you bled your blues and
greens, outstretched on my
bed, you backstroked through
the stars and the planets fell in
line with your vertebrae, swept
the centauri beneath your elbows
and comets swam thigh-high like
sharks or pistols, armed by your
disgrace, I think, you always
expected me to shoot first.

Biophotonics.

The study of living things
emitting light. Every few
months I take a salt scrub
to my skin and will myself
to believe that beneath all
the blood vessels I have to
be something m o r e  and
studies suggest that I can
be. That with an intensity
1/1000 w e a k e r than the
sensitivity of the human
eyes, I am glowing. Like
a jellyfish, someone
said.  So for a moment
I saw myself deep in
between the different
waters where the
u n d i s c o v e r e d
sleep and hide and feel
the floors that no one has
seen, a light so faint in the
ocean so black that you could
see me from miles, miles, miles
out.

a week before my twentieth
and I'm crying over spilled milk
spilled boyfriends, spilled body
spilled me all over the carpet
you can't even pick that up

you can't even pick that up.

mom played dave matthews
on the way home and sister, sister
hummed softly while i considered the
things I never thought would
happen this year and the sky was
green and orange and blue
green and orange and blue
till it reached the mountains

This year, I actually feel older.

why do we always remember the lips
the glimpse upward, the sigh, the gap
between their teeth? Never the whole
face, the angular pinky in the porch-light
the coarse hairs on a neck, the sight of a
jaw in motion, concave cushion when he
talks, never the whole body,
a single word, a single sound, a small
intonation, a rumble that stays, stays



stays.

asleep on the floor of
the tub,I am fascinated
by how detailed the butterflies
on the shower curtain are
I like the way the weight
of the water leaves a disconnect
with the weight of my skin

and my mind goes elsewhere
where i am at his house with
a cat who I name Le chat noir
because he has no idea what I'm
saying, but the sound, the sound
the sound
the sound of it is nice


the shower hisses away.

Pretty pretty princess
Locked in her tower
Built of bricks forged of mud and tears

Naked in the window
Save for her hair
Only glimpses allowed throughout the years

No knights in shining armor
No damsel in distress
Foundation of logic cracked in disrepair

Too far from the bottom
A lifetime of neglect
Walls crumble as she sits unaware

how do you love yourself
how do you love
how do you
how do
how

And then I fell.

The taste of love's gravel
is bitter and hard
Mixed with the shards
Of my heart.

I have no recollection of when I fell
or when I  landed on such hard reality.
I rather not know.

The fall has no words
to describe it.
It was quick
Like the click of a pen
Stabbing at a piece of paper
as you confess "L-O-V-E" with the ink
getting it all over your hands.
The flash of a camera
capturing the slight movement, movement
of your eyes shifting your gaze to his hands.
Like an on coming truck
Colliding with your advancements towards him
Scattering your emotions
leaving you dazed and afraid.
Like the last heartbeat your heart can muster
before it starts to flat-line
but to save yourself
your heart begins to beat for another.


I fell
But now it's time to get up.
The Fall is over.

...
I wish
I loved
you
like
I want
me
to
...