...They had gone for drinks. Then dancing. Then kissing. Then that night as he lay on her brothers spare couch, too drunk to drive, she kissed him goodnight. He wanted more and she wanted nothing more than to have it.
...
Two days later they were in a sweet little tent of sheets. Two days after that they were there again. And again for a week. She swore the air was foggy, the way his big hands and even bigger arms made her feel was like something out of her deepest longings. They took off each others glasses and looked into each others blurry eyes, her hair was curling in that wet air, her cheeks were red and he was falling quickly down her caverns. He kissed her face until the sun came up and then willed it to go back down. But she had other things to do.

Eugene had schemes and dreams for Davina, he wanted to take her far away and make her happy. He could too and she knew it. Terrified, she ran away swift and quick. She was in such danger of being content with the heart of someone else. He barely saw her go.

The air wasn't wet anymore, her waist was lonely without his fingerprints. But her eyes were dry and strong her thighs.

She burned the cabin down, left him with her lavender lace and took back her blurry eyes.

He tells himself that one day
he’ll be with the woman that he loves
but he will have to fix himself first.
He leaves her shaking on the bathroom floor
because he can’t stop his own hands from trembling
and he doesn’t think he’s capable
of picking up all of her broken pieces
when he is still slicing open his fingertips
trying to clean up his own mess.
His story isn’t one you would tell your children
because it isn’t one that ends happily.
Years later her long hair still appears in his dreams
and he can’t bring himself to listen to his favorite music anymore
because he swears he can hear her laughter in every tune.
He buries himself in other girls
whose eyes don’t shine nearly as brightly as hers used to
and he drinks whiskey every night
in the hopes of forgetting her name,
but he is afraid he will end up forgetting his own first.

It started with a goodbye.
It started with me wrapping up my past
in bubblewrap, as if it was fragile.
It was really so that its sharp edges would be
unable to hurt me anymore.
I decided it was better to leave it inside
my bedside table, next to the pictures and the letters.
Not to pack it in a suitcase
and bring it with me on my many travels.
But it refused to leave my side,
it followed me, like a paper plane
guided by my insecurities.
Like I was a holding up a neon sign that read
STILL HOLDING ON.
Perhaps it was a sign that I was to carry it with me
to all the places I hadn't been but longed to see.
People asked me about the big monster
that hunkered down beside me.
But how could I tell them that
I was caught up in something
I'd promised to leave behind?
How it has consumed my mind
my body, my very soul.
How it threatened to rip a hole
in the very future I was trying to protect.
Maybe I'm exaggerating
Maybe the time I spent hating every part of me
wasn't very long at all.
But it felt like an eternity
the summer, winter and fall.
Finally, spring arrived
With hopeful eyes and a big bright smile.
I shook myself awake from what was
starting to feel like a neverending nightmare,
A rabbit hole that wasn't taking me to Wonderland
I started to understand that I couldn't go on like this.
I took a hit or miss dive into the future,
And like a magician, unlocked the weights at my ankles.
Once at the shore, I looked at my past as it drowned
unwanted and forgotten,
And I realised I was no more a crinkled mess.
With wrinkled fingertips at the end of my hand,
I held up a mirror to my freshly washed face.
I smiled, digging my toes into the sand.
It ended with a hello.

When you look into the mirror, do you not see the newborn stars behind your eyes?
Do you not feel the weight of your own ancient gaze?
My, oh, my.
When I kiss you, I taste pine. I taste forests I have never seen, I taste water so cold that my teeth ache.
The forest floor fills my lungs with sweet, safe decay.
Sweet and safe. In your arms, I am safe.
I am a shipwreck and you are the ocean floor. You are vast and it is here, among your shifting sands, that I rest, that I find peace.
You smell of the happy parts of my childhood.
“Honey, I'm home.”
“Baby girl.”
“You are a gift.”
You are a gift.
I'm sorry that I'm crying again. I'm sorry that I don't know when I will stop.
Am I tangible at night? I hope to never become a cloud in front of you. I hope to never float away.
I know that I will stay.
You are a gift.
When I kiss you, I am swimming. The water is cool, the water is clear, the water is deep.
I do not fear that I might drown.
Your hands could mend mountains.
Your hands.
Strong, but so careful, so kind.
Your hands could salvage seas.
Your hands.
You glow with the misty light of dreams.
You radiate light.
You radiate light.
You radiate light.
It pours from your eyes.
From your heart.
Do you not see the stardust that falls from your skin?
A walking nebula.
And I am your newborn star.
Your shipwreck.
Your river.
I am yours, simply and truly.
Glass people dance in the deserts.
Warmth fills the air around them.
I think of these glass people when I miss you.
I think of their freedom.
I think of your eyes.
The newborn stars.
You. A walking nebula, and you don't even know it. You don't even know it.
I look for you all the time. It's silly, and irrational. But I do.
I look for you everywhere.
When I kiss you, I taste molten rock. I taste heat and debris and controlled chaos. Beautiful restraint.
I taste time in the form of an hourglass. Sand.
But not clocks. Never clocks.
You are a gift.
I look for you everywhere.
Your hands.
Your hands are cellists, my heart is your cello.
A walking nebula, and you don't even know it.
You don't even know it.

When days roll by a little at a time
trickling on the rocks,
drip drip
the time flows by endlessly into the night.
Peaceful these days seem and soon you are bombarded
unwittingly under stress your soul cries out
and like hail pounding on your roof in quarter inch disasters,
you pound your fists.
Time still flows but it is staggered now,
there is a storm tonight.
Out of control, it leaves a trail of sorrow behind it.
A light flashes and you are startled for a moment.
You wait.
The floorboards, ceiling fan, your appliances rattle all at once.
Lightning strikes and not a single person is hurt but the storm
rages on.

I stay up for the moons
Quiet gaze
The light by the bedside
Carves shadows of you
Into my bare frame
The air itself is naked
Vulnerable of all scent.
I kissed you thrice,
One on the lips
For devotion,
One on the ribs of
Your teeth,
On the elbow of your
Favourite book.
As all writers do.
I created that arched frame
That pulled your
Tendons tight
To my inked sheets,
Shot you into blind space,
While I teethed on
The bow of your
Fingertips
Our skin tarmac,
There was roadworks
Of our bed.
Toes dancing morbidly
Between bursting stars
While night gulls
And ravens watched
Through the window
Waiting to peck
At the mangled carcass
Of our hearts.

A feather floating,
this feather is me and it was a pound heavier.
This once heavy feather merely floated.
I found solace in weighted thoughts,
my heart was born a feather
and it personified me
but it felt too special in all the wrong ways
when this feather aged and changed
many felt pain and this poor feather floated
but it added a few ounces to normalize itself
this heart of mine added weight by the day to
identify myself with other with ease.
I tried to float in this new chapter of my life,
but the feather floated ungracefully,
the feather lost its fluffy bits, bit by bit.
Crunch time and I dropped a pound of weight from my heart,
it was sudden, almost like losing baggage in an air plane terminal.
I use this feather as a saber,
it floats gently around conflicts that are blinded by shallow intents
and cuts the air.
It dances and spins,
this feather truly floats.