...and words still come to my fingertips as i undress you in spirit.

almost-friend, hold me tight and love me true / stare me down, see me as i am: disquieted, patinaed and accustomed to pockets / loose change, a worn copper penny; incoherent, the thrill and lurching sensation of gravity / blooming in my core as i die in my dreams; afraid, for all that word means / of the figs that lie waiting on the branches ahead / ample and pregnant with sweet-rot possibility;

we will labor, singing of light and covalence / until dusk is shorn of its gloomy nightgown / staving off the cold with what tea, what liquid light / the yielding sun could gift our wide eyes: / just ask, darling almost-friend / and i will provide, because…

you are a fawn, limber and knobby-kneed / and i am but a stranger waxing melancholy in stolen glances from afar / as you come into focus in my wood / drinking from my fountains and eating from my briars / leaving me to wonder, “how could i not love such a soul, astute and gentle as it is?” / and so i offer you food and drink because i have nothing else / you could be in want of;

but such things are not for me to behold / and i fear that you will molt your coat as seasons change / the down behind your ears yielding to antlers sprouting like milk teeth from gums / tendering tender for tenacious, grace for gruesome / that you will forget the hands that have proffered to you / sustenance and healing in your darkest hours / for to see others consume satisfies my hunger / to see others delight, my vicarious feast;

in my mind’s eye, you are unclothed and angelic / even with the ophidian basin of your back pressed flat against the tiles of a scalding shower / even with tears ravaging your honest face / here, the masquerade, the spectacle and circumstance, ends / because your rapture will betray your guilt / and we will summit new zeniths hand-in-hand / be baptized, enthralled in the fresh, algid, restless oceans we called forth from the far reaches of our globe / with nothing more than the labyrinth-etched palms of our hands / charting the great floods of yesterday / inking them into the annuls of a friendship (nothing more) for the ages;

celebrate holier mysteries in the anamnesis of that day / we rested upon sand fine as powder, crusted on our knees and elbows / as the ark of our covenant neaped and sprang with cyclical certainty / almost-friend, smile me but one more drowsy floodgate grin / rest your raven-crowned head upon my bare chest / laying in that tender way for eternity / and never again will i ask that wretched question of you: "are you with me?"

no, darling almost-friend: forget me not / because fair weather or poor, my love will remain / echoing truer far and far more sweet / than the oblivious whisper of a forest brook / or the stentorian thundering of an ocean reclaiming what once belonged to it / to know that i am cared for even a fraction of how i care for you is an honor/ and as but a stranger gazing from afar, i promise you this: i will far sooner take myself for granted than you / even should no tea remain to keep us warm, i will hold you till the storm passes / and forever will your name be engraved herein.

the boy scout in you died
when you were 16.
the creatures of the wilderness
of the brush and bramble
the mountains and basins
held vigil at the low-lying ranch with its
wide-brimmed eaves casting shadows
on the lake in the evening light
the viper slithered solemn
the mockingbird warbled wistful
the frog croaked creaky
the monarch flittered fretful

i couldn’t care the way you did
you wanted that freedom because
you were never afforded it
not by the crucifix nor your family
you wanted to be able to go
anywhere, anytime, at your own will
so you logged your 30 hours,
did the lessons
you earned your freedom

i wonder if you’re a good driver:
if you shout and swear like my parents
when cut off on the freeway
or if road rage takes a backseat
to the sheer pleasure of coasting on
highways and night air
breathing syncopated
with your heart beating in 6/8

i want to be in your shotgun seat
no maps, i want to get lost with you
miles? we’ll quantify distance with time:
five hours in any direction,
smug with the knowing that
wherever we’ll end up
texas’s blazing lone star
will still shine overhead

sheaves of hallowed rays gathered
like threshed wheat
sun biting the rolling golden plains
of our faces, mother of pearl spittle
dribbling from my lips in ecstasy
(i could never stop drooling
while napping)
an almost imperceptible
etch-a-sketch grin
betraying your apparent enjoyment

i imagine you splayed on
limestone and shale
toes tickled by mountain water
or balancing on the bow-legged
boughs of some mighty fallen oak
swollen strawberries skinny dipped in
marshmallow fluff
blistering over open fire
mottled black and praline brown
sticky chocolate between our fingers
all in our very own golden afternoon

i imagine your lips on mine in a
humid school locker room
choking back bile and something else
as i succumb to your gnawing
an indomitable wildness emanating
from my skin, fierce, foreign, fickle
like the stubborn shimmer of pollen
caked on my leaden eyelids

i imagine your neck making
sweet amends with mine
carotid against carotid,
lifeline on lifeline
tracing cherry-red capillaries
with fingers that could speak to wood
protruding from carpenter’s palms
soft and creased like origami cranes

the little love you can spare me
broils me alive
what bitterness in my bone marrow
maillard-sweetened as the days pass
burn fast, burn bright kindling
summer eats me alive and it's glorious

i imagine that you fight for this
(because i refuse to fight any longer
for a love that i'll never receive)

your mirth, you sacrificed
in the name of growing up
because you knew **** well
that with happiness came
the certain promise of pain
the boy scout's compass,
the adventure, the calling,
tucked away neatly in a box
and traded for more classes,
extracurriculars, exams,
time spent withering behind screens
more, more, more, something, anything,
to plug the gaps and fix the leaks
because things are better this way, right?
you don't stop because running towards
the unreachable is familiar, comforting

my mother can attest to the fact
that i have no sense of direction
but my heart has always
stood strong and pointed true
i will be your due north, your polaris,
with a quiet majesty rivalling a
thousand sunsets and moonrises
bearing sharp as the bite of june
asphalt on the bare soles of feet

still, even below our tie-dye sky
we found even darker corners
to sequester ourselves in
when threatened with the
possibility of light

i want to share milkshakes with you
in red-white checkerboard-clad diners

i want to stargaze among bluebonnets by your side
the breath of the creek thick in the air

i want to bake cookies upon cookies together
until you are fragrant with butter and toffee

i want...i want...

VIII. trompe-l’oeil

come one, come all
boys and girls
to the menagerie

sip your fill, if it suits your fancy
eat and relish, if you’d like
poke and **** and gawk and gape
oh please do make yourself at home, dear
let this pain and my unspoken words
be your momentary delight

trompe-l’œil
i could never reconcile
real and ruse

make me your canvas
lay your slick brushstrokes
before the paint on my eyes dries

make me your clay
to hold and to touch
master your craft
on my nacreous freckled flesh

make me your cloth
tuck into my glaciated folds
when you feel down
perfumed to hide the rot

pin me up by my wrists to admire
or lock me away with your shame
keep me breathing on
borrowed time and borrowed oxygen
cigarette burn kisses and asphalt smiles

keep the silk on my eyes
that i may see only what you want me to
and learn what it means to play god

you peered down at me
from chiaroscuro temple ceilings
“god or man?”, i could never tell

oh they all want to be me
ashen graphite fingers
worlds bending to my pencil whims
head buried in precal homework
hands tucked into the
holes of our sweaters
fraying laces, scuffed suede skates
swollen ankles, heads through moonroofs
as we coasted on highways and night air

it wasn’t us, but it could’ve been

toasting to our lucky constellations
i let the liquor and brown sugar
burn and stick to my ribs
crystallize into caramel cages
because it got darker and colder quicker
without you, dear
the days swallowed by yawning loneliness
and the fire let me know i was still awake

but it’s hard wearing your heart
on sweater sleeves
splayed out for the world to see

you carved it out with a paring knife
and kept it throbbing with nightstand pills

by law, every process must decay

it is said that which strikes the shell
does not scathe the pearl
but i am the product of imperfections
scraping, gnawing, ripping
like misshapen gears in a clockwork machine

if too, this bloated body was fashioned
by the hands of god

if too, this sickly brown, pockmarked skin
could glow once again

if too, games could remain games
and war could remain war

if too, blood was thicker than water
may these hands be clean

quench your thirst in my fountains
sate your hunger in my briars
dare to **** me dry, dear
(and i will ******* raw)

II.
the boy at the coffee shop
is, in fact, a barista

he whiles away his time
at odds with metal monoliths
coaxing honeyed shots of espresso
from the scalding machines
and honing his delicate craft

his language is one of
valves, gaskets, filters
copper boilers and pressure

his artistry
in the turning of steam knobs
folding froth into rich milk
the pulling of levers
the milling of fragrant beans
the pouring of flowers

he learnt his calling
when he first sipped that
viscous indian coffee
cut with bitter chicory
softened with caramelized cream
and dark brown sugar

this is what he understood, coffee:
input/output, give/take
ratios and recipes
detailed tasting notes
he spoke to the machines
and they answered eagerly

and the barista thought the world
to work the same way...
till he saw the girl at the coffee shop

questions glimmered in her eyes
and sweet mocha laced her lips
she was nothing like his machines
all hopeful uncertainty and "what next?"

she wears her hair in braided crowns
concealing her mica-freckled skin
behind oversized cable-knit sweaters
scribbling in sketchbooks for hours
she too, honing her craft

he is a
chipped porcelain cup
gilded with gold
letting others sip their fill
till the cup is empty
and nothing remains

someday he will
go up and talk
to the girl
at the coffee shop
but for now
he is just
a stranger
longing from afar

forever people watching
and forever watched by people

-wren

I.
the boy at the coffee shop
is a nameless being
with a permanent hold on her

he fills her waking thoughts
with his soft smiles
and brown eyes
light cocoa skin
a sharp contrast
to the white of a coffee cup

every time she's there
he is too
it makes her wonder
if he happens to work there
but in all her time at the cafe
she has yet to see him
put on an apron
and ask for orders

she longs to talk to him
to banter and to flirt
to have a coffee shop au
all her own

but every time
she tries to speak
doubt creeps
into her throat
and stays there

she is a
chipped porcelain cup
gilded with gold
letting others fill her to the brim
till she spilled over the edges

someday she will
go up to talk
to the boy
at the coffee shop
but for now
she is just
a stranger
longing from afar

forever people watching
and forever watched by people

-j.

it was the hooded-sweatshirt, sit-close-and-pretend-you’re-cold, bleacher-seat,
whiskey-and-coke homecoming that you never had when the leaves changed.
but the leaves changed anyway.

the damp grass smelling vaguely like your fireplace as the world got quieter,
your nose in your precalc and your foot tapping and how-many-years-left
of solo fridays, you counted the suburban stars but didn’t tell anybody
how ******* beautiful they were above your head, because they were yours.

when you wore your high school colors, you were cold for real. no pretense
in your shivering, no flutter in your abdomen because he wasn’t gonna talk to you,
and you didn’t really care, you shrugged. but the leaves changed anyway.

and you changed, slowly. grew taller and smarter and prettier and then the
remaining solo fridays shrank to none, and you left. big sweet snowdrifts turned to spring
and you shared whiskey-and-coke with the city, your stars dimmer but abdomen
finally fuller, and limbs warmer and no sweatshirt because you didn’t need one,
and hands all over to hold and feeling all three kinds of love at once.

and then the accidental homecoming, and the changing of the leaves
and the hooded-sweatshirt shivers and knowing you’re so much bigger now than the
suburban stars and the backward glances of the bleacher-seat kids, but the damp
grass still smells like your fireplace and suddenly you’re small again, just for a
second but god that second, you shiver and turn around again. you’re so much
bigger than this but homecoming, this whiskey-and-coke homecoming still isn't yours.