Remember that one time years ago on thanksgiving day when I was feeling so sad and had gotten in a shaky argument with my mom so I drove miles and miles into the night crying along to Radiohead, and all it took was sending one brief text message for me to end up at the step of your garage-bedroom door. your family had just finished eating dinner, I met your uncle for the first time, that might’ve been the last time I saw him, too. we spent the rest of the night in the dim of your bedroom, lying down on raschel blankets you’d carefully set out on the floor for us, my body like a crescent moon cradled in the orbit of your arms. darling boy, I’m falling apart again, and it’s in these times when it hits me most, when I realize the significance of your Autumn skin, of the monolithic bones behind them that held me close the way they did, that held me together as on that night. I’m sorry I didn’t know it then just how lucky I was. I’m sorry that I’m writing something like this now knowing all too well that none of this will ever reach you.

He's a big Talking Heads fan.

I leave the window
half-creaked open

enough to block you out
enough to let you in

Sometimes you just need a whole lot more of a little bit of cowbell,
ya feel me?

I am humbled by my need of You.

I write to you not knowing who you are. I think about you everyday. I am in my evening humanities lecture hall listening to Joaquín Rodrigo's Second Movement of Concierto Aranjuez and I can feel my soul unraveling. I don't believe it is a calling for me to be a poet, but I can feel its presence instilled in the very core of my being. Poetry pulling at the chords of my lungs, accelerating my heart beat, causing me to breathe unsteadily. I believe in you. Eleven minutes and fourteen seconds is more than I could ask for, yet it will never be enough. I will never stop wanting, desiring. You're out there somewhere. My words are yours.

Am I getting this wrong, again?
I just want you so bad
I just want you so bad

But you were a coward afterall.

I remember wanting to disappear
I remember not knowing what to write
Or how to feel

I remember wanting to be a whisper
And getting lost in the dark

I thought perhaps I'd be able to find solace
In the blur of Los Angeles karoake bars
I remember wanting to get lost
In its endless boulevards

I walked as though the moon
were trying to catch up with my feet
Breathing became difficult
I was merely a shadow

I came across a billboard that read "PARE DE SUFRIR"
A few blocks over proudly stood a church of scientology
I remember wanting to forget everything I had ever learned
About religion

Promises no longer moved me
Sincerity no longer moved me
I no longer desired the knowledge of restoring hope
I wanted to be moved

I remember wanting to be a hologram
So I could be at many places at once

I remember all the words running through my body
like a marathon
I remember feeling like the sound of a siren
echoing in the distance

I remember feeling so wild
I remember feeling like nothing
I remember inhaling the night
My paper lungs drenched in syrup

I remember not feeling like myself
I remember wanting to be somebody else

I remember
More than anything
Wanting
To be

Listening to Arcade Fire’s Milk and Honey, I am slowly drowning in a sea of memories and melancholic images of things I’ve always wanted but will probably never have. My body soaked in bubbling foam, lying on the border of wet and dry sand, softly being kissed by a morning suns warmth after having been brought back to shore by the same waves that dragged me out

I think I might take to eating more chile verde
or replace my mattress with a bed of sunflowers
or compose a poem using sopita de letras,
gluing every word on the refrigerator and kitchen counters
or learn how to play La Llorona on acoustic guitar,
and perform it at an open mic karaoke bar
in a distant town of people I don't know
or wear a white pillowcase over my head
and call myself a ghost
whisper all my secrets to strangers on the phone
or take a right turn instead of left
or climb a wall, or fall in love

How to express the weighing
Tenderness in my heart for you

How to explain
My heart
That is losing its shape
And taking form of
A condition

Invisible and critical, demanding
How to make sense of this

Longing here, in the empty shelves of my rib cage
Where you stand before me
Our feverish hands so close to touching
But they do not touch

How to let it be known that
You are wearing down, softly
The parts of me I stregnthened most

Should I laugh about it?
This comely irony, my soul burning bright for you
On winter's coldest night

Tell me, how should I behave?
What façade should I turn to?
When this means more to me than I know it should

How should I conceal, love
The layers
Of you
That can be found in me?

You are the sun while I am asleep

You are the sun as I stand to my feet

You are the sun when my mind becomes dark

You are the sun

I'm angry
I'm tired
I'm sad
I hurt

I like things that make me sad
I don't think I'll ever not be late
I'm trying to figure out a way to think outside of myself
I'm so limited within this unconditional heart
I'm trying to figure out a way to think inside of you
Lift my body from your bed, and leave my soul tucked in to rest

I need you to love me like I'm wounded
In the darkness of my insecurities
hold me, kiss me, touch me,
fill my hollow organs with the shadows of your light.

I wonder if the flowers can sense how sad I am? I prefer they didn't know. I hadn't realized how common your name is until I heard it called twice today. I was caught off guard and both times stung my heart. He was a little boy, with a head full of brown hair similar to yours. I wondered if he'll go on to taint women's hearts when he's older as you have. I hoped a small prayer he won't. That he'll be better, that there will be a lightness to his name that brings comfort to the heart of the woman who loves him.

is it possible to spend your whole life fighting love
fighting for love
here I am and there you are
fighting for and fighting against
chasing a moment a sentence a feeling
is it possible to spend your whole life
determined to making it work
and is it enough? is it ever enough?
is it more than you could ever wrap your heart around?
is it possible to spend your whole life worried
of possibilities, whether or not these things will come
will I ever find a place to lie my worrying head
in the form of a lovers lap, corduroy pants on an autumn's day
is it possible to spend your whole life searching
is it possible to spend your whole life hiding
I've not a million lives but one
Love, where is my one?

sad, again
but a calm sad
accepting
viable
livable

I'm scared to start liking you
things never really work out in my favor
when I most want them to
I don't want you to be one of those things

you are a person and you are so lovely
I am a person and I am so vulnerable

I don't want to kiss you or hold your hand
I don't want to know that you're better off without me

all I want is for you to sit across from me
all I want to do is talk with you
until night and day become one

we can resume our different lives
in sepearte ways
thereafter

indifferent, again
but an attentive indifference
subtle
perpetual
liking you in spite of fear

I am going to pretend
That I have never heard what you are telling me
That way you aren't telling me
Something I already know

Last night I wept for you on the A train
Melodramatically, in my mind

You were holding her hand
Pressing her sadness against your baked skin
So that she might feel a little better
And oh, how she did

How you made her forget
If even for a little while
The image of his eyes from her mind
By looking into yours

But I can still see it through mine
And her
And you
And him
And these words

Betray me
Run me over
Make me sick

What good are you for if you don’t sit and listen to The Antlers with me? Holding my hand soft and sweet as I observe all the people and flowers and low-lights surrounding us while I cry. Valentine, make yourself useful this year. Valentine, be mine.

It must mean that I liked it here.

We are in the front seats of your mustard yellow Subaru. This used to be your father's car when he was a college student in the 70's. It's strange how timing, location, and decisions changes everything. If your mother would have never left Savannah for Berkeley, or if your father would have left Berkeley for Kansas State, it would still be 11:45 on a Friday night but we would not be here. But here we are, in the Starbucks parking lot, my head leaning on your shoulder, your hand resting on my knee. "I'm glad I didn't die before I met you," I whisper. "I could go anywhere with you and I'd probably be happy," you respond as First Day of My Life fades into the background, luring our eyes to close. Sitting in these front seats, in the future looking back, I know that this is where I belong, they belonged, you belong, we belong.

Memory 1:
Cutting oranges off their stems and eating them underneath cherry blossom trees post-rain and post-picket sign protest in Sacramento with Steff.

Memory 2:
Night time, FYF VIP area, sharing a scarf to sit on. slice of veggie pizza, Denisse telling me about her dad, how a beat-down truck with working men made her think of him as she was driving on the 210 the other day. how it moved her so much she ended up pulling over on the side of the road to cry. String of dim lights overhead, Air's Playground Love assimilating in the background of the momentum we've just shared.

Memory 3:
Fourth of July, Navajo woven blankets, lying down faced up arms lazily stretched out in the back of Tia Irene's pick-up truck. talking about how scary it is growing up and how much we fear God. you've decided you no longer want to be a news reporter. I tell you you'll be successful in whatever it is you end up doing. All the while sparks of reds, purple, green, pinks, blues fill the sky in slow, steady twirls all around us.

Memory 4:
Valentine's Day, car parked a few minutes away from where we're walking to. An empty construction site with a view that overlooks our city. you set down the box of pizza, take off your backpack, set out a blanket, a candle, two glass cups rolled up in San Bernardino Sun, a bottle of wine. Tell me to dig in, I pull up the lid, it's shaped like a heart. You didn't realize the wine had a cork, try pulling it off with your teeth. We forget the wine, play The Doors from your cellphone instead, they've finally been added to Spotify, we comment on this. Lying next to each other, my neck cradled in your arm, the warmth of your skin transcends from the wool of your shirt. A shooting star passes the auburn sky like lightning, said you missed it, had your eyes closed. I close mine shortly after, too.

Memory 5:
Everyone is huddled in the living room, a serenade of whispering and sssh she's coming. Tio Frank and Dad have the wheelchair turned around, your back facing us as you enter the door. They move you down the steep of the entrance, you look up, Las Mañanitas starts to play from the stereo, welcome home! You cradle your head in your hands and begin to cry. We reach out to hold you, crying, too.

En la madrugada
Existe dios

Y como yo
Llora  por un amor
Que debería haber sido
Y nunca lo será

Some days I feel like crying more than other days.
Some days I wish I was twenty-four again.

To dream of you and be okay for this night

I have a customer at work who is turning 91 on Valentines day. Her name is Ann, she doesn't believe in using cellphones, and she has the clearest blue eyes I think I've ever seen. I'm not sure why little details like this stick with me, a sticky note of sort attached to my brain and heart. Sometimes I'm scared of these little details, of learning too much about a person. It scares me to know that these details that make me so fond of a person will be the same details to sting my heart the most if ever the day comes in which that person is no longer around. little ghosts found everywhere, little ghosts that remind me when I'm trying to forget, little ghosts that effortlessly and casually whisper in my ear and tug at my heart. We've been learning more about each other lately. Slowly, gradually, quite deliberately, now that I think of it, we've been taking our time, careful not to reveal too much, but anxious, anxious to learn as much about each other as we can. The thought of everything I've learned about you so far makes my heart swell. This, too, terrifies me. Yet I want more of you. These things can be difficult to make sense of, and there is this part of me that doesn't wish to understand. Devendra Banhart's lyrics echo in the open spaces between my bones and blood vessels, insisting, pleading for you to *please destroy me, please destroy me, please destroy me

I wish I were a glass ashtray
In some abandoned
Cheap hotel room.
I wish you still loved me.

I wish you'd never kissed her
I wish to never have met you
I wish to forget you.

Sleepless in Chicago, again
Wishing I weren't.

Welcome to the beginning of my strange love poem.

sometimes I feel things too strongly
sometimes I feel nothing at all
it is critical you know these things about me
before you get further involved