Head in your hands,
I say “you are the most beautiful thing I have ever seen.”
“Do you speak to anyone else like that?”
Since we’ve been here together,
The world has been uninhabited

How would your hair feel in my fingers
In a new world?
Or your stomach against my back,
In the twilight
Before any decisions can be made
In the lavender hours when we are vulnerable and un-expecting
Still mine, still yours,
Until we again become ourselves
Though feeling our own pulse
Through the other’s hand

I’d never heard anyone
Call you by your full name like that
And standing between the tall terraced houses,
I swore I could see your eyes through the cracks
The gaps in the brick
This crushing weight I feel could surely cave in my chest
The flower pots laugh and tell me I’m a mess,
I soak the leather seats
Wishing I was soaking in your breath
And if you were a fish in a tank,
I’d beat on the glass until my knuckles bled
And if you were deep inside the earth,
I’d find a way to make them bury me
Whether through feigning,
Or truly being dead

I see how you treat her brown eyes so well,
The most delicate touch
Among the softest air
For if it cannot be mine,
There is nobody I’d rather see protected
And glowing under your sweeping gaze
The most radiant flower,
Shining under a misty rain
She is lucky and I see it most clear,
Your pure sentiments I hear
And when she needs you very most,
You endure a mile backwards
To walk her home

Cicadas are eating my roses again
I wonder how I ever caught and killed any,
Much less a hoard of seemingly hundreds of thousands
Buzzing, electrocuting my insides, there is so much coal in my stomach now
Face too wet to start a fire
Or do anything possibly useful

Still, these bugs punch holes in my flowers
They have blonde hair
And blue eyes

I don’t remember how I got from Southgate station to this corner market,
I was with you, smelling the leather of your coat
And scratching the tickle in the root of my scalp from where your chin sat
I reached my hand past the stubble and into the curls
The whole way home
I choose something sweet, cold
The refrigeration might bring me forward,
Instead my hand is now slipping in condensation,
I get into the car
Wet body and warm tongue,
Shaking and needing for food, forgetting what my own voice ever really sounded like
Just how you left me and how you will always find me again

The rain said to the tree,
“You’ve taken my heart,
Will you marry me?”
And the tree looked down
To the earth at his feet
And he said
“I love you too,
But there’s a problem you see
Some days I see the sky blacken and shake
And you become a hurricane
In that state, you destroy me
Tear up my roots,
Rip away my leaves
You water the ground,
You give me all that I need
Shower life upon my seeds
But I am scared to open upon to thee
To be strong in your raging wind
And give you my everything”

Brooklyn has given me
Many redeeming qualities
Or memories,
To tie to the headboard and fight over nightly
I’ll try anything twice
So long as the truth is a stop on the way to playing nice
And theres a long time
Between her red hair
And green eyes
That you could use to figure out the right
Things to say to me
So we both can finally get some sleep

Those lips are a moral dilemma
And agony is so close to a full-body finish


I think I’ll stay deaf and blind a while longer,
Let the city burn

The house is locked and doused,
Give me one more breath to light it
Then you can take me in a grey-blue storm
I’ve been ready to go

I couldn’t save the lawn or tiles
Rotting loudly
Cracking like fingers in a fight
I think if I had just one night
I’d give it to you quickly

Unfurl, and
Altogether bloom
I am now open to you
Warm, I can
Spread out thick
Fine and ****
As though turned to sugar sand
I only have a velvet “yes”
Jumping at the gate of my lips
I only have clean hands
Held out open to you

Like your jaw knows anger,
Your feet know wet socks and creaking boards
Like hands know a hot kettle,
Kissed and pulled away to burn pink a while longer
Like an unshaven hunter, resentful of the forest but feeling home nowhere else,
You know my rivers and roses

You repeat what I say in agreement,
With eyes like planets
You decipher scattered characters
Click the lock into alignment
It pops with relief after rust and a thousand overcast summers
Tired of the burden of keeping secrets
When my body speaks,
She bleeds completeness
Knowing more than I ever will

You repeat the question, “Can we just lay here awhile?”
With eyes like planets

I am Sun-roasted mahogany, and still warmed
Before the day even breaks
You are in the air and between every follicle
All amber, jungle-eyed, full of undiscovered life
Brand new species of whole love,
Growing from the body
Giving my preemptive brain honor to sleep
Rivers and roads abound in you,
Safe and a welcomed means of travel
To a Brand New World
To the place they always promised me

Though if war sprouted on the skyline,
You, the red mist,
I would gladly be a traitor
I would peacefully be ******

Poisoned fruit in your ***** eyes,
But really I am just an apple
Organic,
Full of green veins and soft, brown spots
They are ugly and particularly sweet
Coming from a life of white bread and red meat,
You pucker at the acid
And sugar

I know what I did, I know what I did, IknowwhatIdid,
But you haven’t done enough to make me concede again and you never really have
So maybe I’ll beg
You know the more I try to love it,
The sicker it gets
Take my mouth away from me,
I don’t know how to use it
At least for how it’s intended
When I use it to scrape your soul from its shell like a cold-water clam
I’m the captain

If this black,
Blood red,
Billowing fire
Could rage any higher
Burn up the oxygen
Your false words selfishly syphon
Convinced they require
It would be a mighty
Heavenly force
Indeed
But within the grand canvas,
Quite a minor feat
For theatrical,
Impassioned,
Merciless me
Never so kind
As to stop at your feet
I’d bury you alive
Cut holes for your
Lying
Eyes  
Force you to watch
The horror of melting earth and trees  
The irony  
Of the rain so closely watching,
And choosing to leave

How full would you be of yourself,
Until you were sick and nauseous?
How many limbs off my body would I have to give
Until you had a brand new version of something to twist and condescend
How large is your glass?
Could I fill it from my veins?
Or would you scream that a drought was upon us
Is that just how bottomless
Your soul extends?

Through wet hands and a wet shirt I weeped that I needed you now,
Even though this heart and chest you’ve battered like a barn dog
And in choosing yourself, again,
My deep trust snapped like a boot through a locked door
Splintered, final and bringing something immediately after
But morbidly musical, individual too
Like breaking a handful of dry pasta in half
Ignorant, but making no difference in the end

It’s strange to taste a slap in the face
Feel it through my waist like a slow dance
I wonder if you plant those flowers at every house on the street

I couldn’t explain the way I wanted you

He’s a hot crackle on my cold skin
Soft skin of lips on my cautious hand
A real pretty face
Something of my own soul to sink into
Robins egg eyes make a waterfall down my face
Rush across my body
Below the midline,
He finds the summer of me

South state animal
You were hiding in my backyard
For the moment I was starving and needed sharp teeth
To catch me something living and breathing
To eat
You pointed my gaze to the strength of the natural moon  
I found that intuition was enough

Suddenly I remembered I could hunt

I heard church bells the day you died
I recognized them as being for a celebration,
Or a holy day
But how little I knew then
There were no angels or God that morning
I saw you again and the trees in your eyes were already stripped
Gray bark, and you could snap off any twisted, shedding branch
Beat someone to death with it

I would be your lace enclosed
Dewy Irish rose
Your wide eyed
God-fearing wife
I would scream and taunt you,
Echo into the country night
Just to keep your tongue wet,
Your muscles used,
Red and tight
I’d tell you we need
Three ivory linen sheets
One to practice,
And perfect our technique
Two to plant
Each poppy seed
I’d fill you full
Up to the brim
Present to you my golden hair
To lay down all your worries in

I cut into our tie,
So thin and wire fine,
But thick and heavy as an iron rope
Frozen,
And expertly sewn together
Reinforced and broken one too many times
The scar tissue,
Now ruining my life
Preventing the truth of your heart,
And the freedom of mine
I slip in my sweat,
Each and every night
Going at the tether again
With a dull and desperate knife

You play your space much too fast,
Too lose,
Too unspecific
For a promise-maker
Fresh meat in a foreign house, and the very strangest kind
8 moments of suspension is 7 too many times
To hold our breath together
Hoping the rain caves in the roof

If we met today
You’d find all innocence or none
Nobody could begin to fill your space
Except a thousand men at once
You’d cut my leather if I wore it,
And stretch out the lace in strands of pearl
I knew well the skin I’ve fought in,
Until I wore it in your world

From which would the worst hand be dealt,
That they should see into my soul like an open wound,
A throbbing problem case,
Or for their own to be missing entirely
Abundance and absence are sisters in a carriage,
Dressed in ribbons
Sewn in breathlessly tight and bickering
I’ve not the modern medicine to heal them
Of their fevers

In my fuzzy, tumbling mornings
You are still the light of day
Even if it’s only last night’s matches,
And I exaggerate the flame

If I’ve been ejected from the sky and shot through a forest canopy,
Only my torn clothes to hold as I walk the amazon, dehydrated for days,
Then you are the rain


When I wake wrapped in hot skin
Layers of itching ash, fallen paper-thin
Too frozen from the smoking door to reach the window
You are a headlamp
And a deep voice of salvation any trapped creature would know

I am the sea to your sky
I create your blue and you pull me

It’s fatal to twist my stomach this way,
Yet he leaves me to walk around
Having swallowed glass and nails
I’m both starving and so full, I spill over

Leave me
Leave me
Please, I’d hollow out this body
Rather than be a whole woman with a single piece of you still inside me
I’d rather crash this car while I’m young and sturdy
Than wait as you take four steps back for every five forward
Slipping skyward like running paint on the horizon
I was earthbound, I would’ve died trying
I believed in a tether we couldn’t see but it was only lights and strategic wiring
Our first night failed us, now it’s miserably dated
Every night I still ask it into my bed
I still sleep with it right next to my head

Hold me back?
Allow me to rush forth?
I wonder who you will be and where you will come from
I take guesses at the language you might speak
And with it, who you will coax from my menagerie
To dance with you in the jet fuel and rising flames

Fainter, darling
I don’t think I could hear you cutting me down under your breath
Try a different angle, perhaps
I don’t think I could quite feel your ***** slicing into my chest
If you wanted to plant a garden over me,
All you had to do was ask
I know I’m woven of the brightest colors you’ve ever seen
I know you’re tired of going blind,
Fighting the escaped circus bear of memory
How can you lie to your delicate self so easily?
Are you ready to admit why you’re losing sleep?

A full body, lilac blush
I look for new summer leaves
To crush,
Under my zealous feet
I look for ways to bait you
So you’ll notice my purple hue
As I refuse to breathe
Refuse to move
Plant my heels in the burning sand
To match your working boots
Hold a heavy mirror to
All it could’ve been
Simply the same animal, we are
In the end

A shoot and miss in the dark,
I try to guess your thoughts
Hope it won’t hurt but will burn just enough
I beg you through silence and telephone lines
You take a shy bow,
And blow out three dozen lights
Grind me down ‘till I’m powder fine
Holding so steady and strong,
I beg you to try
Hold me close
Kiss me goodnight

Plague rat,
Faded nineties autograph
On an Italian restaurant wall
If ruining my day was an Olympic sport,
You’d be on the cover of Men’s Health
Smiling in coveralls

You have a hold on me,
The look in your eyes is loveless
You have a hold on me,
How I love it

This feels like the night before the end of something vast,
A plane ride straight into a hot, nostalgic summer
Or Christmas Eve
A drop in my stomach
Like I could eat the world
Savoring the last moments before I leave your heart
I could tell the truth
Or break all the drinking glasses in the cabinet
Forget to pay the bills
I won’t need money or clear skin where I’m going

You stare at me scared and blinking like I’m a passenger jet on fire
Like I’m a golden-haired loose cannon fitted with trip wire
And you’re a fragile cloud of smoke
Written in the sky, the wind could tear you down and flip you inward
Buried down six feet just to sing about the dirt
And how you clawed your way out
How next time you try to fight the straight line and die in the right light, you’ll pick a sunny place to drown
You torched me like a teal-eyed lighting bolt
then burnt the hospital down  
I’ll wring you like an orange
Until I’ve had my fill and can live with the taste in my mouth

Silver metal hummingbird  
Clack, clack, clacks against glass
While the car jostles and I **** myself over needing you
Sometimes the ring is a hum when you are there to sing the harmony,
At other times it is a shotgun blast in an abandoned war tunnel
I am most eloquent and hollow when it’s your nails at my throat
Though I can’t speak,
I sing

A sweet spotted Chrysanthemum floats on a river,
Caught in twigs, and escaping with only drops of dew,
To sparkle and show evidence of a small battle won
Against the rushing fervor
Blown from the bush of her brothers too early,
She is young and sturdy
And the dragonflies flicker,
Her pinks and purples dancing their improvised number

An explorer cuts smoothly on the river,
His vessel rich and warm,
Tough, but none too weathered
Rippling and golden bronze
For he does not fear the sun,
He knows the reward of burns gained
Under a long and heated touch
Explorer sees flower,
Scoops her from the water,
Only to see she’s plucked herself all on her own
His velvet palm,
A heavenly home

Gray can only hide so long in the black
When I wake too early I can see your eyes in the dark blue
Sometimes you burn so much trail, you can’t find your way back
I hope I lose all the details when I think about you
If there’s a color between deep orange and light red
I’ve felt it each time I try to sleep
If there’s something sweeter than eternal rest
You’ve felt it every time you’ve laid your skin on me

I am so disoriented and malnourished from you torturing me in this cell
I almost thought I’d see you behind my locked front door,
Sitting and waiting for me on the couch
When you don’t have a key and nobody’s been home all day

Loose ends so frayed,
Tie mine,
And I’ll tie yours tight
I’ll cauterize the fibers,
So they stick together
Like kisses on a humid night
We swirl, and combine in a bowl
Raw sugar and spice
Wrap up together and find answers in time

I’d love a neat little package
With our names scratched on the wrapping
Telling the story of us
How only now
We’ve just figured out
We’re in love

There’s a world at the end of the earth for us
And I go there with you, even without you
Even when it’s beyond touch and sound
Too far beyond hope, begging, tender new start
I find it in the darkest part of the night
In our songs
In the sky above the bridge
In the city we’d never revisit
With anyone

As soon as I left,
I’ve seen you every day since
If I warm the bottle in my hand,
Slowly take a sip
I can still hear the river at night
Taste the juniper on your lips
That nervous glass would have me fooled
Shaking,
And just as full to the edge
With things to give only if
We’d allow ourselves to

I hold too much water in me
There’s too much space to swim
Or so I’m told
An infinity of things that can go wrong,
When there’s that much room
For strange plants to grow
And who knows how far down it goes?
Or if the people in the village
Nestled right in by the waves edge
Would lose it all
If the tide came in too close
How in heaven,
Could we entrust our sons,
Could we entrust our boats?
After all that rocking and thrashing
After all the unpredictability she’s shown?
We’ve trashed and traumatized her sand and foam,
Left her thirsty and lapping at the shore she owns
Now she’s just a bit too close
A bit too vast to predict
Or control