Blank canvases that inhale and exhale
with motives to live.
That's all we are
painted by Biology
a gamble in the darkness of who wins the lottery of appeal.

Sometimes we are created
using the best paint brushes
a stunning color palette
other times we are thrown together
extemporaneous products of failure
slapped on with crippled fingers
that lack inspiration
deprived of just the right shade of beauty.

I am a sculpture of proof
a hurried project
nose recklessly placed on the center of my face
cheeks not rosy enough in the frigid winter
disadvantaged with an artist who must have mistaken pink for blue.
My body is an accident
worn with tears after erasing and retracing
time and time again.
My past is scattered with ugly ripe bruises
maybe from tussling too roughly with life.

My soul
is the only thing
that is not of Biology's creation.
Soul is something I have dug deep into
with two frantic hands
before pulling out a heart beating gold
swollen with optimism
warm with love
spilling with kindness
stronger than beauty.

I am perfect
because my soul
is louder than my body.
I am beautiful
because never mind Biology's snide remarks
I am flawless
because despite my luck
I am a work of art.

Glass is seeping through my fingers
stealing a free ride on ice cold blood
these window panes are asking for forgiveness
while your front door is seeking revenge.

You cannot walk quick enough into the abyss of the night
before it swallows you whole
roaring back with a rigid teethed grin
and a kind stab to the back.

It is cold as hell
if your heart were to freeze hell over
I am dying slowly
thank you for loving me at least once
at least when both our lips were lost
and our hearts swollen with patches of frigid deep blue
the same way it seemed
every time we kissed
you'd leave sweet frostbite

You are frozen solid
yet somehow the only way I can keep warm.

I am at a slow standstill with realization huffing down my neck.
Do we ever have the opportunity to tell them how much we truly love them?
Countless wishes don’t tally up the way real actions do
ones we sit back and merely hope will arrive
so that we may go on for hours the way we yearn to.
But in honesty, that is just not real life.
But why can’t it be?
Why don’t we see people sacrificing a few minutes at work
for a few moments of kissing on busy streets
ignoring the daily routines scolding us from all four corners of our brains
to utter words more precious than time.

Hatred could come very last as your gasp claws for heaven
so I change my mind.
I am here
I am now
replicating the saccharine agony of love as candidly as I can.

I know you see it pouring from me
and I pour
and I pour
and I spill as thoroughly as I am brave.
I pour space and time continuum's
and still
for you
I cannot pour enough.

I believe strongly in infinite strings
that pull definite souls closer to each other
but I did not feel that tug the way I did
until I met you
when I thought two planets were colliding into one
a new solar system was being bent to match your eyes.

There was one single moment
that stood our sorely amongst all other magnificent ones.
I remember accidentally cutting my thumb
the wound small by size, not by pain.
I told you it hurt.
You kissed me.
I didn’t know the pain went away until you stopped and it returned.
That is exactly what
loving you is.

The only difference is that moment was temporary
while we are permanent
scars on blank canvases
ashes impersonating dust
what is engraved in my skin when it is you.

I have looked so widely and thought I had loved so deeply
still not far, not wide enough
as I was just scratching the tough surface,
this is more than butterflies
and better than death.

You cannot be summed up in pronouns
nothing short of wedding vows
for I who is so methodical
craves to live illogically with you.

When you are doing absolutely nothing
is when I adore you most
when you sit there
with nothing in the world but you
is when my heart cannot swell greater.
You, in your simplest human form
is etched into the core of my soul
where you have dug up far beneath my chest
things that even I have let reside in its own dust.
Your purest version
is when I love you primitively.

Although your grand endeavors are nothing to reckon with
and their end would shave my heart to its gruesome core
I love you, when you are hand to hand with me and you do not know it
when we dance in my driveway and somehow it is not cliché
despite the fire in your eyes and the glimmer in my throat
longing to entwine with yours.

When your voice cracks
your hair does strange things
those icy veins that layer the bones in your fingers
on the front of your hands
your golden eyelashes
when you are absolutely unaware
and the consuming happiness that moves me
when I lull you back with
“Baby? Are you awake?”

Darkness warmly embraces your face
like the milk of your naked skin
when I know you as a whole
muttering prayers down the spine of your back
dousing your worry lines with kisses I wrap in bauble
and the amount of times I’ve almost stopped making love to you
to write it all down
but could not will myself to so intensely
that I sacrificed letting such sacred things like good ideas go.

But I do not clutch to regret
when your skin is meant to be upon mine
your voice a legality when harmonized
with the type of laughter that only prevails
when you can no longer breathe
and you realize
you,
are in love.

And if I could freeze this moment in time
paste it to my walls with forever  
I would.
I would make an extra copy
just so I could organize it in my filing cabinet
label it: Love. The life in me. Him.

He, is the heart to my heart
the soul to my soul
replacing your birth name with Love
the name my universe knows you a whole lot better as.

I have come to my conclusion,
as your lips clasp the tremors of my heart
one more time.

No poetry
no words
no existence
has the capacity to compare the love that you are to me
the love of mine that you hold.

At my least is this,
so that my undying love will not halt
after this poem signs its period:

You—
are I.
Speechless
impossible.
Piecing together
overwhelmingly
all that is love.

do not date a girl
who writes.
she will internalize
everything,
carve poems
into your eyelashes
instead of
kissing them,

she will analyze you,
calculate age
from the rings
your coffee cup
leaves
instead of refilling it.

she will memorize
the way your
lips curl around steam,
but not that you
take it
two sugars,
no cream.

she will read your
palm instead of
holding it
against her chest.

she will not
blink
when you leave,
because she is
already
romanticizing it.

Before I begin, I need you to know, that if I could, I'd love your body in oceans.
I'd let you wash over me.
I'd leave meteors on your body and scars that you wish you could make tattoos.
With every stroke of your thumb against my cheek I am withering.
You are dusting away at a face that could be smiling if only we could sit in silence.
I am not much for speaking, not one for touching.
If all we accomplish is looking at each other, that may be my biggest achievement.
If my lips could crash into yours, if 400 degrees could melt them together and then settle under the bridge of heaven, I would say yes.
I would kiss your neck like it was my last meal.
Feel your skin like it's going extinct.
Inhale the scent of your clothes as if they may burn to ashes.
But I am not going anywhere without you.
Everything we've discovered together might as well be lies
as pretty as the eyes you witness the world through.
Time is up.
I've never been good at endings.

You are the blood that runs warm beneath my skin.
You are the notebook I haven't picked up in so long that it's cold against my pinky finger.
You are the tears that are so close to spilling, so close to ruining this petty pen and paper and word ***** art.
You are waking up when the sun is still rising and there is still a smile on your face because you think you're still dreaming.
God, oh god.
You are everything unimaginable and I want nothing more than to leave it at that.
You are the failed attempt to scribble down every fast-paced thought through blurred eyes and an even more blurred heart.
You are never even thinking about giving up.
You are 200 miles away.
I am skin and bone that will soon turn it's luck to dust.
You are inside of me, you are my insides crumbling.
You are every feeling so large, so real I think I can grasp it.
You are the words, "Keep going. Keep going."
You are a million I love yous I wish I could have screamed.
You are the only way I could possibly wake up on the right side of the bed.
Hell, I'm not much for expressing the dramatic pros I've hidden in my heart.
But I cannot put words into any simpler form.
I love you.
I love you so much that everything else is so small when I look at you.
God, I love you so much.
I just hope you know.

this is a poem about how you sleep,
how your body grew cold like a corpse in a mortuary.
how it felt wrong to reach out and touch you.
did you know that you turned away from me
every time i tried to face you?
did you do it on purpose?
maybe you were afraid i would be able to see
you were dreaming of her,
that i would read it on your face.
lines by your mouth like obituary,
like roadmap, her bedroom,
the destination, mine, a pitstop.
loving you was like attending a funeral service for myself
and sitting in the front row. no.
loving you was like watching you pick out a casket
and call it practice. ****.
i know how sensitive you are about death.
i know it still hurts.
i know how everything hurts.
i am sorry for just being another thing that hurts.
i think i'm afraid to let you forget that you used to want me.
like if i can somehow dig deep enough,
wound you into remembering me.
i keep weapons-grade nostalgia in my back pocket
for the days i can feel myself slipping from your consciousness.  
i was born with scar tissue where skin should've been.
but this isn't about me.
this is about the way you sleep
like you're waiting for someone to close the lid,
cover you in dirt, and read a psalm.
this is about the way i tried to sing your pieces back together,
and the way my voice gives out
when i read the things you write for anyone other than me.
lover, friend, stranger,
i just wanted to show you how to love your darker parts.
i never meant to become one.
i am so ******* selfish.
but i swear i am trying to unlearn the steps.
and you used to think my two left feet were charming.
i am out of time in more ways than one.
i keep stepping on your toes.
i can't seem to stop tripping you up,
hoping that you'll fall back into whatever this was.

- m.f.