Look down.
There’s a whole world below,
dug out and timber-framed,
mapped and named.
Its tunnels stretch for miles
under the mountain.

Once it shook with blasting,
screech of train, and whistles.
The coal was iridescent blue.
Headlights on a curved track
burst like shooting stars
out of the deep.

That mirror world is dark now.
The men laid down their tools,
and took the mantrip
to the surface, home.
In the quiet,
hear the mountain sigh.

darling, don’t bother buying roses
uprooted, torn from the fertile, nourishing earth
they only wither away, glazed with the mourning dew

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...

I. quinine and honey

His fight and fierceness
are unrivaled
inviting
like the solace of sleep
to the freezing

addiction, dependence, provocation
i’m washed in the tide
of His everlasting breath
plunging out in rimy clouds
he reached out
and thawed me,
hands interlaced
if only for a moment

i take in His body,
the unleavened bread:
delicate, diaphanous
caramel skin
dappled with freckles
stretched taut over a
light but athletic frame

doused with
mulled wine
an earthy sweet redolence
of spice, sour cherry,
fruit and florals,
smoke, and amber resin

reminders of those cold,
firelit winter nights
flannel button-up pajamas
rosy cheeks and cracked, swollen lips
strong pourover coffee and
steaming jasmine white tea
at five in the morning
when i would shiver
and He would hold me tighter
we were so happy we were afraid

i run my fingers
through His silken
sun-softened sable hair

His heart, however,
holds sentiment
incomparable to my votive
there is only Him

sometimes
even the quinine
finds itself too bitter
that it may yearn for
honey
to drown
it

II. alpenglow

hushed white
first snow's plush
duvet

inimitable beauty
euphoria
in the florid incandescence
infinitely faceted fractals
a conflagration:
fire on the mountaintop,
oh, these halos in the umbra—
roving alpenglow

paper birch
trembling aspen
bent by sheer roiling passion
into a piazza passageway
leading to Our
cloistered
crystal
kingdom
come

an icy, sharp chemical-like hint
of taste lingers
at the back of my throat
a steady stream of
tears cascading down
my face

i lie on the fallen down,
a snowy duvet under a yielding sun
that gifts the little light and warmth it can

crackling paris green
and steaming water
She does not watch us here

Our breath is one and the same
why are your hands so cold?
You whisper
my beloved philtatos,
they are but a mark
of the rites of passage we endured
and a youth idealized

understand
that i am a worn letter lost
burnished ink that once clung
to a burnished nib
on deckle-edge ecru paper
embossed with gold and filigree
do you dare to open me?

III. clay feet

the metal nightingales
chirp their heralding serenatas
realizing every lucid daydream
and smelting away every plastic
contingency

to part the molten
gold in Your eyes
is to tempt Fate
but you are Achilles
and i am your patroclus
i will lay down my pride, my life,
every ounce of my being
for You

You shall sit atop pedestals
adorned with bas relief acanthus
conquest and compassion
life and death
ashes to ashes, dust to dust
i will exalt You and Your pride
and wash Your clay feet

You are my first musing
in the morning
and final contemplation
at night
twice and three years
of abstinence
make my body whole and clean

IV. dawning at the sanctum

We were arms and legs,
ruffled pillows and
twisted blankets
bare writhing bodies
reflected in a warped carnival mirror
glowing embers of a fallen star
Your strokes
tentative and wavering
in an unsteady tremolo

find me where the shy dawn
dare caress the black crystal waters
that sparkled so green
amidst cold oceans of metaphor
and warm, streaky peach jam skies

gift me, make me, break me, grant me
may i find nourishment and sustenance
in suckling the dripping honey
from your velvet rose-tinted lips
slake Your thirst
sate Your hunger
drink from these fountains
and eat from these briars
revel in my sanctum
but let no blessed water
pass my parched lips

i will etch soliloquies into the nape of your neck
i, the calligrapher, you my masterpiece
monet's soleil levant and water lilies
botticelli's map of hell and rorshach blots
i will find god in your twinkling sepia eyes
and repose in the contours of your body
chiseled with conviction bold
i will trace lines traced long ago
and discover you anew
lilting auroras behind these tired eyelids
sweet aubades of clotted maple cream
embroidered into the
buttery cashmere shearling
of Your lush being
knotted, blistering lilac and rose
in this churning ****** sea
of flames and sculpted ice

bold sensual soft
caress but never kiss
it's five a.m.
and i still can't sleep
we're out of time
there's no stopping what's to come
but the taste of jasmine white tea
still lingers on my tongue
i'm still shouting to the void
and playing piano in the brazen dark

V. the ballad of briseis

my heart is of
the flesh of figs,
and that which
i cannot touch:
grainy sweet
garnet nectar
pretty to behold
but easy to bruise

no god shall speak for me, briseis
for this fig-heart, like the heart of man
craves art as it does god
and though i know you not by name,
but only pseudonym:
blood, words, and love,
we are kindred souls

i'd like to believe that we
are cut of the same cloth
hewn of the same mound of clay
(or cast into the same iron, i suppose
for we became one another's anchor
the day we met)

i once told you, my dear briseis,
that if you taught me symbiosis
i would teach you love
for you found pragma
in philosophy cold
markov's blankets
freud's ego, plato's cave
whereas i found pragma
in alchemy's poetry
chekhov's gun
freud's neurotics, plato's human

it means nothing.

the alchemy lies
beyond the chemicals,
beyond the seed and the egg,
beyond our festivals of atonement,
beyond my prima materia
and your unfulfilled magnum opus

it lies in simple interdependence,
the oceans, the heavens,
the forests, the deserts,
the storms, the famines,
the herds of wildebeest,
the colonies of ants,
the beady dew on the spider web
and the purling river shallows,
our acrid mouths yearning for mother's milk,
the boy who makes us cry at night,
the fiery logs roaring against the cold air,
the hoot-owls and the faces on the wall
(our skeletons never did stay in the closet)
bathed in that slow, hideous wonder
those interplays of love and symbiosis

as i drown and die in reverie once more
pray that the stakes may be forever higher
that i find those eternal elysian fields
so long as our achilles lives to fight again

we are more alike,
than you or i would
ever dare to admit,
briseis

so humor this fig-heart:
hold me and tell me
that it'll be all right

VI. deidameia's danse macabre

we are sick, deidameia
till the end of our days
we are sick with mortality

we are the ants on the pale blue dot
alone in our fruitless toil
we are a godless generation
feigning synthetic emotion
philosophies oh so fragile
dogmatic pins pushed into
unsuspecting cloth dolls

i'm right
you're wrong
i'm lonely

but right now
we stand at the crossroads
of destiny
a former self behind
a well-trodden path ahead

we find nirvana
as the clock strikes thirteen

when my eyes close
i taste oblivion and holocaust
so we dance on the edge
round and around we go
the pauper child, the holy man,
the king, the tiller of the fields:

so you sow, so shall you reap

the dice are cast
the cards are dealt
the matches are lit

this soul has been aching
to burn once again
douse me with kerosene
light me up like
cigarettes to cellophane
choke back the embers
we live on the smoke

i'll hate you till my lungs give out
i'll love you till my body's dust

i've won the world
and all her pearls
i've got the world
except you

VII. mitosis

i...
i love him
and i will pay with fire and brimstone
maybe i’ll realize
that the plot arc of my life
doesn’t really make any sense anymore
that i don’t know where i’m going
(i never really did)
and i’m falling i’m ******* falling

the potter's wheel lays in disuse
the clay has cracked
much like ourselves
crazed in the heat of our crucible
the teacups are but shards
and no golden lacquer remains
to mend, to smooth sharp edges

we cherish things until
we can replace them

"fragile, handle with care"
i didn’t test in an inconspicuous spot
i didn’t reset to factory default
i didn’t come assembled
but i didn’t come broken either

we were dealt the cards before
we even knew we were players

and i cry for innocence had,
and innocence lost
innocence misplaced,
and innocence taken

my nightmares lathered
in sterile surgeon cyan
after all, we lobotomized machines
could never feel

what pleasures lie,
in those frosty windowed wards!
arched backs, bucked hips
gossamer cauls of flesh unwillingly broken
bulimic hearts, skinny love
i need not drink but the viscous
milken nectar of our lust
what pleasure, achilles!
what pleasure?

what pleasure is there in
the supplication of sutured flesh?
iphigenia, astynome...briseis—
flesh blemished, removed, replaced
housing haunted souls

heracles, phaethon, oedipus, icarus...
are we too consigned to eternal song,
that bitter deathless death,
like our tragic forbearers?
our glory, our hamartia
lies only in our love, philtatos

when wisdom brings no profit
to be wise is to suffer

the proud will be humbled
and the humble will be exalted

quell your arrogance
mitotic spindle

my name means glory to the father
and i am the prodigal son

all is equal in the chaotic omniscience
of mitosis, of death, of entropy, of war

we? we are indivisible.

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)

IX. cathedral

i am human
i am young and stupid
unusual, tragic, and alive
and this is my penance

you are not mine
to keep, to touch, to hold, to love
i will smile when i want to cry in your arms
and i will laugh when i want to scream
i will be content and happy
everything you gift me
will burn as incense, fragrant within
the cathedral of my heart of hearts

till roses bloom within these lungs
and the incense begins to choke
my minutes, hours, days
they are all yours

i only ask that you don't
drop this heart of mine;
appraise it, dust it off, and
replace it in an unsuspecting alcove
for in its fragility, it has been
broken time and time again
and i'm not sure i have it
in me to mend it once more

addiction
speed
immoral
ecstasy
in the
continuum
of
risk, reward, and rheum
everywhere
there is only You
and i...

am but shattered abstractions
fractured glass
in a mosaic beyond
but i will love You
in the only way i know:
wholly, in life and in death,
always and forevermore

goodbye and farewell,
my darling achilles.

sweet child of the stars-
never forget these bright lights
and pages of gold

blaze of fireflies-
momentarily trapped in
mason jars; glass-hewn

a saturday evening in july of 1987, pottstown, pennsylvania. the moon peaks over the horizon, craning its neck at the carcasses of lost dreamers littered across the landscape. denim jacket, stone wash; unintentionally half-popped collar. a glass of cinzano bianco in one hand and store-bought iced tea in the other. eight wicker chairs on the deck; chittering and smiling and shuffling and laughing. an evening soirée illuminated solely by stars and citronella candles.  sticky, humid night. grill roars heat as yet another batch of burgers are flipped. step down into the murky dark.

fireworks ignite-
brilliance across nightsky
eyes gaze in wonder

new-age americana at its finest—

we are here and we are now. the product of every moment leading up to now. smoldering remnants of infinite reactions, extraordinary in their own right. what are you cultivating within? what will stay and what will go? what will take hold and manifest? what legacy, what footprint do you dare to leave on the sands of time? in this sublime psalm of life, we can only dream.

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.