it felt like thousands
of red blizzards
were fighting in my throat
and you had replaced my eyes
with ice cubes.

it often takes more courage to fail
than to succeed

you do just that
you prize apart the mattress springs of my throat
slivering hands
greedily tear and I bleed
coughing up the red words you told them I spoke
and in my own bones
you find me a prison

surely i’m a waste of meat and bread
a waste of a heart and a waste of a head
i’d nourish the forest just lying there dead
but i nourish the sadness right here in my bed

it’s two am and i still can’t sleep
the red raw silence is raising a beat
and the god of my goodness is stamping his feet
i pray for the darkness
i pray for the sleep

touching my eyelids with cold hands
my mother told me when an eyelash falls out
you can make a wish.
i turned into a trichotillomaniac
wishing after you

take each word down
place them
precariously and scribble
force them into eyes and minds
all around you
these words
cannot be forgotten
or you will be
forgotten
and you will be lost
all meaning will be lost
at the sound
of the approaching
rain

I never write when I'm happy,
rather, to peel the scabs off healing scars
sculpt the pain into calibri and bold
paste my black skin onto the white screen
and wait
for the views to roll in
which i use as validation,
and bandage myself up again

I won't say yes
until you carve out pieces of yourself
and dedicate them
to pouring over my poems
anguished scrutiny of my soul

if you want entrance to my body
enter my mind first, dear

destroy me
with your blue petrichor
seep into my eyes
like rain water
thundering hot from above
and your kisses
baptize in cerulean
my bruised lips
soaked from salty ecstasy
I drown
In your anguished blue

a laceration in my soul
i am trying to
stitch my wounds closed
to shelter my heart
for a moment
so why are you tearing me apart
all to find a place inside me

the sunlight toiling on
my night time skin
you stretch me, cover me
in morning kisses
drench me with orange
monarch butterflies
your warm voice
as the bristling sun crests the window sill
is the only thing i live for

raving eyes and riots
extend ferociously
beaming from your veins
you command a height
you are the universe
experiencing itself
you are war

and peace
coolness and balm
if only you'd allow it

let it settle itself
my little wildfire

have the force
of a generation

and now you'll never be hurt again

to mix colors first
the possibility of taking what i know
and obliterating it
for a holocene
a vibrant tabula rasa
forged by my gooey green and yellow fingers
a manifestation in blue

we walk at night
beneath bright lights
drenched in dark sweat
and smoke falling from our lips
like reckless words
heels aching and black
we bow from the labors
of the day
and the heat
of the night

in my subconscious
i wish i could destroy