There is a creature rarer than
you dare to dream.

If once it flourished
within your lungs,
savor the eternity,
it left on your tongue.

I have been evaded by
that space between the stars.
It's existence has eluded me,
it's true.

But it thrives in side your mouth
in your cuticles, it blooms
traced 'cross your eyelid
wandering from me to you.

Now I grasp the phantom creature,
I feel it's warmth between my thumbs,
taste the word within me,

because this is us and this is love.

I.
safe respite from a scary movie
i woke with bags under my eyes
heartbeats under dryer sheets

II.
you could carry me quite far
i loved for you to grasp my hands
they smelled of sweat and cinnamon

III.
first cigarette sixth kiss
you wrote me notes, i burnt them all
of you i do not speak

IV.
you whispered as i wore
your granite jacket; i have yet to tell you that
it's been my favorite color since

V.
you were damp new leaves
weathering fall's best storm
and i destroyed you just as completely

VI.
wet rain long fingers
i rest and watch you speak
i believe
you may be
the final sequence

Your eye
is the single thing.

I will fill it
with summer weeds
little stalks
no wrinkles
weighed with rain, like lungs of June.

I will fill it
with the hush of grass
swollen
with sun
your quiet lips like prayers, on my tongue.

You must never meet
puckered soil
wasted stems
no sickness
in this summer age.

Your eye will never fill
with these
trembling
wringing hands--
this ceiling without a star.

I will care for you.

Look at this, I made for you,
with lungs and fingertips

I've painted the whole of me,
but you've always seen less.

I must have been afraid.
See how my knuckles trembled
to create something so large,
a human soul could fill it?

Don't look at it,
I'm bare.
See my face
in every stroke?

I'd rather turn from you
and quit this sick indulgence
but you must have always known
you'd claim this ruptured soul.

So I have given this nothing reason,

as I gave your darkness color,

and I have given this paint a purpose,

as I gave myself to you.

For Connar:**

I linger long for you
in the desolate wasteland
that is
my speechless silence.

Lusting for replies
to my love
that demands
and scorns.

Why would the rose
of fields so fertile
dare to touch
this trodden ground
worn,
and weathered?

Who am I
to claim
your ****** toes?

By: Devon Artis-White (4/28/13)

She told me her story.
How it is to miss another soul
so thoroughly,

that their name

behind your teeth

gorges on

your waking dreams.

"Dreamers" would be kind, but no--
two liars
from the start.

We can't exist
outside this place

the streets lead us
apart.