"You are what you eat" they say it so often you would think they were just chewing with their mouths open. You happen to be so many other things than the diet you keep. I think "you are how much you sleep" would be an equally fair claim to your self identity. We regurgitate these talking points with such little consideration and worse we build our lives around these quotations because they are embossed over a scenic, awe-inspiring image on Instagram. These metaphors are so far removed from their original context that they could almost mean anything to anyone inside of their own head. Too often in juxtaposition to one another these contradictory ideas subside inside of you disguised as a rational point of view. Maybe you are what you eat or how much you sleep but do you ever wonder who's words become your thoughts?

there is a universe inside your chest
infinitely expanding
though infinitesimally slow
at times
boundaries stretch, breathe
though confusing at times
destruction feeds growth,
dichotomous paradox forms whole,
stars implode, give way to supernovas,
give way to planets filled with lava and snow
there, inside, a universe
constantly churning,
the incessant spin of all burning
that births light and shadow

here I stand on the precipice.
here, in an amorphous dusk and dawn,
unclear if day or night
is about to kiss the horizon
unsure if I should call to moon or sun
or neither,
or    you.
here in limbo, arching my spine to
sneak under the guardrail of loving
here, instinctually shoving myself
into bottlenecks and genie lamps
oh, how my gypsy soul wants to run,
yet feels so enchanted it stays, here
on the precipice,
itching to gain entrance
into the universe brimming
inside of you

there
there, inside your chest
there I said it.     and I'll say it again,
and I'll say it even louder:
I confess! I'm enchanted!
I'm enamored, enthralled, enraptured,
I want my heart
to know your heart,
I want to dive chest-first into your outer space galaxy nest
an astronaut without a helmet,
I want to explore, awestruck
never trying to label, box, or understand - simply experience
your universe

there, I finally said it
I'm finally starting
to write the poems I'm afraid of,
the ones I don't want to say out loud
I'm starting to write out shadows and solar flares and floods,
starting to let my heart bleed out of my pen, cause
what the hell am I hiding from?
what are we all so scared of?
we were ****** into this strange world
blind and wet,
groping in the darkness for heaven
meant to rip ourselves open again, again
meant to feel with the depth and tempest of oceans
meant to risk and be fools and fall to meet rose-hued ends

I just want to make love with the light
of a thousand candles, a million stars, and the moon turned on
and panting
silver dripping from her tongue,
dizzy with the heat of solar undulations,
stripping down to the heart of the matter
down to the simple truth of it all:
I was born to feel,
and my god, you...
you make me feel universes
you make me feel thunder and lightning and bedroom churches and power surges
you make me feel sunrise stillness
and it makes me fall silent.
so here I am, writing the poems I'm afraid of
and sending them out, messages
in bottles, adrift
in the endless oceans of your universe

Trying to find rare people in this world's generation is like trying to find a book in a library of blank pages

Poetry is my public apology, for loving
     And hurting you too much. I bleed
In adjectives. My scars appear
Randomly at the last pages
Of your old notebooks.
     I am revision. I am bare.
I do not know darkness which can
Shadow me, but this: that you
Can see, somehow, this cosmos,
     This timeless chaos,
The divine, the celestial, guiding you
     To count on, and count
     And count and count
          The stars again.*

© 2016 J.S.P.

I have a lot of monsters
Some are here and some are there
They hide inside my closet doors
Or whisper in my hair
They were made to **** me
And one day
One of them will win
But when I feel your arms around me
I don't let those monsters in

i wonder if our skin cells are divided into more categories than we think
maybe some are a country and some are skyscrapers and wet city roads glistening with rain and sweat and rat ****
and in our skin's second layer are murals and graffiti tags and ice statues made up of chemical compounds and crystallizations waiting to be exposed

or maybe they're divided between cells you did and did not touch and if they are i hope the ones you ruined decide to secede and fall down the shower drain so i can finally be a new person
again.