last I checked it was 3 06 AM
the foggy window displayed scene to a rainy night of a
small town near the city of Chicago
your dim apartment filled sweetly with vanilla lavender aroma and the
delicate croon of Billie Holiday transcended from the living-room phonograph
a blue tin coffee *** pictorially placed upon faint orange flames
overdue library books and half-written notepads stacked symmetrically
within the oven of La Cornue Albertine ivory stove
you sat me atop the wooden counter of your tiny marble kitchen and
gently tucked at my stockings until they gracefully
renounced to the tile patterned floor
with your hands placed on either side of my thighs
you gradually - - -
kissed me softly on my knees

Give me Beirut after midnight on a Tuesday
Wednesday morning doesn't need to know we're here
My eyes so dull of aging compromise
Give me the anticipation that will make me feel young again
Things aren't how they used to be but they can be in our minds
Fall in and out of me
My heart is so dizzy and my thoughts so blurry
And you still so pretty, so pretty to me
I want to write you pity love songs until you think of me as pretty, too
And hold your soft hands through a cold autumn stroll through the park
And kiss you credulously in the dark
Yes, sometimes I want to die
Somehow somewhere I am already dead
And you, my light, might not exist
Perhaps we have always been
Alone
Alone
Alone
But right now while listening to The Rip Tide at 1:49 am
Pretend with me
Lie to yourself, too
You're not too shallow
I'm not too broken
You're the right amount of shy
I'm not overtly out-spoken
We are our feeling
We cannot be tamed
We cannot be touched
Us
We are us
We're in love
love
love
love

//

Leave it for tomorrow to decide what is false pretense and real

sweetheart, what have you done to us?
you may have broken me
I've enough pain to last the rest of my life
all that's left to linger is meek wind through my wild hair
you used to call me lover
and now the sunshine doesn't touch my skin
and my cursive is just as sloppy as my thoughts of you

sweetheart, strangers watch us through the night while we're sleeping
poets have a certain touch of sadness in their eyes,
a certain touch of sadness that only another poet could understand
my violet lips taunt draw nearer
the sapphire in my eyes warn keep your distance

you want to hear the words that separate whom I was to who I am
but darling, it's not that simple
I prefer to dream in silence
there's a past I've never known and it reels me to this same place of
searching without finding, of lonesome noon's of writing

We made love in your car once
on the rooftop of a thirteen-story parking structure in Los Angeles city
the faint smell of liquor warm on your breath
the full look of night-sky ablaze in your eyes
you mended my skin with soft parted lips
sewing my wounds shut one kiss at a time

It’s been six months since and now I sit here, alone
in the parking lot of a train station some miles away from town
observing the dismiss and arrive of lives I'll never get to be a part of
my insides are still bleeding just as much as that night in the city
when you held my naked skin in your mending arms
/ /
sweetheart, you used to call me lover
when I didn't know what love meant

we stayed up all night
drinking wine   listening to nirvana
until we both got so tired and fell to the floor
you took my hand and I closed my eyes while
you traced the outline of my lifeline with your tongue
I'd never felt so dead before, so careless and at ease
my lips met your lips like it was the first time
your lips met my ******* like it was the last
my hollow bones filled sweetly with your breathless moans
your fingertips vigorously stroke my delicate skin until our feverish bodies became one
and burnt a hole deep through the ground
all coherence lost in the shadow pits of darkness
our lust scattered lovely all the same
your hidden demons exposed through euphoric thrusts
my soft murmurs like whispered prayers in your ears

when I opened my eyes and saw into yours
I knew for a moment that heaven still exists

the night is dull
my hair is damp
there are bruises on my knees
your photograph still lovely on my wall
you told be to be calm
my mind is a storm
every poem I've ever written scattered on the ground
it makes me sad
the mess I've made of us

the seconds and hours of life have wistfully aligned and
it is your birthday
and although I wish most sincere it be happy
I myself cannot help but feel terribly, terribly sad
so I am sitting here fourteen minutes past midnight
eating fruit in silence at the tiny desk of my tiny room
trying to sort myself out, trying to snap myself out of it
I know death has no preference of age
the young and the old flee indistinctly alike
but it's been two years since I noted your first bald spot
and a few months ago while we were eating breakfast at the kitchen table,
a flashback of abuelito came to mind while I observed a faint milky layer visibly
taking form around the lens of your charcoal eye
and the other day you forgot to turn off the bathrooms light and it wasn't the first time
and last night you had the televisions volume past fifty all the while sleeping
and those favorite pair of jeans you've worn for years no longer fit you like they used to
and the skin under your chin and arms are starting to stretch
and I can't help but want to cry
because here I am at the tiny desk of my tiny room
while you are sleeping alongside mom two bedrooms away
and this is how it's always been since I was a child
and the days will go by until it is not
and I can't help but want to cry
because you have always been my hero
because up until college you were by my side for every single first day of school
because the first time I had my heart broken by a boy,
you held me in your arms until I felt better
because you know what condiments I do and don't like in my food
because you give me encouraging words without even realizing it
because you never call me stupid,
even when I do stupid things like accidentally locking your keys in your car
because you care enough to take away my internet connection when I'm *******-up
because you still tell me that I'm pretty even after all these years
because if it weren't for you, I don't know what would be of me
because my love for you is infinite,
but our flesh and bones are not


father, words can go farther than you and I both
and on this tenth of july, I leave such fate in poem
the seconds and hours of life have wistfully aligned and
it is your birthday
and although I wish most sincere it be happy
I myself cannot help but feel terribly, terribly sad
because sixty-five years ago today God gave just one like you
and this world so large, it will never have the feeling that I do

It was in that night /
The night we lied in that vacant parking lot a few miles away from town
Just you and I, and the half-a-moon and glistening stars above us
Everything still, so still
Everything rapid, never-resting
Just you and I, arm length to arm length,
You and I, two straight lines in a crooked world

I wondered aloud:
What do stars think of us whenever they glance down?
And you replied, lovely and ever desolately:
They wonder what we think of them whenever we glance up

It was in that night /

I sought you
I knew you
You burnt through
The college-ruled lines of my delicate paper skin

I was so young then
I could have known better
I could have a lot of things
You could have been a boy

Do I miss you?
It could be
I’m too ******-up to process thoughts thoroughly
People fall in-love much too easily
The look in your eyes is all too promising

There was a place and time of
Beckoned curiosity, loss of dignity
Tainted sanity, your fingers inside of me

In and out, out and in
The pale of my limbs
Past the garden and villas of my soul
Through the thick of my skull
In and out, out and in
The beating of my lukewarm heart

There was a night when
We let love in
For the first time

From that moment on
We could never be the same
For your fault, I’d take the blame
You’d soon despise me all the same

The presence of your memory
Abandoned in my mind

It was in that night.