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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

getting older
summer vacations
like too much time
to think
overthink
drink and overdrink
my hometown doesn't
fit me anymore
it fills me like
smog
i breathed in too
much air
and it got stuck in
my lungs
like the thought
of you
9-5 days
like a religious experience
white office space and
dry humor
bitter like stained
coffee cups and
blurry childhood
memories
i'm very sad
that you died
all alone
in your office
when you could've
died reffing a basketball
game or
in bed next to your
wife on a
tuesday
how peaceful
would it have been
to die knowing
where you
stood and exactly
how it would
happen

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

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’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

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?

seeking validation
like coming up for air
after being underwater for 6
months
like looking for the reminents
of yourself on your past lovers
collecting them up
like searching for the meaning of
life and getting ****** in the
end
understanding heartbreak
like birthing your feelings
a c section to remove
the security
the intimacy
the love

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

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

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

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

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?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

coping with free time
i want certainty
like religion
i don’t know how
to be alone without
feeling lonely

i’m afraid that i need too much
validation to be ok
all this talk of top and bottom
regardless of the whole
i wasted a liter of water today
all this talk about plastic straws and
turtles
forgiving and moving on
there is so much that i have not let go
of yet
i want the same slap on the wrist
for the worst parts of me
a holiday dedicated to
my warmth
and childlike idealism
i want all the parts of
myself back
from you

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

the white seconds
look like a
blanket of snow
on your mustache
have you stopped running
from the air
that tastes like lost time?
the gap in between your
two front teeth widens
like truth when you
tell me about the past
and how you used
to get into
a lot of fights
when you were in
7th grade
their names hard
to remember now
crusting into
the bottom of
your mind
like sugary milk
i never found the time
to ask you the important
questions:
how have you been since the
world has stopped?
do you still chain smoke when
you're anxious?
are you still beautiful?