I have honey sunshine in my mind
from when I left my shoes in your seats
said I’d grab them tomorrow,
and you, of course.

Honey drips
on a sun-blind mind’s rewind.
Sticky memories don’t spoil
they crystallize,

then golden-shine
in your lullaby eyes,
because I said
you’re mine
for the hundredth time.

Poets are glowsticks,
snapped,
then they fluoresce.

Liquid light.
Blood of the lightning bug,
squashed and smeared.
Nearly extinct.

Bleed and glow.

The cuts of forever promised,
instead,
they siphoned.

Distilled into purple-red neon,
spelling out:

read me.
know I’ve lost.

I try to speak, and my tongue tries to run,
and tends to trip when strong words come.

The rhythm and pace of his steps taste
like sweet songs that almost land with grace—
into your ears. But hopefully, you hear
the plopping of boots that my tongue tied loose.

Even when he trips and falls,
know that his words still risk it all.

When his dance becomes daring,
and his stutter turns to swearing,
his beat becomes apparent—

because no words, and no walk,
no pucker nor path
could portray the way my tongue trips up
taking to you at last.

Twig on a tree through my window
knows sign language, I’m sure.
Branch fingers waving
to his lover across the road.

He bobs and bends in the breeze.
It’s a mystery to me,
why this waxy green tree,
with love in his leaves,
doesn’t leave his roots
and **** soil
from the same straw as his lover
across the road.

One day she’ll grow old,
wilt, then timber.
Will he remember
his failure to uproot,
to shoot a vine across a power line,
just to intertwine
for one moment
in time?

Listen.
Stop not listening.

I’ve been tapped.
Sap bleeds.
It stings where sweetness lives.

Give me your ears.
I’ll torch ‘em to caramel.
I don’t need your lips,
your yowls, your static.
But taste.

Just ******* syrup.

Your screech gnaws
at the stem of my melody.

Eat the fruit.
Chew the pit.

Jerky tongue
crusted lips
daylight scorched and deep
ridge of the brow splits
cracks
brain leaks slow
sickly air
coarse skull
something rots in me
puke
i have to puke
i hate her
brown gold hair
i hate the speck of will
that veers from clot

She filled my silent cup with
bubbling crackling pops of laughter
Wine I couldn’t put down
drank to the lees
felt it seep into my blood
spun my world
knocked the lights out

One sip led to a pint
then I tapped the keg

When the barrel ran dry
I thought we’d brew more
but she took my glass
and tossed it
Crystal daggers
glint on the floor

The constellation on the concrete
reminded me of a night under the stars
when you said we’d name our dog Sam
and our kid would laugh like me

I should have drunk more slowly

When she left I lay supine
at the bottom
The vision of our child floats
face-down in the barrel
I drain into the wine
the blood mixes
I’ll fill the barrel by myself with me.