cave of wonder,
the black ivies of the sea,
the moon-shadows of
the shore.

I want you to put me on your tongue and let me dissolve into you like the tiny white squares that turn those glossy hazel marbles into black holes and intense stares. I want you to kiss me and see negative colored rulers in the corner of your vision and I want you to have trouble making a decision between kissing me and observing me while I'm sitting on your chest and I want you to laugh like you did with your cherry colored lip curled over your childish grin over and over and over again and I want you to forget the conversation topic every time you close your eyes because the world inside of your mind is filled with blinking images that you can't quite explain aloud so you settle for little talks about Rosa Parks and Indian style kisses and how the ocean is the Earth's thing or the complexity of butterfly brains and whether or not they remember their caterpillar memories (they do). Describe to me the first time you saw your favorite color and what developed the affinity for it: yours, a glacier blue toy that resembled the ocean and mine, a lavender Easter dress that twirled when I spun. Tell me about your school crushes when you were four and what you got your clothespin moved to the sad face for and I'll write it all in ink on my knee caps because "God, we're such writers" and you'll check the clock in the gaps and search for tunes or lighters and I'll want time to slow down because the nights spent with you usually seem as though minutes are just a few seconds shy of sixty, which turns the little hand pretty quickly.
I want hours, weeks, decades, to analyze the freckles on your face or the pace at which you move your tongue and precisely how it tastes.
I want you to tell me that your brother would like me and about the mountains in Tennessee and maybe next time I'll try to stay awake, unless you want to listen to the way I breathe so fully when I dream.

When I close my eyes, I want to be able to see what you see.
I want you to keep burying the numb parts of you into the warm parts of me.

+
1. biting pens the way I used to bite your lip
2. that shot of alcohol you don't need just to forget yourself
3. not sleeping because you always reside in my dreams
4. eating too much to not feel empty
5. not eating because i'm too full of regret

i.


the stars do not shine
loneliness presses the air
into a tangle of last years withered
leaves,
loneliness in summer leaves
that whisper to a grey moon
a song of regret.


ii.


dreams of midnight,
cool rain,
songs more alive
than this low-roofed night.


iii.


teardrops like the ghostly moon, lost
against the heart that
flutters like a dark sky
breathing stars.
  

iv.


the mottled horizon
pools into greys,
tender eyed with
soft sadness,

in these dim hours when silence
cloaks the woods and
human laughter disappears

we sink against the softer sky
and the slow fade of moon and
long for dream, for everything
to reawaken and unwind.


v.


we are swimmers heading as far
out as we can get. surreal silver
stars, opening like flowers,
refusing to drown.

I struggle to find words that portray the feelings I have for you.
There's more to love than words.
Out of these elaborate languages we've somehow constructed
nothing can grasp the complexity for how you make me feel.

i have found what you are like
the rain,

            (Who feathers frightened fields
with the superior dust-of-sleep. wields

easily the pale club of the wind
and swirled justly souls of flower strike

the air in utterable coolness

deeds of green thrilling light
                                  with thinned

newfragile yellows

                      lurch and.press

—in the woods
                      which
                              stutter
                                        and

                                              sing
And the coolness of your smile is
stirringofbirds between my arms;but
i should rather than anything
have(almost when hugeness will shut
quietly)almost,
                  your kiss

the house next door makes me
sad.
both man and wife rise early and
go to work.
they arrive home in early evening.
they have a young boy and a girl.
by 9 p.m. all the lights in the house
are out.
the next morning both man and
wife rise early again and go to
work.
they return in early evening.
By 9 p.m. all the lights are
out.

the house next door makes me
sad.
the people are nice people, I
like them.

but I feel them drowning.
and I can't save them.

they are surviving.
they are not
homeless.

but the price is
terrible.

sometimes during the day
I will look at the house
and the house will look at
me
and the house will
weep, yes, it does, I
feel it.