i often wonder how i will die. skin cancer.
heart complications. liver cirrhosis. old age.
undetermined cause. ******. accidental overdose.
i daydream that it will come soon. my future
without you feels like a false floor. i'm waiting for you
to appear with white gloves, wand in hand, to whisk
me away. to climb into our coffins side by side, a twisted
amusement park ride. ****** cotton candy and jagged fun
house mirrors. being alone is stuffy weight. despite the added
space, my chest is tense and eyes are bugged. your hands,
your voice, your warmth would set me free.

history textbooks and family trees
only to be chopped down by greed.
losing limbs, broken teeth, creaking bones.
watered down souls. wavering spirits.
who’s to say you won’t be pulled off center
stage by a cane? permanence is an illusion.
really, what isn’t? rods and cones and corneas
and mind games. i only want open oceans.
i don’t want to meet mid-tango, i want to collide
and never explode again.

On misty October mornings
I rub sleep from tired eyes.
Expect to feel your mouth
graze mine with rigid, sweet
lips. But after cat backed stretches
and echoed groans, I’m still alone.
Cold feet, cold hands that used
to have a home between your skin.
Turning, blazing, resting leaves await
their final breaths before November
frosts swallow them whole. Clocks
are chiming, 6 am. I lay restless
in white. The monsters under my bed
moved out and now they’re in
my head. Peeling back layers
and crawling inside, sinking teeth
and crescent claws. They gnaw
at the gray matter and dictate
all my dreams. Puppet strings.
Vivid static murmurs color through
the night. I wake up to find snow.

You never expect that one day someone's life, or maybe your own, will end without the proper goodbyes and cordial hugs. Humans are crazy like that. We make polite rules and regulations to guide our interactions but in the end, we are taken from this earth however we are taken -- and sometimes that means goodbyes are said unknowingly through "see you tomorrow" or "goodnight, I love you".

a splash of milk and 1 sugar
the rain fell in deep choreography
with passion and without forgiveness.
we always joked about the way
it only poured when we were together.
only, falling in love with you felt
like snow behind closed curtains.
my eyes were blind until one morning
I awoke and out the window, smooth
atop the brown, dead lawn,
a blizzard built in silence.
not pounding for attention
or lighting up the sky, just a flutter
of dust from the cloud line. on
the biting days of winter I crave
a coffee, in memory of all our dates
and storms we've ducked through.
now the first winter's snow blankets
your new bed, and I've found myself alone
with 2 coffees, curdled milk, and no sugar.

if all i can do for now is dog-ear pages
of memories of you, then i'll stow our love
in letters and notes. i'll let language sing
and melodies speak. but on the day i smell
your cologne and smile, when your photos
dry the tears they well now, i will know. and i
will peel apart glued fists that kept your love
flowing fresh in my veins for all this time, with
white knuckles and rosy cheeks. my palms house
shards of sea-glass mosaics i gathered, that you
had left behind. i'll align each color and weld the pieces
but that shape will never click to fit the gaping sinkhole
where you used to live in my heart. and with a full bellied
gust, i will send the shards sailing like dandelion wishes.
and all the best parts of you will collide with torn up hearts
and clattered souls, and i will watch your white and blue
and red rise up with the sunrise, then fall like heaving chests
and i'll sit cross legged in the sand and watch you grow
in all the hearts and souls by my side, and i will
feel you, forever tattooed and sunken deep into my skin.

five o'clock shadow while scrawling angry words
on paper napkins and the whites of unpaid bills
tongued by strangers whose taste buds grasped
the glue sitting peeled beneath your fingers. heavy
to-do lists and fogged up glasses from shower
steam and overcooked, soggy angel hair.
you've always been a daydreamer but now i see
the architecture in your furrowed brow, you've built
a new line of skyscrapers in your brain that jut out
and **** and pollute this air. i can't quite read
the neon name that electrocutes you, but i
can see the tremor; hop-scotch kid turned
sour, with ****** knocked up knees. when
you daydream your gaze lifts you to
the power lines, so my knuckles crack
as your eyes slant south. i catch you staring at
the subway tracks, such sad depth inside your
bones. a chime goes off and bing - you're back -
spine up tall and spewing city lights. when you
spend your mornings in dust brushed cities
the sun begins to creep away. your eyes reflect
artificial light, hunched in eternal concrete clouds.