I never tasted so sweet as when on your lips a
screaming kind of sunlight, honeysuckle, breathless
summer came early and I with her, I couldn't
catch my breath for the glory of you, blown away
stripped of pretense, of self consciousness, of
consciousness, nothing
here but you I caught
my breath hiding on your lips I tried
to take it back and all I got
was nectar

lull myself to sleep
by memories of your skin
soft under my lips

slipping deeper down
into warmth- this summer that
will never return

I wish for you
on every lash
and every falling star
I want to lay
down on your chest
and hold you in my arms
A heart that beats
a heart that loves
is pulsing in my chest
I think it's you-
I know it's you-
I place above the rest.

You're all laughing and
splashing in the shallows, jump
in and out as you
so please.
My legs are stone, my feet
are roots, I sway
with the currents, I soak
in the brine and choke
on the salt.

at some point we're going to have
to be honest with ourselves and say
"this isn't just this it's
more" and
at some point we're going to have
to look at each other and say
"you're not just this you're
more" and
at some point we're going to have
to link our hands
and take the plunge
and know we're scared
and say "this
isn't just fear it's also
more"

my skin is a
minefield don't
touch me don't
touch me I said
DON'T TOUCH ME can't
you see the prints running
around contaminated ground and
the few going through that
blew up in my face?

I love you. This is an incontestable fact. You talk about how you want a real, strong connection with me, one where we talk a lot and are involved in each others lives, and I want to cry. Because I never thought I would hear you say that so bluntly, because I didn't think I was that important to you, because as capable as I am of giving and receiving love from so many people, you will always be special. I absolutely believe there are people we meet that are meant for us. As best friends, as guardians, as lovers, as the homes we build. I don't know which you are yet. I know what I want you to be- I can hardly see past what I want you to be, when half of my heart is still jagged and sobbing and in your unknowing hands. But I love you enough that if you would have me as a friend, I would smile a smile of porcelain shards that look like perfect white teeth to make you happy. I would dance the dance I've learned of the masks, letting you see my face but not enough to see me. I would sit next to you, and you would be the sweetest, sharpest thing my heart could hold, and I would hold you all the same.
Because I love you. That is my incontestable fact.

you reach in with your
grabbing fingers and
rip
fiber by fiber tear
it out sever
every last bit of
my ******* ******* heart

take it take it take it take it it
was always yours

my love fits in
to the crook of my neck
and the palm of my hand
and the curve of my back

my love fits in
to all of my thoughts
and most of my words
and some of my days

and my love knows when
to hold me tight
and grasp me hard
and kiss me soft.

*(there is no point.
there is no punch.
there is just this.
there is just love)

i. I've never really believed
those people
that say we are made
of stardust. but the
constellation
of bite marks
you left across my chest
might just change my
mind.

ii. I'm glad a shower
is on my plan, because
instead of me
I smell like you. and don't get
me wrong, I love
the way you smell
but it might drive me
insane
with longing.

iii. being the one to leave
in a way
is easier. but please
don't think walking away from you
doesn't break me
a bit
every time.

I'm leaving my heater on
tonight and it's all your
fault, see, cause
I haven't adjusted to how cold it is
without you here and I
keep shivering. You're
a better heater than
this machine. I need
the noise, too, the whirr
and hum, because it's
raining and I can't stand
the rain outside my window without
thinking about you. "*******
listen" you would whisper
and fling open the window
and pause the movie
and kiss me and I want
that again I want
you again I want
you to be back I don't
want this empty bed or
whirring heater, neither
give off as much warmth or
make as nice noises
as when you kiss me.

(this poem might be
pointless but I guess
what I'm trying to say is
thank you)

these words lie
heaviest on my
tongue, they weigh
every other word down, color
everything I say to
you, threaten to leap
off, inserting themselves where
unwanted, unbidden, unasked and
ungiven, and I won't
free them because
I

I can't stop thinking about him. I'm on a plane, 9,682 meters above the world, literally thousands of kilometers away from him, and I can't stop thinking about him. the funny noises he makes, and the way he hugs me tighter like he isn't going to let go, and the way when he sleeps, he pulls his hood over his eyes so the whole world is kept at bay. "*******," he said, waking up in the middle of the night. the melatonin stopped working because "my brain was like ******* and I woke up." "mm. why did it do that?" "cause you're here."
I miss the way he sticks his tongue out and his laugh and the way he says he's doing fantastic like it's his favorite word. I miss his hair and his tiny kisses and his nose and mouth against the back of my ear and his chest, so soft it should be a sin and that curve above his left shoulder, where I fit perfectly, he puts his arms around me and I feel like that's it, I'm home.
the others, see, the others were fire. they were exciting and a little dangerous and always a risk. a small flirtation with tiny deaths, a dance to draw in and push out, keeping me always on my guard and dancing, dancing. I came out of those bruised and exhilarated, high on something drugs can't buy, exhausted and hungering. they kept me red.
and he
he is my blue self. he's earth, a blanket, a warm bed. safe whimsy, when I've danced over the line to danger so often, a place to rest on the sidelines. instead of a burning fascination, he's a sudden, knowing wish.
I never saw those working out. when your fascination is fulfilled, where do you go? they were nice possibilities that got me through tough realities, but fire dies down and every dancer must tire. I can imagine it, though, this future, and I'm so much more cliché than I ever thought because oh man
I'm terrified
see, I'd only ever thought about him in passing, before two days ago. what if, my mind whispered. when I told him I'm not good enough for these things, I was softening my thoughts, the ones that always came after. I'm not- I can't stop thinking this, can't stop it from saddening me because I know- good enough for you. but I don't tell him this because he would tell me I'm wrong. no, he would say, this proves that you are. I almost said it, I whispered the softer version into his neck that night, half happier than I'd been in so long and half so heavy I was surprised I didn't sink through the beanbag into the floor, anchored in his arms. he wants me, and I? I want him and know he deserves more, deserves better and I'm having such a hard time convincing myself not to be selfish and go for it, grab his hand and run so far away there is no one else. or better yet, wrap myself in a fortress made of his arms and let him hold me to sleep.
how did I get into this? how did I let this happen? how did I not know, not notice I love (****. ****. what have I done?) love him until only two days ago?
those three hours between when I realized and when he told me he wants it, too, were the hardest thing I've done in so long. exquisite pain, lying there next to him, terrified out of my mind of loving yet another friend to ruin. I'm still scared.
but god, I would give so much, up here on this airplane, I would give up hours and days, I would give up minutes and memories, I would give up wokenness and sleep, again, just to be back in his arms.

after I kissed you
brushing my teeth suddenly
became a sad chore

(hands in glass are like
a heart trying
to let go. bare skin and
sharp angles- even when
you put down the shards, pry
your fingers open your
hands will glitter and
sting like unshed tears with all
you grasped honestly, nakedly, all
that you can't leave behind)

my mother built this
child's gravestone with
(her child's gravestone with)
her own two hands. she lifts
the glass and places it in
the mold, bending, and shifts
her arms and twists
her hands to let go. This
is her penance, this
work is not swift she
plunges her hands in, looks
for pieces to fit while
the glass tumbles with
a tinkling 'chisk'
but her hands
are protected
by gloves.

How much
did I have to be yours
for that?

The only thing worse
Than hearing a child gasp
If only to breathe-

Parents' hushed whispers
Tucked away in dim corners
'Whose turn is it now.'

And then I was there-
but still, perpetually,
I am so helpless

They say He
is in the stillness. The calm
after the storm, the quiet
before the noise, any tiny
moments of rest scattered
throughout the day. Maybe He
is even here, right now
residing in the cool cessation,
calm silence, living where
no words will thrive, the deafening noiselessness
pressing down on me- maybe
I should be comforted that
in the absence of you, He
has come to fill the spaces
our words have left behind. Darling,
I must apologize yet again
for my consistent inability to perceive
the divine. Please, understand
when I try and tell you, here,
I see only emptiness.

My skin absorbed your scent
when I would sniff myself hungrily
trying to lose myself, again

the smell of us would evaporate
too soon, I always thought
but I came to rely on this fact

after the summer ended for me,
the long winter months arrived
and left me alone to sink in limbo.

Please, believe me- I never knew
when I was drinking in your essence
that my softlywhisperbrush of a skin was, too.

And now, when the summer has returned
and it without you and with
my acceptance of your absence

you returned to a few of every inch of me I reclaimed as my own and
I started drowning in everything that used to be and wanting
to lose myself again, after all the battles
to pull myself back from the bonding I initiated and suddenly
I was inhaling my patch of skin so hungrily and then
it faded, and I was left wondering-
wasn't leaving once enough for you?

Darling,
I honestly believe that once you tear everything down
what you rebuild can be stronger than ever. When we demolish everything
down to the very foundations
you're forced to notice the flaws from last time. And you did notice, you did know
better than I did
that though I have no practice at anything
other than giving up and walking away, I am capable of rebuilding. That knowledge, it seems, is only the latest in you proving me wrong, showing me
I'm better than I think, letting me know in the best way possible, exactly how
I have underestimated you. Darling,
I could go on, but I think
I need to thank you for not listening
to my urging you
my urging the world
my urging myself- thank you
for not giving up on me.

Your shoulders look so heavy
as you carry them back upstairs
and even your feet are tired
as you trudge one. step. at a time.
You say to call you only
if three or four minutes pass
and there is no respite.
I understand, you know. Everyone
needs to rest sometime
and now is your turn.
I will always admire the stoic way
you face rigid limbs
and bleeding mouths, the way you
can remain calm
as bedsprings and bodies shake as one
the acceptance of life as you
have come to know it. Yes,
I admire, eternally unable to emulate. You
know what to do. I, on
the other clenched hand,
am constantly terrified. Please
don't leave me on guard-
I will never be ready to face the monster
eating my little sister from within.

We do not fit together as effortlessly as we used to.
But with all the clever implications,
maybe this is more honest.

The safety of you
makes me realize just how
almost none else are.

And after
the last time you touched me, I
used up a whole bar of soap, looking
for some trace of what used to
be clean. And after
the last time you touched
me, I would sit, huddled
against the cold plaster of our tub
after all the water had run
down the drain, shivering, for hours
and my family yelled
that I was in the bathroom for
too long. And after
the last time you touched me, my skin
was not my own, and it fit
in a way that I couldn't ever
name, in a way that made me sick
to my stomach until nausea painted
the walls of my mind and faded
into the background of my story.
And after the last time you
touched me, I wondered if I would ever
be good enough for someone or
anyone, ever again. And after the
last time you touched me I
would stare at the mirror and wonder how
such a healthy exterior
could ever be so hollow.
After the last time you touched me
and scooped out everything inside
I never thought to blame you-
after all, after everything,
I invited you in.

Kilometers away, I watch
you struggle with your panic and I
grapple with my ever-growing
sense of inadequacy, dearest
your control is slipping and I
want so much to be able even
to offer you a hand to hold or
better yet, a hand to grab and
pull you out but I know
that is not my role in this, are
we living a tragedy or divine
comedy? At these hours I
was never able to tell. Dearest, you
were never darling, because somehow
that name was too common
for you. Oh, love, watch, I
am the bull in the china shop that is
your fragility and I am breaking
things I never fathomed the existence of and
crunching underhoof the shards of things you
will never let me see. Kilometers
away, I wish
there was something, anything
I could do, but as the stars wink out
there is nothing twinkling left
for me to hang my foolish hopes on.

What I love in talking to
you are the subtexts. Constantly running
around all the words we speak, roads
support me when others fail, hold
when others will crumble, you stand.

Darling, when I try
and write to you, all format
flies from my grasp. Haiku and ten
always too little, and prose
I would have to fill with beauty-
words I do not have to describe us
anymore. You see, unlike the family tradition, I was
never a good Scrabble player. Always
only 100 tiles and short, obscure
words never enough to tell a
story that should be rich, not sparsely
populated with only 1 Z, or
2 Ys or 2 Cs. With you I feel
I am playing scrabble with my words. As always,
my darling, (with) you I am losing.

When I say calm down
I mean calm the **** down or
watch me shamefully

try and control all
of my impulses to run
or to brace myself

against the blows I
always knows are waiting right
behind shouted words.

"One of the things I
least want to do is hurt you."
"Yeah, well, that ship's sailed."

Big headphones to block out the world
And music
Turned up loud
Dark sunglasses to hide my face
And all the lights
Turned out
And if I don't let them all see me
Can I keep
This brokenness
From breaking out?

With. Every. Single. Pound
of his fist on the door your
Liv.ing.room. Compressed and I
started glancing around just
Looking. For. A. Way. Out these
walls will not contain me now they
Are.n't. Big. E.nough to try
and hold in my fears they
Ri.pple. And. Shake. Like
my shoulders try to do but
I. Am. Stron.ger. Than. This. Fear.
(I wish)

Darling,
this is how entropy increases. It's not in the loudness or the noise, it's not in the moments after when we're all shell-shocked and confused, no, because this world will not end in a bang. Entropy increases is such a fundamental concept, and yet
I had hoped and prayed and begged and bargained and pleaded and screamed and whispered and
until the air ran out of my lungs and my only words left were
not here not here not here not
here, darling, this, is how entropy increases. When I am too tired and you, you are too busy. We will not fall apart in glory, love, we will not burn out, this thing we call we will just
fade
away, until all that is left is the faintest glimmer of stardust coating my cheeks and clinging to what once was wet. We are drifting, heart, softly
and the space between where our gazes fall short is the void
that swallows our words. This
that you are reading is the only thing I have managed to rescue, fish out, drag through layers of fear and hesitence and doubt by sheer need to tell you something. You know, we are
celestial beings, stars, constellations, but even the glorious fades and only leaves behind the faintest of imprints on my eyelids, so I think I can almost just remember you but not quite because entropy has turned my memory
a rabbit-warren of twisting confusion and holey nostalgia oh love I'm sorry this
was never the plan you
were the sun and I was a star and we will not go out with a bang, darling, with the milky-way of our star-brains smeared across the space-wall we were not destined for such things
we were not destined for anything
maybe that is why the only thing
is to go out not with a bang, but my whimper.

Irony-
after leaving, I ran

back

to take
my
things.