A gift from the sun, sand and shadows
Moonlight and Joshua stars, of course
A tattoo, a brown dot, on my ring finger
On my left hand, no less

We never wanted a house, the kitchen, the foyer. We could give barely a ****, really. We just wanted a room, a desk, ceiling to floor bookshelves filled with books and windows that overlooked tops of large oak trees. We wanted the sunlight all morning and afternoon, the rain, the vines that grow around the windowsill and music from old turntables spilling through the storm. We wanted the groves of apple trees and strawberry bushes for our morning walks and the expanse of the entire cosmos for our viewing pleasure during the evenings. We wanted prancing on mountain tops and kissing the sublime in paddle boarding excursions and free diving to a pod of sleeping ***** whales. We wanted sunlit art studio with watercolors and oil paint and graphite pieces on thick white paper and raw clay on the wheel and ***** splattered aprons on wooden stools. We wanted

i asked the stars some questions
they said, "sorry, nothing dear."
i asked the moon if you were sleeping
and the sun answered in his stead
she said, "i just put him to bed, you should also get some rest."
i just sighed and looked at the clouds
and they just cried with me.

to realize i was loved
is love too

it ended
a milestone, a fire-
work without the blast
quiet, underwhelmed I fell
asleep

but this end,
the bittersweet replica of
the memories and books and words
of crowds and hallways and people
whose faces pass and pass and pass

this end, it has to mean some-
thing, thing that I can't hold nor revisit
but the thing that sinks in the encrusted
bit of my heart. The thing that will manifest when
years down, in a new home, or a new country or a
new mountain. This thing, the four years of life here,
there, nowhere, is, in many ways,
everywhere.

heart beats to
the taps of
your keyboards.

turning over it's teeth to
brush the tongue
the beast, scared and revered, tip-
toes down the stair-
case. It breathes the air of the
brine down the Atlantic where
the poet once left small
footprints.

who can see such a magnificent
              hush my child,
             shh shh shh for the storm comes
star, a crocodile husk hiding
it salmon skin

lover, lover, lover
breathe it in
for the wind will knock you
dead, prior.