The way we love each other despite ourselves and the universe is insatiable. You’re the feast to my starving poetry, and I’m scrambling after you trying to unscramble all the pieces you let trail behind; I’ve spiraled into puzzling over every detail of your face and the imprints on your heart and the things you’re never really saying but silently radiating

The way we love each other with our whole arms and our whole hearts beating up against one other, magnetism pulling our bodies together all close and warm until our skin is melding and there is no more feeling or air, only lightness and the white behind your eyes

And even then, it isn’t enough—

that can’t get enough of you feeling, so tragic and profound, how it makes you move
different, that sudden onset
of warmth (and how that cool can pull you down so low)

analyzing you as if you aren’t equally a mess as I am, and you’re so deeply beautiful to me, even if the universe can’t see it yet


And yet but despite ourselves, and the universe

stumbling bowlegged through the last subway car,
loose-fit black rags bandaging frail limbs,
face twisted in a permanent scowl,
matted grey hair jutting from a flaky scalp,
she jangles her paper cup of coins
each flail of the arm a sharp crescendo;
I flinch.

She extends her hand with a gaze that says: pity me;
I cannot look. I don’t want anything to stir in me,
my own pain is already too heavy,

but --

here they are: spoiled thoughts wafting over me like the waves
of her robust stench: warmth
between my thighs,
tattoos
bounding up thick muscular arms that aim at me in such earnest that my disillusionment melts away, and I am paralyzed
by the lure of pheromones and the smell of skin
which doesn’t quite leave you after you leave him.

And then truth clangs hard in my chest:

but her bones are made of steel!
So who am I to look away?
Maybe if something were to crash into me,
I’d pulverize
into
dust.

Siempre sabía que eras demasiado como una nectarina
a principios de verano. Tú: sin poros y brillante e insinuando dulzura.
Me llenaste con tu erupción secreta, luego me apagaste
con tu lengua plateada y elegante,
lava palpitante en mis tímpanos,
realzando mi sangre,
con fuego en tus ojos. Yo era una ciruela, vagando hacia su calor agustín. Mi piel tierna cedió a su toque hábil.

Pero luego lo mordí. Probé la carne bajo tu brillo brillante.
Y ¡oh cómo te traiciona!
Tan amarillo e inmaduro, tan tenso con la novedad,
Aún aferrado al brillo del alba,
primavera congelada con miedo
de la oscuridad de mi néctar.

Hoy me desperté aquí con un imán en mi estómago.
Ecos de metal frío recorren en mi garganta.
La falta de amor, el dolor que
corre entre las penumbras aórticas--
la esperanza, un refugio tragado por la noche efímera.
Siempre sabía que eras demasiado como una nectarina
a principios de verano.

you were too much like a nectarine
in early summer. All poreless and bright
and insinuating sweetness. Filled me up
with your secret eruption then shut me down
with your sleek silver tongue. Lava barricaded my eardrums,
enhancing my blood, fire in your eyes.
I was a plum, stealing forth
in the wake of your Augustine heat. My tender skin
gave way to your deft touch.

But then I bit down,
tasted the flesh beneath your glossy sheen
and oh how it betrays you!
So yellow and unripe, so taut with newness,
still clinging to the brightness of dawn,
spring-frozen with fear of the darkness
of my nectar.

Today I woke up with a magnet
in my pitted stomach. Echoes of
cold metal scour my throat. That love-
-less twang in the aortal penumbras--hope,
a refuge swallowed by the ephemeral night.
I always knew
you were too much like a nectarine
in early summer.

I don't love you as if you were the salt-rose, topaz
or arrow of carnations that propagate fire:
I love you as certain dark things are loved,
secretly, between the shadow and the soul.
I love you as the plant that doesn't bloom and carries
hidden within itself the light of those flowers,
and thanks to your love, darkly in my body
lives the dense fragrance that rises from the earth.

I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where,
I love you simply, without problems or pride:
I love you in this way because I don't know any other way of loving

but this, in which there is no I or you,
so intimate that your hand upon my chest is my hand,
so intimate that when I fall asleep it is your eyes that close.

I was never looking into you
I was only pouring an image of myself onto your canvas
Of course I didn’t know
it was me looking into me
this was the mirage of my desire
always in the shape of a question mark
and you
a sweeping mystery
oozing something toeing the peculiar line between *** and titanium (cold, edgy, sharp - trembling
between pain and principle
like blazer and tie
or more like halfway-unbuttoned-shirt-and-slacks on-with-no-tie
(it was like you were making an effort!))

It was ***
but it also wasn’t ***
(I am empty
I am full)

I keep building up and up and up
all these images in my Mind
(which never shuts up)
(a never-ending narrative
She spins and spins and succumbs
only in those rare and passing circumstances)
constructing people like buildings
only the scaffolding is imaginary and when
the architecture folds in on itself
soulless
and my beloved figurines come toppling down on me
why do I still get so surprised
so stung
so lonely in that
hollow and distant way
(like your Mind is echoing
in on
Itself)?

My Mind is like quicksand
devouring streams of memory with ease
forever unsatisfied and craving more of the same
sharp edges and all
praying for a satiation in some distant future
She knows will never come

Only here
in this tiny universe
can I spell out anything resembling rationality
from the mess and junk and tangled tendrils of my Mind
Only here
can I extract bits and pieces of thoughts
and try to puzzle them together
until they make sense
until I can separate “Me” from “Reality"

And what doesn’t make sense
what I need to understand
is why I feel so beset
with this heavy magnetism that
overpowers me to the point of
paralysis
(with little to no room for breathing)
and why it was you
who pushed me into this feeling
and you
who is still pulling me along
far past the threshold of my resistance
and I am done
and it stings

I know what I want:
It
You
This
Us

Hands pushing
heartbeats pumping
syllables into temples
leaning in
to your liveliness
hooked on
your sleeping bell,
there we are:

Sitting in a smoky attic
creaking in uncertainty
Teasing out vibrations
invading our airspaces,
I'm explaining to you
the legal differences
Between licensees
And invitees but neither of
Us remember why,
there we are:

Climbing back down to earth
You disappear first:
A wordless fixture cloaked in blackness.
I blindly step forward to follow you
But the wood caves and I come
crashing through
the ceiling
feeling
nothing

But you
Entrenched
in your magic haze,
Suddenly snapping
forward poised to
Envelop me just
before
I shatter.

It was dark but I could see you better.

Maybe neither of us are explained away
by stereotypes,
our identities
mired in contradictions
more like intricate mirrors
than we could have ever imagined.

And all
You worried about
Was me
And all
I worried about
Was how
you were going to explain that hole
in the ceiling
to your mom.