i know your demons,
and I kiss them on their pale and
broken foreheads to appease you.
i know the map of your skin,
of your bones, like white gold.

my hands are shaking
as the stars collide and
the dust of them lingers in
your eyelashes; and
i should detest you
by now, but you have
this way of consuming me
with the shadows in your
irises, but i

exhale- a breath like the
million before you came,
a plume of smoke,
radio static.

smoldering desire lights
upon my tongue and
infiltrates my thoughts.

and it is overwhelming,
everything at once;
our love may be a chronic
illness, but
the delirium is
hauntingly
beautiful.

that fizzy chemical
feeling
wraps itself around
my veins.
again. again.

not again.

i am full of blue smoke
and voracious wind voices.
i am full of melancholy
and still-born
dreams.

i miss you,
there, in the mirror.
you shine like
forgotten sun,
laugh like
terrific miniature
gods.

i am acetylene now.
i am neither human
nor beast. i return
to the ashes and ether
from whence I came.

i don’t belong here,
living as a fox among
the pheasants.

bugs and little blue stars
crawl from my eye sockets-
they hiss and pop in the light
and burn my transparent flesh.

glow like phosphorous.
grow like weeds.
bend like my spine.

you are not
permanent.
you will float off
on shiny orbs of soulless
plastic. helium smile,
chrysanthemum hands.

there is a girl made of stardust
and ocean salt, breathing static
into the night sky.
her love, if tended to
with patient hands, would
grow like wild roses across
the trellises of your heart.

she is not born of men;
but a child of luna,
sweet mother.
she is a breeze in July
softly rustling your hair
and the plague of
heatstroke and withered
tongues that swiftly follows.
her touch lingers into
the winter solstice.

she is the wave of sorrow
sweeping over your bones
and the light in your eyes
shining with leftover love;
a shadow dressed in white,
a consummation of grief.

she is a wallflower, a habitual
offender to the gods.
she will nurture you like an infant
and then leave you on your knees,
gasping for redemption.

black morning- the birds fall apart
beyond the curtain, forgetting their lines,
and the regret hangs around my neck
like a talisman.

the knives are sound asleep in their
wooden block and, alas,
the gas still warms the house.
yes, this is clarity pressing her fingers
to my temples and lifting the fever
of earthworms and giants.

your face still haunts me
but only in the dark womb of sleep,
that cruel temptress.
you come like a shadow and
I am dressed in black, patiently
waiting to consume you.

clarity comes upon awakening,
when I discover how easily the dirt
and grit of your smile
washes away.

c'est la vie,
I can stand on solid ground.

i've been building sentences
for you, because there are
too many words to keep them
stagnant and docile.

oh, words on melancholy smiles,
chipped porcelain and
sunlight dappled through your hair
like the sun herself had
kissed the crown of your head.

i've been writing you letters
inside of my head. little golden
pinpricks of love
seeping through my cells
because my body cannot hold
the very idea of loving you.

in those moments, i am liminal,
held tight by the arch of your spine,
the pads of your fingers,
the way that you held my name
in your mouth before
it rolled off of your tongue and
the smell of your skin
in a dark room, with only
the moon watching us
woefully, sweetly.

words like saccharine and
your name, slow like honey,
taste sweet enough
to make me cry.

i've been stuck on the idea
of loving you, loving me
and wringing my hands
over bad luck, mon petite chou.

and still, you close your eyes,
clasp your hands over your ears
and brush off my words like
dust or snowflakes or
unrequited love.

you glide across the floors
of my imagination with the
gait of a silverfish and
a name just as deceptive.

and i sweep you beneath
the rug or erase you
with a stamping of gilded feet
or bury you beneath heaps
of discarded memories
until your features fade
and you are nothing more
than a lost relic,

a watercolor portrait
too beautiful to keep.