar high
when we kiss I taste aspartame

sweet, but artificial
still, so close to the real thing

or maybe I just can’t tell the difference?

See me now,
So you can’t picture me later.
Let the blue light move across my vinyl skin.
Trace the slew of whispered pros down my spine,
too soft to hear.
Pull my hair until you tear out the pages that I won’t read you,
Because I won’t read you.

I’m fine with watching the movie and never reading the book.
Maybe skimming the first few pages, then leaving the rest to collect dust on the nightstand...
Without so much as a bookmark.

For now, our legs on cotton sheets are moving on the screen.
A flash of images refracts into our minds,
only to be lost by next week.
A predictable plot.
No suspense of a next chapter.
No rich velvet of ink on our eyes.
They say the written word is dead,
But I don’t know…
maybe someday I’ll try to read something…
But not tonight-

Hit Play.

I’ve been covering my feet  
In time’s dense clay,
Stuck to a mountain side.

I’ve been curing underground
Sitting on my knees,
Going dormant.

I’ve been hoping one day
I will dissolve into
The volatile components
That I’ve buried
And the eruption will
Disintegrate the covers from
The bedrock that I can’t seem to get out of
In the morning

I’ll pull dead things out from boxes in the ground,
I’ll let their rotting corpses be seen,
And churn them into compost with earthworms,

So I can grow.

The place where I live
Floats on a lake
Where wind feels the same
As an earthquake,
And the water never freezes
Only marries with the sky
As they drown in each other.

We trudged through steep snow as it melted,
And you caused avalanches with every step,
You teared apart entire forests,
While I was too busy walking to notice...

The water is smooth opaque turquoise,
Just like in the pictures you showed me,
As we stand on a rock at the water's edge,
You take my hand and ask me to jump;

Then wind rages through the valley of us,
And the ripples of clear remind me:

Smooth are waters with no depth-
Bellow is only a shiny surface,

Where nothing breathes.

I fear that inside
I’m made of silver halide
I can’t risk exposure,
so my pupils go wide

as they thirst for light
in this room sealed tight
while lusting and longing,
for my dark to turn white

and print on my brain
black and white frames
of a moment in time,
that will always remain.

But a moment of light
means I must let some in…

I'm sure my development
can never begin.