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

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

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'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

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

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

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

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’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

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

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 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

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

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 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 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

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

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

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

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’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

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

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

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

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 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

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

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 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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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