one thousand shards, my crown was built.
not of thorns.
but bubblegum legos, saturday morning stuck
to the carpet
& days gone by.

crept out of fold and gut/   kid living
& watched by trees.
autumn watches us fall like leaves,
born of the belly and the mother.
mom quiet/

dad loud/
  men hid behind blisters and god.
  men hid behind tall towers and the bomb.
  men bled for immortality,
  warred and ****** resource for more, the door
  to an endless life.

dad taught me how the heart and brain behold blood,
& how the body manifests it/    
moves it/
follows the sun.
son follows father follows god follows ghoul.
dad taught me about the machete.
           about how “our fates will dominate us blind.
                               so man dominates the jungle.”
he told me a story of love and more glory.
of poor men and dead men.
machete theories.

he carved wooden chairs.
built a lodge.
fished the river,
    & reeled to forget the war.

harpoon the river gods.
the heart and brain behold blood,
& the body manifests it.

Write in pen, not in pencil.
Such as in life,
we cannot erase.
Only mark, and scribble, and
smudge it away.
But the mistakes persist.
We write new lines,
new words,
new stories,
past the darkened marks
of our accidents,
in hopes we remain perfcet
onward, afterward,
only to misstep, miswrite,
misrepresent who we are and
permanently leave imperfect
marks upon the pages of
others' lives.

For some,
life
is simply
an experiment
to see
how many
knives
and
arrows
to the back
one person
can take
and remain
standing.

i. twilight on the mountaintop

ii. say I've got room for two in this coat
sharing warmth, but it's more than convenience

iii. does kissing ward off the cold? let's find out

vi. your cheeks look like fire but they're too soft to burn

v. I wish these gloves weren't separating our skin

One day the moon stepped aside for the sun to take its place.
Apollo had never been bashful, but he dug his heel into the dirt and swore you were the center of the world.
Quite frankly, my dear,
It was only a matter of time before I was drawn to you.

There's nothing I'd wish for more
than for the scent of your sun-kissed skin
to wake me up in the mornings
while you murmur my name in your sleep.

and it's not just you, or everything that you do,
it's not that i'm never high, or that i don't appreciate drops of sunlight on cold days,
but every step is fighting an earthquake and i'm struggling to stay on my feet
and it's too much to ask if i want to take a breath while i'm in (anyone's) space