to fill my thoughts with august
so the sunlight and fireflies
can drip like honey
brim, spill over-
to the hidden, dark places
of my soul
and they only become
sunburnt
and wither
too much love, they retreat

is this the path to insanity?
is this the path to enlightenment?
do either exist?
is there any difference?

i have been given flowers
a tabula rasa of red and pink and green
and i have held them to my heart and smiled
but i have never been in love

i have endured champagne drizzled kisses
dancing in the blue night with you
with nothing but the smell
of you, sweat, and petrichor
but i have never been in love

i have cried at your distance
my skin so cold and bare
no number of sheets could warm me
yearning for your touch
but i have never been in love

and you have done the same
so why does your heart swell for me
like a broken wave
while mine lies silent
on some distant beach
i have never been in love

you have a darkness in your eyes
fire concealed between the waves
the fold of the water around you
creasing your face and twisting your soul
skin now a membrane bones peeking
i could peel you into nothing but
crepuscular pain
i know you’re dying
your words settle like sea foam
murky in the room that we sleep
the ruffles in the sand
the cold silence in the air
you see faces in the wind
they will carry you to the sky

soleil, and I
came down to Italy for the summer
to see the boys with cigar colored skin
we stood in the balcony, all manner of cloths
and linens wrapped around us like an atmosphere of color
the sun drowned the flowers in her hot perfume
at the mouth of the balcony she bore holes into the stone
and we fell into the rapid streets
of bread and bicycles and more and more roses
seduced by her aroma, the olives proud little bullets
in a wooden bowl

i haven't been to the beach
or felt the sand
only his car, smoking ****, nights on end
they collect without linearity, bubbles stacked
in clear and indistinguishable chaos
and i'm the happiest i've ever been

maybe daedalus was wrong
about straying too close to the sun
this flights nearly over
and icarus wants to burn

the waves etch the land
the sea near where my home is,
a silver seat in the solitary rock,
draws maps in the sand
with the plumes of her waves
sad and languid turmoil
embrace the shore; and pile it up again
the senseless, endless, shapes of nature
i lack the ***** to understand her

like aromatic plums in the plum tree
i will ripen and sink into the earth
and while bugs run over my skin
and i bleed a deep bruised purple and
fade into the soil my fragrance forgotten
you will laugh from the branches still
infinitely green