Maybe love is* I wonder who you were when I didn't know you yet. I want to see how you first came to know the world and the ways the world tried to teach you that it loved you. I want to know if it hurt, and how, and how sweet.

I wonder who you will be when you reach your best, a person I haven't met yet. I wonder how you will love, and how you will hurt, and how you will learn. I want to see your sad smile, your tears, your broken heart; the days that feel strange, I want to be a witness to. I want to cry for you; I want to know you that well. I want your hurt to lie closer to my heart than my own. I want my heart to be jumping out of my chest into your hands. I don't need 'safe'. I need right.

And honestly there's no telling what that means.
I want you to lie beside me, in bed at night. I want each of us to think our own hands cruel, for the possibility that one of us might ever hurt the other. I don't trust my hands, my heart, my lips, my body to ever love you right. But let me tell you at my simplest, that I love you with the most truth a human soul can offer.

That when you are near or when you are far, I love you at the center of my being. That I always need you. That everything that hurts, hurts twice more when you aren't there to lift me from it.

Lift me from my reverie, my dizzy spell. That when your hand isn't in mine, I am always waiting for you. But when we are apart, never mind what is going on in my heart... I smile at the thought of your smile, cherish whatever is making you happy. Maybe it's when you're in line with the groceries, or with the sunlight slanting across your face. You are my every joy, my only, my absolute, my everyday prayer.

if you are the first boy to love me* say, i am sorry you didn’t have anyone there when you were young. that the words you always needed to hear were so long in coming. i don’t believe no one wanted to hold you in their arms before, i bet they loved you but couldn’t show it. like you made their breath catch so they left your hands shaking, afraid to love the girl whose emotions ran deep like a well, whose heart was wide and open, who would come to know them better than themselves; afraid to let you in.

You were a girl they weren’t ready for but I, I will not be the same kind of foolish. I’ve been wanting to give you roses for the day you turned sixteen, but I can’t. Maybe in another life if I will be so blessed, younger we will meet again. For now instead I will plant you a whole garden. Am I a godsend? Was I what He intended for you? I have no idea but, you have been alone for so long it’s all your heart remembers. I know you are used to it, but I want to love you, and I will, for as long as you will let me. More than ‘i love you’, you are my life now, and i will plant new flowers every day, and we will water them together.

i.
i don’t want to cry* on my birthday but here we go again, thinking ‘god, it’s a mistake,’ is a mistake. god is a mistake? i’m tired; i come from the far-reaching corners of your heart and in front of you now i have to say, i found i didn’t belong there. the journey has tattered my clothes, and my head hangs low but i’m ready, papa. i’m ready for the next one. journeys that will make me better, better journeys ahead.

ii.
i will be okay; it’s not that hard. i will let my head go under the waves sometimes. i will let my hands fall. i will hold my breath but no one will see the struggle. let me be alone, i will be fine. i want to go deep sea diving with my broken pieces. —i’m lying, i’m not fine. i want to be in danger, i want to be uncertain and laugh.

iii.
tell god i’ve always been wanting to die young. he knows what ive prayed for. pray he knows what he’s doing. don’t want to get into the habit of hurting people but each year the list gets longer and as i grow taller does my heart get smaller to make room for all the stars to grow again. reborn in my lungs in my chest, a supernova. leave me hacking with a cough, heaving. give me the pain i feared when i was small, and when i am broken pour my night sky soul into space.

*give me back the universe.

Wouldn't you love to see
An eagle on a park bench?

He came down because
he didn't want to be alone;
High up in the skies he was alone.
The eagle wept because
he was afraid to fall.
High up in the clouds with everyone below
there would be no one to catch him.
He knew his wings weren't as strong,
as they said. The only thing holding him
together is resolve. Wings break
the same as hearts,
So he would follow his tears down
as they fell.
To the park bench
on a sunny day.

pisces:
stop claiming you are weak. it doesn't come down to strength,
it comes down to self-discipline.it comes down to
there should've been something there (love),, every time he looked
at you, every time he needed you to hold
him. you scorned him, when you were both on the floor but it showed
on his face more. it comes down to
you left

his body wracked with sobs, gasping for breath because he didn't think you
would. everyone believes you when you say you love
them except after a while they don't. he was spellbound and starstruck
and delusional. everyone thinks you are kind. but there are five people
who might be able to tell how you are cruel
and self-absorbed when you are bored. you tire of your toys

and the people who fell for you first got the worst of it. when you know
you;ve got it you don;t want it anymore. so you pretend to cry,
tell everyone youve never been loved back. but get a grip on your head
and your heart, pisces, if you really want everything to stop
falling apart. surrender that cruel magic of yours, have more truth;
puke out the pain you've enjoyed, [give up] the shallow joys for profound
ones. pick your soul up off the floor. beat some sense into it.

go out there with everything in the right place and when you know want
to do, go do it.

(prologue.)

The night was so full of stars that it seemed to hold all the universe. But she knew it didn’t. He did. They walked on a moonlit meadow up above the world and he was a pretty boy and she was empty of breath, all bright eyes and no substance.

If he opened his mouth, galaxies would come spilling out and she would lap it up for want of something in her system, and realize only too late the existence of voids, the presence of black holes. That in all good, there is something not-so. And in all bad, there is reason to laugh.

With his gait graceful and her gaze far, if the observer were to stand on a hill across, they would make for lovely twin fairies. But their footsteps are heavy: feet mired in gravity and carrying weight, heads and minds suspended like heavenly bodies, hearts studded with stars that shine like heaven and burn like hell. Yes, their footsteps are too heavy and everything is real.

                                                                                          
Or is it? This night and this sky—whatever it may be, magnificence or disappointment—does not hold all the universe.

                                                                                                                      
(i.)

The wind rustled the leaves of a nearby tree and the grass came to softly tickle their feet. He was looking hard at her with his soft eyes but saying nothing. She sighed, avoided his gaze, and asked a bit wearily, “What is it? Why the silence?”

“I’m trying to show you,” he said patiently. “You listen to too much music to know that this is magic.” The pale skin of his eyelids closed themselves against his bright green eyes. He stretched out on the grass beside her slumped form and when he was there, felt for where her hand lay, absently pulling at a blade of grass. He ran his thumb along the back of it and said, “I’ll tell you what I’m thinking. The trees, the leaves, the grass, and the wind. The sight of you. The sight of you against the sky. The twinkling silence of a breath being held and the heartbeat that quickens and the stars that give their light just a bit brighter before the second ends. It could last for hours, you know, but when it’s gone, it’ll always feel like just a second.” Her left hand felt cool where his hand had stopped being present. She began to pull at another poor blade of grass. He’d turned to look at her, her back still to him, against which her hair lay, long, a little black mixed in with the colors of the night. “We’ll never have this moment again. You know.”

it’s okay i’ll be
a different me when
tomorrow comes

i’m turning a year older

and here’s to hoping
that the extra number
will mean i’m stronger;
that 40-odd push-ups
won’t make my muscles
ache for much longer

and a shoutout to my blind spot
the weakest muscle
according to my calculations
that it quickens its palpitations
when a boy smiles

but i’m turning fifteen in
fifteen days and in
fifteen ways i will always
be alone

on my own two feet

but here’s to hoping you will
hold my hand and
be a receptacle of hugs
and tired sighs and puppy eyes
that die

i will be 15 and my heart has been
torn since 13.
i will never
get tired of fixing it up
i will never
give myself up

young but not that young
and old
old, old, old

my hands are threaded thickly
with veins
and my eyes are shrouded
with thick lenses
but there is no wall between me and the world
and the thinnest of spaces between
our shoulders
my heart is protected by a plastic bubble

but this will be the year i swim the sea

to give it all my tears
to let the salt in all my wounds
to feel the pain
to know i’m stronger

to not let anything hinder me