your glasses on the
nightstand
but never out of focus
you’ve slipped past
my peripheral
and enlivened my world
so subtly
my chapstick shares
your cells
your pockets are filled
with my wettest
secrets  
you flourish
like july
in the deepest layers
of my
skin

you have come
in
reverberations of
peace
and self discovery
i’ve tripped over many
versions
of shangri-la (paradise)
to find myself
in cancer season
making you ***
on a tuesday

i’ve trembled beneath
you like
spring
our first moments
etched into my cells
like hair
was a love this great
meant to be doomed?
was i supposed to love you
like frida loved diego?
i long for our electricity
did we leave the window
open
to blow our love
around the room
or the security away?

i’ve been licking
my wounds
for months
you want me
to be
excited
that you want
to see me with
potential during
the verdant months
breathe me in
eat my spirit (*****)
with potential
i am (unfortunately)
in love with you
and you’re out of
your ******* mind

between stories of fate
and government conspiracies
you exist amongst them
all
like 2 shots
instead of one
you have filled me
like the thought of abundance
in a famine
i long for you in
multitudes
you exist deep
in my cells

you’ve been lying
dormant for
the past 2 years
a moth-like hiatus
in a love-like state
you worship
the tenets of
delayed gratification
in bite sized pieces

propagate wide open
my tiny heart
mourns for you
you're making a mole hill
out of a mountain

i’m sorry
i emailed you
in the midst of your mid-20’s
existentialism
i promise to only reach out
when i’m pre-contemplating
or feeling insecure
you taught me about energy
and how it never dies
i will always miss the
idealized parts of you
i’m roused and paralytic
by your
chaos and good intentions
your skin
and how you breathed that night
i rode you on the chair
is etched in my memory
like a scar

im less concerned
with morality these
days
******* to the end
of the earth
and your unenlightened
seed

i have been trying to make
peace with some things
i have been trying to
let go of lately
i have held on so
dreadfully/delightfully
to the essence of all
that becomes you
it sits in my heart
the place i go to
when i think about the end
a rocking chair on a quiet
porch
this momentum will
last forever
you’ll have the version of
me from last october
until loyalty becomes
a conflict
i want shared custody of
the versions of us we bore
together

i’ve been sad since
the end of snowfall
since i decided i didn’t
want you to love me
anymore
today my lab
instructor
told me
that my transcription
was rough
so are the waters lately
if only pickled mushrooms
and self reflection solved
everything
i would be on an island
in greece right now
not thinking about the
money
the future
or you not choosing to
love me until i asked
you to stop

8 passenger mini van
i carry all the love
strapped in
delicately
irrational angst and
idealism fighting
in the backseat
i have no room for
your regret
my stomach fell
into the earth
when i heard you
were going to be a dad
i have been loyal to a ghost
for the past 6 months
of course you still want me
i was always the person
who was capable of
loving you despite
the placement of the
planets
and your scorpioic
tendencies

it’s strange to miss you
when you sit here touching
elbows with me
souls sometimes
when applicable
maybe i have been
mourning you
since the day we met
weening off in
small increments
swapping dna
and withholding
small traces of
love
compartmentalizing doesn’t
hit as hard without you
who else is going to put
their hand on my
forehead to keep
the good
thoughts in

i emulate you
in forms that i can’t have
and find myself in stories of flooding *******
and summertime haste
it’s strange and comforting
that everyone you ever
love becomes a part of
you somehow

you’re haunted like
a 20 year old with
a past life of regrets
the head and the
heart in
an endless power
struggle
maybe a bath
will save me
i’m haunted by
it all

the love was reinstated
at 12:30 in the afternoon
on an unsuspecting tuesday
it came cautiously from
around the corner
and regrettingly after
2 years
all this talk of forgetting
and my body
trembles at the thought
of you
long haired-fake apache
and the taste of your mouth
that felt like a happy marriage
pink toes swinging over
desperate water
longing and complicated
you injected me with
religion when you kissed me
when you came into my life
and when you left

crystals and clonazepam
to keep
the bad dreams away
the growing pains
are unbearable at times
and/both
coexisting like
radical self acceptance
and struggling to blame
you for all the suffering
i read that just because
someone doesn't love you
the way you want them to
doesn't mean they
don't love you
i don't know exactly
what i would
call it then

creating boundaries like
inevitable wars
i hate to fight when we are all
the same color
cut in the same way
wounded in the same spot
you said you love me because
i always want the best for people
maybe that speaks to what the
uber driver said that day
to all the self loathing
to why everyone loves me either
too little or too much
the apple fell very far from the
tree and has been
trying to differentiate
ever since

different stages of change
i’m sorry i didn’t realize
you were pre-contemplating
the baby once sat in a ******
diaper for years and forgot
he could take it off
i miss you like the luxury
of west coast weather
after living in the east
coast my whole life
i’ve been preparing
for peace instead of
war this time
my face feels different
and i don’t think of my
last meal as much
endings make me
sentimental
you’ve all stormed my
world so subtly

you want all the time it takes for you to be ready. what happens if takes you too long? what does it mean for me if i wait?

being differentiated
is so painful and lonely
i wish you knew what it
was like to be stuck on
an island with someone
who doesn’t want to leave
maybe in another life
i would have loved small
talk and searching for coconuts
with you

you have loved me
in thick chunks,
gauzy *****, and
broken pieces
cauterizing my
inevitable chaos
and bleeding heart

//
on the cusp of laughter
the zietgiest of your
wet exuberance
and tranquility
settles the loud
parts
you’re all the good
that is lost on me

the sky submerged
in the perfect shade of canton
pink
i rush home to plug
into you
you give me sunlight
and cheek kisses
sleeping in sync
and waking up in character
a compilation of all
your states
i crave you like
long weekends
and leo season

odor remover
and soaked carpet
the memories are
harder to exstinguish
clinging to songs
and scents
i loved you more
last night
when i realized
that we grieve
the same way
it’s nice to know
it’s not just
me

i forgot to put
the crystal underneath
my pillow
so of course you
came to me in my
dreams
i haven't forgotten
how i have loved you
and killed you
and then loved you
some more
//
you radiate more
heat than anyone
i know
growing pains and
spring in sight
i can't water you
anymore

i've been here before
many springs and
only one therapist later
i miss you when you're here
the wall is too big
for me to get through
like 9/11 conspiracies
and disappearing noses
i drew you much bigger
than you were
romantic and impractical
it's all i know
you can't have unlimited time
and me

i have loved you
twice now
in separate forms
with the same conclusion

the words are
lost to you
like daily rituals
and the nuiance
of psychoanalytics
you evolve like
the reptilian brain
when you want to
i want to do more
than just survive

i’m becoming an
insomniac like
my mother
fried rice and almost
midnight thoughts
i murdered the life
i thought i wanted
today
she died in a sheath of
quirk and holiness
went quietly in her sleep
at 11:20 pm
breathed in a life
fulfilled/unfinished
and breathed out peace and
leftover carbon dioxide

//
i spoke with your mom
today
in broken bits of promise
and spanish
i hope you taste forever
in between spoonfuls of
corn, carrot,
and me trying

distinct and syrupy
we have been sleeping
on clouds and reveling
in the perfect storm
you say that shaping
my fro feels ******
spiritual like after
sunday dinner ***
and loving forms
of me quietly
and raw
like chicken
i crave you
admist the chaos
that is me
forever searching
i long for you
like the end of
growing pains and
a missing
member in the
cat band

your pre laughter
and pre ***
unsheathing you
in skin and light:
quirky
eternal
animated hair and
kind eyes
the love died quietly
and confidently in a past
life and was
reborn with
you

celestial and wounded
there’s no way to
take back time
we were swimming
before we were
breathing
the air was
overwhelming
your lungs
before you loved me
what came first
the co2 or the suffering?

you came on the
lord’s day
gave birth to peace
with your hands
and infectious pre-laughter
i’m sorry that i underestimated
the nuiance of subtlety  
i have grown used to dark
storms and uncertainty
you sleep as peacefully as
you exist
i want the weight of your
head on mine on short
days and even longer
nights

seeing both sides
talking out of both
sides of your mouth
i want you at the worst
times
at your worst angles
you're the worst of me
you settle into the lines
of my skin
like lotion
like smoke after
a fire
like life and
like death

i’ve decided that i will write
about you the way frida
wrote about diego
i love you and i wish
you never existed

your words died out
at 5:00 am this morning
simmering like styrofoam
and heat
complicated like love and
the white stuff
you exist in vices on
the cusp of self loathing
and complete absolution

like sophie’s choice
or maybe i’m just being
dramatic
maybe a little too self
absorbed
or close up on it
the faith died a couple
of times
not in the middle of the
night like you
would think
but in many multiverses
that all end in
the same way
i can’t love both me and
you abundantly

word to the wall
for catching me
and the night for
embracing our
love in other
ways
word to the guilt
and pinched nerve
for always letting me
feel
word to the growth
and the truth and chika
word to you
for reviving or
ruining me
word to time
for coming too early
and too late
word to my stubborn
*** for writing this
and keeping on

word to my past
and present
i hope you aren't doing anything
to compromise your happiness
i hope you are at peace
i hope you are in love

it’s funny how
you can disrupt my
peace and
accuse me of not
being harmonious
will i write about
you the way frida wrote
about diego rivera
was their love any less
epic because it was
tumultuous
i love you in a way
that blossoms
and drains me
i want the beginning
and the end with you

i want you
like i crave
shelter in the longest
winter i have ever lived
through
all this space from you
shouldn’t be a thing
no planets in retrograde
i want slower time
this little boy at school
told me that they are letting
people on mars now
i wish we could fly
there and get tonight
back
i want you more than
stars and forever

all these things
that mean exactly what
they look like
you say it walks
like a duck but
talks like a dinosaur
why does your jealousy
fill up the air like
smog
i miss the country
side without all
the attachments
where
the oxygen is clean
like velvet
and your words sink to
the bottom of the sky
like tasteless freedom

i guess it's true
that you can't have
all the things you want
at once
all this intersection
between words and perception
i am not the person you
think i am
or maybe i am
perhaps
my face just looks
different from various
angles and near
light

i love you
like experiencing
california
for the first time
palm trees and
unique synchronization
lax time
and all hours
with you
i have known your
grandmother in
a past life
maybe we share
the same souls
maybe it's you
at the center of
it all

the way you have
to be ready for a
real woman
thick thighs
and scarred skin  
her body
rich with
the weight of
generational
suffering
one whose legs open
up like spring
when she loves you
one who you have
to be careful at how you
talk to
her words sterile
and sincere like alcohol
one who doubts herself
she is caught between
love and self
both fierce and fragile
her hips are painted
with lust and loss
these women are:
closer to god,
softer in the middle,
terribly in love
with you and
relatively unresolved

all this time
but no resolution
all this space to unpack
but the words are
so cumbersome
tommy, i can’t believe you died
on a road all alone when you
spent your life surrounded by
the same people
mikayla, i’m sorry about the
way time worked against us
i know you’re listening to tyler’s
new album and it’s great, isn’t it?
uncle tyger, you used to be the epitome of
my childhood and now as an adult
i can’t recognize you
unresolved pimples
nothing coming to a head
i want certainty
in exchange for peace

they got it all
wrong
nostalgia
is the thief of joy
i experience peace in small
doses
i have some redness
i need to neutralize
some things i have
to get off my chest
there are streaks in
the polish on my
nails
streaks in the windows
that i’m looking out of
pre-apocalyptic thoughts
from the edge
i would’ve kissed you
on the mouth
had i known it
was the last time
i would see you

coping with loss
life a series of
good and bad
decisions
i want hope
and healing for
me
folded into
1,000 origami
swans
psychological
immune system
preventing me
from feeling too
badly
cycles of time
and happiness
existing like the
seasons
i want
peace in small doses

in my bag
and i find you
at the surface of it all
a 15 minute visual
album of first love
you live in the
back of my
head
taking solace in
the quiet corners of
me

///

sticking to you in
the nighttime
you break down
my natural composition
of chaos and good intentions

the childhood
version of
you
chasing your
adult self
through
alleyways
bad habits
and love lost
catching up to you
like tupac and
saturated memories of your
uncle
id, ego, & superego
fighting for dominance
like the power struggle
between you and
nicotine

//
you speak in
rhymes
that  
float around
my head
columbus discoveries
like faith
hiding in plain sight
i can write again
because you exist

you told me that my
aura smells like
a night out
skipping through
the stages
like theories
of development
sacral chakras
speaking to
me in tongues
you place me
in time
with your
hands
that feel
like they’ve seen
suffering
a scorpio in hiding
you’re a tribrid of
3 people i
may have loved