You say
You feel
Dizzy when you
Kiss me. So do
I

Is it the slow dance
Of dopamine
Digging grooves between
Our bodies? Or
Is it the
Intoxication
Of desire
We’re drunk on? Is there
A difference?

You try
Try to
Decipher the
Way I look at
You

Do you see it?
This is hunger.
This is wanting
Taking shape.
Anything more
Definitive
And you will scare
The birds off.

I thank god
That you cannot see
The desperation
Beating beneath me

Because I love
To burn slow
But you, dipped
In Sun, Blessed
By God, looked
So sweet beneath
Changing skies
I couldn’t
Help but tilt
Towards your beams

Now tangled in
Your taste, I try
To decipher
What lies beneath
Desire.

They took
My God away from me.

Told me
I won’t be loved by You.

Your believers
Killed and I was
To worship blood
Instead.

Sink in all the
Shame inside, and
Take it as a
Lesson earned.

Today, a
Simple day
To wake with
Someone gentle
And sweet, who
I will be
Extra quiet
For when I
Zip my things.
Fluttering
In and out
Of sleep, I
Can’t predict
When you’ll speak.

             “Are you going on a walk?”
                             “Not yet, darling.”

But I leave
Before you
Rise because
Yesterday,
You held me
When I cried
And looked at
Me in a
Way that pulled
Me towards you,
Wondering
When I will
Stop burning
With such shame.

But I, ever-miss
Touche-à-tout, have
Never steadied
A decision
And can only
Look away, fear
Of what I’d do.
Oh, but today
You told me you
Dreamt of kissing.

A vague and hazy
Something to remind
Me not to tell you
That I dreamt the same.

I am always half awake,
Occupying the space between
Then                   and now
        Today                     and tomorrow
One half dreaming, dizzy,
                           Falling. Always falling,
Graced in gravity’s pull
I’ve never found the bottom
But when I do
I’ll just keep digging and
                 keep falling.

My eyes are blurry with tears but oh,
How the lights glow in the haze
I try to step outside myself and
Ask the sky what made me this way,
But the fog only stared back silently

One single star blinking back,
The same star that I’ve always seen
Under the same sky I’ve always breathed
In the same place I’ve always been
Nothing has changed except everything
(And even that has faint traces of you)

You and I, I liked to believe we’re the same
But your life isn’t mine
And your love isn’t mine
The distance between us, tied together
Over countless fields and mountaintops
Stretching from here to there
               lets meet somewhere in the middle,
               where it grazes Missouri.
               or is it Montana? I’m not sure but
I’ve always
Been sure
Of this heart
And I left it
In the airport
The night I left you
With sleep
In my eyes
And tears
On my cheeks



Oh, tears, tears.

Imagine
All the lives
I’ve lived and
Things I’ve seen
Gone by noon, dizzy
As a dream, fevered
Bodies clutching
Clammy skin, oh,
Dear. Oh, my.
Please, wake me.

Cursed child,
Whisper your sorrows
To unforgiving
Water and
Drain your tears

Wash the blood
And the dirt from your
Hands to purify
This pain and
Pacify your soul