trying not to
**** myself like
gratitude journals
and internalizing every
word on drake's new album
trying to understand
why you want to **** me
in the middle of
12 am twitter dms
wearing your words
like a straight jacket
that once made me feel
free
tiny desk concerts like
a hard life lesson
with lukewarm thoughts
of you on the hottest
of days

i don't quite know
how possible it
is to psychoanalyze yourself
to figure out the tender reasons
why you place people so
delicately on your plate
making sure the mashed potato
man and baby corned tooth
woman don't touch
like sticking a fork in
yourself trying to
pull out how she
made you feel
in 6 words or less
the language gettting
muddled like word salad
that only you can understand
eating and loving
becoming synonymous
like you asking me if
i (still) love you
and drowning my
chicken in the fiercest
bbq sauce
it's fleshy white
skin
crying out like
a blemish
on history with
no take-backs
like using
every condiment
and coping mechanism
trying to cleanse
my pallete of
you

then i remember i am
the sun
and the earth
loved me for the nectar
i shed through my
laughter
the woman before and after
you existed
large breasted wide hipped
brown woman
men (boys) have bought me pastries
from new york
and pancakes from diners
whole bottles of malibu coconut
*** and adoration
and
even held
me on
the warm days
i will always crave
the sound of your
voice on the quietest
of nights
but you are not the sun

like: arnald's
rippled
interpretation of
the sun
you: your
crackled seed
words
that seep
into the roots
of me
like the lines
on your fingers
you: like borrowing time
to recreate
all the best inventions:
the first submarine
to sink into
the warm
reassurance
that becomes you
your existence: like me reflected
into a dream
your laughter: like the air that
takes a new breath
everyday that you
live

me.
crumbled words
your chalk
traced pavement
silouhette
existing
like white noise from
a tv
i dream about your
legs in between
my thighs
at night
when i cannot breathe
when does the longing stop?

a gift from god
that's what my mom
tells me that my name means
handcrafted like
blown glass vases from
god's kaleidoscopic hands
and dropped into the earth
like undigested chicken into the frying pan by
nonnie's crisco-battered
fingers
as time goes on i realize that
my neatly folded corners
have crinkles in them
from all the seconds that i have wasted and cannot get back
from all the good in people that i looked for
that wasn't there
i haven't experienced a
great tragedy but yet
the words still roll from my body
like thunder
like god in the sky clapping
down to me
saying you go girl
saying you've made it, azaria
you've finally arrived
my mom never told
me that my
father wouldn't love me
like the way the first
breath feels when you
come up for air after
being underwater
like his love wouldn't
be an exclamation point
to finish the part of
existence where i
wasn't present
a ******* to gravity
for depriving him
of my high-voltage skin
and heroic laughter
she didn't tell me that
i would go to college
and fall in love with a
girl who
has a collection of 23 hats
and speaks of jamaica
like a past life
she didn't tell me
that my heart would burn like
hitting the corner of your
hip on a table
like the sting of your knees
on raw carpet
and holding on to things
that weren't meant for you
she never told me that
the ending was the hardest part
that time is stagnant like an open wound
when you peer into the night
waiting for god
to confirm your existence
like splitting open the
white sky
a 2 am revelation
unfolding like
atoning  
with your last breath
waiting for god to say
you go girl
you've made it, azaria
you've finally arrived

why does a kiss
from a girl
on third floor
north hall in college
have to mean something
like a word that sticks
to your skin
like a past that you run from

like trying to explain yourself
as if you are just defined by one word
as if one singular word
could sum up
your elegance
your grace
the curve down the line of
your back that
has started wars
and disrupted the
calm existence of nature

like you were no one
before the person you are now
like the moment you fell from
the dark into the world
was nothing until now

and they ask you to define yourself
with adjectives and phrases
that could never sum up
your mid-july laughter
and the way you give
like air breathes

they want you to
use your blood and skin
your membranes and cells
to paint a verdant
masterpiece
so they can submerge themselves  
in the way your existence
is synonymous with
hers