you move me
the way
music moves you
the vibrations
on the chords
of  your guitar
tell me how
your day went:
spilled lemonade
on your favorite sweatshirt
and 3 bonus points
on a clicker quiz
i'm not caught
in the essence of firsts
like 30 extra minutes
to kiss you in
real time
your dark features and
unfaltering movements
evolve like
the sounds of me loving
you
composed of your stiff-fingered
electricity and a continuation
of all the good
things

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

enfolded in
your abundant legs
i find all the good
things etched
on the surface
of your
skin
like an egyptian
relief painting
you are worth
enough tears
to flood the nile
and re-write the
way the marsh unfolds
like the way i found you:
verdant discoveries
on sundays
and new ways
to say shadane
pragmatic star girl
i add your name
to my mental thesarus
like a new favorite
word
adoring and
absorbing your
lower-case
expressions
like second
nature

i still don't know what
i'm trying to say
like dissecting a frog
in 1500 ways
looking for different yellow parts
that piece together like
a baby's first breath
like touching yourself
with your other hand
and pretending it's someone
else
maybe i feel ordinary
because i've never made love
or ******
under the volcanic ash
of someone's dark
body
never let anyone
park inside
the yellow lines
that trace my body
like ridges in
the earth
like gaps in
time that i cannot
take back
i have no idea what i'm
trying to say like
boxed wine
and a kiss from a girl
at 7 am
on third floor north
hall in college
like slicing people
into their better halves
and accepting them
like the way time is  
supposed to heal
but doesn't
i still don't know what
i'm trying to say when i think
about uncle tyger's voice
rewinding time
like green grass on
the park that day
like war and sand
like hot air and forgiving
i still don't know what
i'm trying to say
when i see myself
shedding my skin
like spring in heat
evolving like the best
portrait
of human nature
i'm not afraid to be
caught loving you
in the harsh elements
even though
i still don't know
what i'm trying to
say

new wave thoughts
about me
no more writing
about love
for other people
12:41 and no more
writing about
all the ways my girlfriend
can't love me the
way i love her
before our time
little white men sold
her mind away
cerulean boat trips
from the promise
of emotional security
into the land of
avoidant attachment and
rich dreams of
comfort before falling
and living but
not feeling
everything
how the **** do you
live if you don't feel everything?
i feel the beginning like
18 years of virginity
and broken starts
almost a lots and
never anythings
the middle like
sifting through
oppression and finding
the ******* and the love
intertwined like rice
in braided hair and
messages in old hymns
breaking bread like
whisper-talking through
the bad times
going down on
you parting
your red sea
like moses in heat
your breaths unfolding
like the duality of
old ***** spirtuals
and the interpretation of
dreams
the end like loving you
being nothing of a
choice
born into a
system where black
love isn't enough
i bleed cognac for
you
when midnight
isn't dark enough
to capture
your mind before
it's capture
all the beautiful things
before 12:41 you
left back
in the motherland

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

i found 12:41
revelations
milo and quantum
physics
i couldn't pass chemistry
in 11th grade
stuck in the act
of balancing equations
too much o2 taking
up all the space in
the air where
words are supposed to
form and make
things easier
pure scientific intelligence
the art of descerning
the oil on
skin leaving fingerprints
on the surfaces of things
only surface-level
too afraid to go any deeper
i want you on all levels
in all aspects without
limitations

the absentminded
water slides
into the empty
spaces of my skin
i can feel your
mossy fingertips
playing with
the forces of nature
(the way you do)
there's a past inside me
that i cannot reach
and i do not run
from it
the mist from the water
seeps into my pores
and i am filled to the
brink with viridescent
potential

you told me once
that you were
seeing everything
from the top of a
mountain
and i wonder
if the cerulean air from
up there
fills your lungs
like a new day
and if the birds
live inside your dreams
like a museum
where their laughter
preserves the best
parts of you

you come alive
in the same
way that
spring breathes
new possibilites
open up
your
honey lips
that drip life
into my
flowering dreams
like second nature
i wish i could
live behind your
verdant eyes:
becoming you
and seeing
everything

like 1500 ways to
skin a cat
and being
told you're wrong
for your technique
the rugged edges of your
knife snagging on the
skin like
good intentions
unfolding like
a-bay-of-pigs-invasion
in the heat of the
moment

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

worship me
like moses' interpretation
of jesus on the third day
rising up like hot air
and pinned arms on
sundays

trying not to **** myself
like happy thoughts
and bad timing
life lessons on
the duality of
enlightenment
caught in the karmic
cycle
the good and bad of
me struggling
for dominance
self-proclaimed
altruism
and general unluckiness
frozen time like
longing for it all back
20 years and i've
all done is
master the art of
falling in love
and ******* up

drown me in
the ease
that drips from your
pores
and becomes you

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

call me your
butterscotch queen
and revel in
my sticky
emotional
unavailibility

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

jumping to conclusions
like gap years
with no intent
of returning back
to universe 1
composed of matter
i am unequal disproportions
of good intentions
and inconsistency
a little
selfish
i want quality time,
altruism, and attention
a $700/ a month off campus
apartment  
a slap on the wrist for
the worst parts of me
******* to the government
conspiracy of whites looking
for an opportunity to bring
the black (wo)man
down
******* to the
smoke, the air, the stress
for taking up space
where the love was
supposed to be
but most of all
******* azaria
you had a good thing
and you ****** it
up

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

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

milo and quantum physics
but yet there is no equation
for your emotional unavailability
y equaling the x factor of vulnerability
i’ve always hated the duality of
math
all the silent rules to remember
i just want to be loved the way that
i love
without so many computations
how do i know if silence + comfort equals
pleasure or complacency?
a limit on the questions i can ask in a day
i just want to know everything
do you like the way i **** on your *******?
am i ever going to meet your family?
are you going to love me forever?
2 standard deviations of what you mean
when you say what you do
am i enough for you and i just don’t
know it yet?
basic math skills at a deficit
am i unable to put 2 and 2 together
are there limits to us
or do they not exist?

i'd **** the moon
to relive those
cyan minutes
where you were
half the man
i'd always hoped you'd be
when you didn't blame
the circumstance of time
and the missteps of
your 
ancestors
whose flaws you
worshipped like
second nature

your black mouth
gaping open
like cognac
your midnight
fingers
suspended in the air
absorbing the
verdant curves of
my mother's body
that read like
von Guérard's
Lake Wakatipu

i want to
find you
on the verge
of complete absolution
the precise
tweezed hair
second
when you moved
so eloquently
in my mother
and created me

there are foreign
objects  
stitched
so seamlessly
into my DNA
and
you ask me
why the
silken birds
fell into
the night
when i let
you
touch me

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

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

how you put too much
garlic in everything
and the way
i miss your presence
like longing
for white hills and trees
you: like overthinking
everything that started
before it began
like: dc in the summer time
you: like jail breaking
our favorite moments
capturing time
like a shared vision

i admire the way you purge
putting your face on,
your night shirt,
and then your love

you unwind time
like poetry
leaving traces of your
idiosyncrasies from
all the seasons
inside the seams
of your pillows
and ever
changing faces

you: like Amos Lee and your salty jokes
during the summer months
like exchanging faces beneath the linen
like your ceiling fan turned on to
blow the air
or the love away

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

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

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

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

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

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

the interior
of your face
illuminated by
your yellow
laughter
and the wrinkles
on your skin
that evolve like
the best parts of
the south that run through
you
me: like slipping from
the past into now
discovering you
like my own best kept
secret
like: stitching time into a quilt
you: like the melody of your life
that breathes like first love
under the
***** of
my seeking
heart

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?

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

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

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

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?

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

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

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

indifference and silence
like stagnant water
i want you on fire

i asked how you were doing
because people
forget to do that a lot
like the way they
forget to clean the lint
out of the vent in the dryer
like the way they pass
you like a sea of faces
when they've been inside
of you
their eyes
once preserved the
lining of your skin
like embalming fluid
that trapped all of
your best qualities
like an essence in
a polaroid photo
i'm glad that
you found someone
whose shadow you
could watch like
a second vision of me
her courvoisier hair  
falling
down her back
like a freudian slip
you peeled my layers
like an unrelenting onion
except your tears were
like history
they floated across
the air like the
ships that carried my
caramel brown
ancestors
like the clouds
that showed
them the interpretation
of dreams
that grew and breathed
like daniel ceasar's voice
at 12:33 am
like accepting love
that you don't deserve  
and eating two pieces of pie
right before you go
to bed
telling yourself 
that life is too short

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

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

the new day brims
like holy sacrifice
when do the wires cross
and we become stagnant?
like the lava lamp
in my room that only
glows red
so many ways to keep
people out
like swipe cards and
keys
time
like little men that
sneak into
your skin
like tangible regret
like the cut on
my ******* that
keeps getting opened
and all the things you've ever said  
meldling like a shadow
outside of november
like 3:00am and cards
for kids that will never
read them
and seeing the good
in people that isn't there
like pillow talk in front
of the christmas tree
and building a fort
out of my flimsy
bones
like james touching me
out of love or angst
feeling everything and
trying to contain
it all

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

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

bag posts like
irrational
thoughts floating
in my head like
carousel days
i've had a lot
that i've wanted to
cry about lately
i want to be loved
enough to be put
into a song
my smooth skin
lingering in the
underflaps of a melody
a declaration of love
for my child-like enthusiasm
and unconventional
ways of loving you