remember
your
mid-July
laughter
and the verdant
curves
of your
body that evolve
so eloquently
like monochromatic
cinematography
the sky is smitten
with your
orange
presence
and i
love you

beg me
to be: (here)
your lips
sinking
my
burnt-caramel
body into
the night
when i let
you touch
me

i'm still stuck on you
in the middle of
me being verdant
and withering
and  you not
being able to grow
there's enough
of you to fill
up a small
village in africa
but i just want
a piece of you:
baby corn-toothed
flawed man
i want you to revive
or ruin me
in rage
or in love

my love for you
is traced along
the borders of
east Jesus nowhere
Pennsylvania
lingering in
the middle
of me
being verdant
and withering
and you
not being
able to grow
your chest is
Shangri-La (i cry when i think about it)
i want to break into you
and live inside
the coating
of your skin

the lines on
your hands
crack
like pavement
when i touch them
tell me about how
they were passed down
from generations
of sun-dried
caramel brown
ancestors
who dreamed in
canton pink
and worshipped
the sun like
it was a
god
tell me why your
hands
breathe the
souls
of kaledioscopic
men
that died hundreds of
years ago

when i dream
about
your black
skin that
becomes the night
when I want to
sleep

i'm verdant
in the summertime
my emotional
unavailability
coated in a certain
warmness
my milk and honey
body in
full bloom
peel open
your dominican
republican
arms
that
flourish inside
me and make
each yellow
breath
feel like new
life