a black boi/girl prays that they aren’t so black and blue in the new year,
they write the manifestation and burn it over orange blue flames.
in the evening, blue-black girl’s stomach is swollen with wine,
they sit  and think of the blue-black boi with the heavy eyelids
and the dark Pisces eyes they have been dreaming of drowning in.
day-dreaming of the warmth of their breath, short of breath,
warm mouths, shared cold showers between the two of them.

we get our start in liquid – do you remember the states of matter?
     solidliquidgasplasma
drowning in you sounds like a game of memory,
a nostalgia for beginnings, the dreams of a fontanelle filled with memories yet to already become, a yearning for something that has yet to have happen
a futurity encapsulated somewhere inside of our dna.
I want to drown in her brownness and let it saturate my
     lungsmouthnoseears.
I want to taste you on my lips when I first wake. like you fill my every inch. I want your essence to effuse from my pores, to feel like my teeth are still at your ear.

do you remember when we first found each other? my heart broke from the levees and you opened your arms. you felt like the warm stillness before the storm. you remind me of the way that the summer time humidity hangs in the air.
i’m not suffocating in it, i’m drowning.

it was three o'clock and I was
wondering what she was seeing
I closed my eyes and imagined
and the sun on my back transformed
into her phantom embrace
the sun loves us so much it
wants to be captured in our skin,
and her hair defies the rules of physics
she's magic.
we are magical because we make
the warmth of a computer screen
turn into a warm embrace,
we can speak without ever
moving our mouths and
if we dare move them it
feels like magic.

on the last day of the year she told me she fell in love with me.
today i told her she feels like my forever,
and that normally I am more than fine on my own,
but I freak out when I don't see her face or hear her on the phone.
she said she wants a tattoo of a quote or something aesthetically pleasing,
like a line , she says
my math teacher taught me that lines go on for forever and I want to
breathe those words on the outlines of her skin.
I call her "my wife", and that makes my soul smile.
the children of God wandered in the desert for forty years.
you are holding a reservoir of your true being,  and i am dying of thirst.
I can stare at myself in the mirror,
and look The Devil in his eye,
but looking at you is like keeping my eyes open in a sandstorm.
I want to be your Promised Land.
you have appeared behind my closed eyelids for the past few nights.
the first day I woke up and drenched myself in happiness,
the second day I dried myself off in reality.

i have always thought that
i was beautiful, but i never
took it seriously until you
started looking at my skin
like it is made up of the
brown and gold paint strokes
on a Diego Riviera portrait.
you are a lovely, imperfect
conglomerate of atoms
ever changing, in my eyes
you are the big bang.
and i've always hated the
idea of becoming someone
who wishes to control the universe
but you've made me this way.

when the wind blows south towards you, I send kisses to your third eye in lieu of my skin touching yours. I hope you see, that I wish to look at you in a way that makes you never think you'd live be better off alone. I still don't know why my vision blurred when you said you had never fallen in love.
maybe cause I thought you would love me.
when you described your type, I thought it was a letter for me, with the  "to:" form left blank.
I don't know what to think.

I love your hands, they are strong. I have traced all of the land snaking inside your palms. I love their size, and the way they make me feel. they have caught me, even with my flaws.
I think I hurt you.
but your hands do not answer me. they wander on my skin like the ravines on their joints. you have been around for so long. perhaps you are just a band-aid that I need to peel.
but there's so much stuck on to you.
I don't know what to do.

you kept coming and going whenever it was convenient.
you set a nomadic hut inside of my heart, you made it so intimate.
but what good is an empty tent?
you have a good heart. I don't want to fall inside your net, again. now you're back at camp.
you brought an empty envelope filled with irrelevant love notes.
I don't know what to tell you.

I love the static between our skin. I love when you breathe out, I breathe in. I love how eager you get.
you are helping teach me to trust again. I can show you so much.
I don't know if I should.

I have loved you for so long. you have given me the gift of your time, your smile. your kind words when I was in need. every time I try to give up on you, you only come back and catch me. you don't even try.
I'm in love with the taste of your name in my mouth.
I miss something that was never mine.
It's been so much time. you are still here: in my spirit, in my mind.
I don't know why.

I don't know what to feel.
I always know how to feel.

to be vulnerable
is to be fearless.
to accept the gift
of salty tears dripping
down your throat.

the twitch in your
lips when you speak
from the deep gates
inside of your mind.

i want to be fearless
i grow in it everyday.

i thought you liked
your girls fearless.
you love anne frank,
and you love malala,
you love the black sheep.
i thought you would like
me.

i thought once the gates
of my vulnerability swung
open, you'd keep going in.

you stopped and left
footprints trailing toward
the entryway. maybe it
was too scary for you to
explore?

sometimes i am
scared of it too.

never fall in love with a student.
especially the one that teaches herself
Portuguese, who's loved learning
chemistry since the age of thirteen.
but somewhere it made a reaction and
changed what it means, for she to be in
love.

atoms are mostly empty
space, so she really does think
that you have quite an
empty mind. she thinks you'd
take that the wrong way. she
never wants to hurt you, but
once you've made her mad,
she'll angrily yell it towards you
any day.

matter can not be
created or destroyed.
so the bones that support
your flesh, that she loves,
are made of the rust on
her grandmama's car, which hasn't
been driven since her love died.
they are made up of the dust
that formed the planets and the
Milky Way.

history has taught her what
happens when one person tries to
hold the universe in their hand.
she really is against war, but
she wants to, she's going to,
kiss and hold your hands
anyway.

but then she'll remember that
atoms are mostly empty space,
so she will never actually touch you
and you will never actually touch her.
you'll tell her that's sad to say.
to her it means no amount of folds put in
a map will make you two closer. there will
always be a distance. she will become
the guard of that space, and your solitude.
you are complete to her. she is a counterbalance.
she will learn to love the distance and curse it,
just like she hates school, but loves learning.

never fall in love with a student
who loves to learn you.
never fall in love with a student
(me).

you occupy a part
inside of my heart,
and i'm afraid that
it'll be permanent.

I say I need you,
because there are more
things I like than what
I need.

you run my mind.
maybe you are even
running inside me, from
your home in my heart
to flow in my veins.

maybe already,
you are permanent.

i cannot remember how your lips taste.
i can only remember they felt like
an uninvited guest trying to move in.
your lips and teeth are perfectly
made to **** on skin
so then you won't have to make lies with them.
but i let you in.
(maybe if i do what
he wants, no one will get hurt).

the tribe of my love,
has never been one to be
silenced by any lips but my own.
that should have been my
warning for a war cry.
but it was too late.

you were Columbus Day.
you came in as a new reality
and you left as a tragedy.
you put a knife to the strings
that held us together.

there is a spirit floating around
the ghost town of my heart
that is mourning the loss
of your name.

it is aching to hold on to
memories before the battle,
but is blind to see the bodies,
the bullets.

we have taken a knife,
and cut the strings that
held us together.


(for many people, Columbus Day only expresses the start of the damage introduced by imperialism, colonialism and the celebration of the birth of issues in North America, that still happen to plague us world wide)

it's not healthy for my heart to run miles on a few drops of water.
2. you make my mind and body curious.
3. my eyes are sleepless from unanswered questions.
4. i love incorrectly.
5. i want to build my home in the unsurveyed land of your heart.
6. i can't crown an adjective with your name.
7. you are too blind to see the effects of your spell.
8. confusion and comfort don't seem as different anymore.
9. i don't know if i'm just lonely.
10. you simultaneously incite my captivation and confusion.
11. you can stifle my anger.
12. i miss something that was never mine.
13. you take me out of the present.
14. you are a stain that I cannot remove.
15. i'm surprised that I still trip for you when we cross paths.
16. i poured my heart out to you, i'm unsure if you accepted it.
17. my mother says she adores you.
18. since you give me no answer, my imagination makes answers for you.
19. i fear that you are turning into my tattered safety blanket.
20. you are running within every inch of my skin.
21. you called me lovely.
22. i take things personally nowadays.
23.  i wear my heart on two sleeves because it has made a space for you.
24. i am wandering around an abandoned refugee camp for my sustenance.

what do I want to be in your universe?
i am a black hole.
who does not wish to
simply consume fiery flames of hydrogen.
nor do i want to consume you,
you belong to nobody, except to yourself
and the creator of the gravity
that i pull you with.
do not be afraid if
i swallow you whole,
break your complexity & opacity
apart, inch-by-inch,
atom-by atom
finally seeing inside of
the perfect pandora’s box
lying above your temple.
perhaps that is the only way
that I could appreciate you more.