we talked through the night
of love and future lovers
but never of us

i loved your torn heart
but she lingered on your lips
i couldn't mend it

he’s telling me about the girl at school
he can’t get out of his head,
and how he feels like
it’s always this chain of
"i don’t want all these people that want me,"
(i winced)
“and the one person i want doesn’t want me
in the same way.”
(i inhaled sharply)

i told him he’s overthinking it,
and when he asked, “how do you not?”
(i forgot to breathe)

my eyes got watery, but i blinked quickly
before they could settle
(i exhaled)

and replied,
“i'll let you know.”

one time when i was eight
i slept over at my friend’s house
and that night we held back
her mom’s hair as she got sick
over a broken heart
into a trashcan at
the foot of her bed
and i didn’t understand
how someone could be so sad
but right now, lying
on the bathroom floor
getting sick over you, i do.

ask me how many boys have told me they loved me,
then ask me how many of them meant it.

i think we still exist
somewhere in the universe
behind the sun
where all of earth’s abandoned
soulmates go to rest
i think i can see us
when i look up at the sky
and squint directly into
the rays of light,
your brown eyes burning
into mine

i think we are together
in the time that trails behind
the present, dancing
in circles until the last stars
fizzle out

i think that our promises
seeped into the soil, like
february rain, our souls sown
together, tucked in
beneath the world

i think what we had is
somewhere just out of reach,
pulsing in the dim spaces
between heat lightning

and although, in this lifetime,
we became nothing but shadows,
monsters that linger on bedroom walls

we are there, we are alive,
and we are still in love.

i want to be golden
i want to be a day time star
by night, i will fill with heat.
i will explode.

i want to be golden
i want to be a filling
inside your tooth.
in a few months, i’ll fall out.

i want to be golden
confetti in a balloon
that you pop with a scissor.
sweep me up at the end of the party,

i want to be golden
the ring that she wears.
it matches her party dress
and the gold in her hair.

i want to be golden
the golden days of the past.
i want to be a memory.
one that won’t last.

i want to be golden
the dusk of the day
the sun shone bright
but disappeared over the horizon

i want to be golden
the leaves on the tree.
but the winter’s coming
and soon they will fall.

i want to be golden
a mosaic in a museum
hanging on a wall.
look, but please, don’t touch.

i want to be golden.
i want to be a dream.
i want to seem real, sparkling gold.
but i want to be glitter.

Let me in
the meadows of your mind
beckon me
with wild flowers
I have yet to see bloom elsewhere

Your doors are open
but also
covered by a sheer glass window
of pure, blissful ignorance

Your soul is refreshing,
we could be something
brilliant