and when you said
laughter is like a foreign language
i imagined that i was
teaching you how to
speak it

after you've mix two souls
combine the brightest blues
with the deepest reds
but it becomes all too heavy
and you're ready to go
lace up your shoes and turn off the light
how can you tell which bits are yours
and which are theirs?
is it ever possible to be entirely untangled
or do you leave holding pieces that don't match?
left with gaps that feel hollow
can you get them back?
can you grow anew?
the feat truly feels unfathomable
it seems as though
when you walk away from love
you’ll always be carrying too little
or carrying too much

if you look up, you will see
the bright-eyed and
the wide-mouthed—
the interesting, the casual, the adored
glistening in the warm night
peered at through microscopes and
telescopes and stethoscopes
far and far away

we are so desperate to be close
close and close and
close enough to see the blemishes
the scarring and the peeling
effaced by obvious and biased inner-commentary
they’re just not as red or sore as mine
perhaps they were formed under
a different kind of sun

what does the unfamiliar heart say?
does it sound at all like mine?
will i ever escape the sloppy grasp of dullness?
will the world swallow me whole?
if i count the days on both hands
on toes, on eyelashes—
if i only eat green things and
read tattered books and
pretend that i don’t mind—will i ever
break the mirror?
will i find seven years of good luck
between the jagged edges?

to exist as a reflection
is to not exist at all
there are lonely, dark purple heavens
waiting for you to sever your longing gaze
to stop lying to yourself
to hop onto the back of the cow
and begin living somewhere beyond the moon—
to realize, with closed eyes
you belong to the sky

the sun drips
like
a
yellow yolk

oozes
down
the gold knots
of my spine
breathe the first of Spring days
the radio plays our favorite song

i see you backwards
quickly
all the times we had
vulnerable;
gone.

the sky is blue, the lake is blue
your eyes are blu
and they say i look like your
sister
oh gods. help me
i can’t feel anything
except you
and everything here is you

I want to write you something,
but the words don't spill
out of my mouth
the way they used to.

I.
You walk through these streets
like you think you know what you want.
But tell me honestly,
inside the pockets of your coat
your fingers never uncross,
do they?

II.
I drown you in photographic film
and sometimes I wonder how time
stands still in a painting.
In the middle of the bazaar, you stood
like a painting
while people moved around you
like an overexposed reel of film
and time still stands still to this day

III.
You're coughing it all out; winter
on your lips and spring in your lungs.
Drink me.
I am a tincture of a daydream.
The sun is always brighter, my dear.

IV.
Our hands interlace in the darkness
and melt away with the consequences of time.
You are a bottle of something precious.
Put me to sleep, sing
me to sleep.

V.
Undo the buttons of your dress
and wear away with the night.
Shed this old layer of skin
and something about rebirth
we can tell beautiful lies
but how long before the bread soaks up the milk
and the blood on the carpet
seeps into
the wood.

VI.
The ice on the lake
can't hold up this dream anymore.
You're a hallucination
and all I needed.

heart to mind
these conversations
hardest kind

head to heart
lost in translation
speaking blind

soul to God
these conversations
yours and mine