Tell me
you know
your blood runs
red and red
just like mine,
you don’t have
enough gold
in your stardust
to convince me
of anything
otherwise.
But the sky:
it might blind me.
It’s still grey,
blue and blue.
You must know
the color of
your own eyes
by now.

My mother decided
that I was thunder,
rumbling from a place
hidden in dark clouds
and booming, echoing
unseen across the sky
with my heavy nature.
She told me to find rain,
a soft caress
for my weathered skin
to mute my intensity.
To dance with a light
shower against the
setting August sun.
Instead, you are lightning.
Sharp and dangerous,
you are wild strength.
Crackling with an energy
that summons me,
brightens the sky
and lights trees on fire.
We should have been
a storm. Breathtaking.
Thunder and lightning
who bring the rain
when they clash in awe,
but neither of us
wanted to be soft.
But we did bring wind.
It whipped past our ears
with anger we held
closer than each other.
Giving nothing time
to settle before we blew it
away like scattered leaves.
We created masterpieces
in the heavens, my angels
answer to your raw power.
But I always follow,
trailing behind farther
each time you flash hot.
The rain never came.


**V. K.

You are a familiar
downtown intersection,
even though I'm
from the suburbs.
You are streetlights
that don't flash yellow
at 9:00pm, busy
don't stop but
go slowly. Careful.
You are construction,
hazard lights,
hiding caution signs
in bedrooms
and you are painted
in warning orange,
red lights and green,
stop and go cars
lining the way.
You are brunch time
traffic and stale car air,
loud music on the radio.
You are being late
for our reservation and
not knowing what to order.
You are mimosas
and caesers and sangrias
before noon,
spice in my mouth and
burning my throat.
You are unorganized,
not knowing
formal table settings.
You are hungry, you are
full of Spanish breakfast.
You are unsure about
where we should go,
where will we end up?
You are a lazy midday walk,
the cloudless sky.
You are skipping rocks
under bridges and finding
perfect pebbles.
You are inappropriate
footwear for the task,
my blue dress by the river.
You are slick shore rocks,
tears or waterfalls or sweat,
slipping into danger.
You are sirens, my wailing
drowns by the water.
You are flashing lights,
here and gone and here and -
You are what I think about
in waiting rooms,
off white florescent lighting
and white tile ceilings
and business black chairs
and a heavy ticking clock.
You are the dead space in my life.
You are the dead space.
You are the dead.
You are.


**V. K.

You are the cracking bones
beneath my stretching ankles
reflected in the mirror.
You are the dry eyes at 1:08 AM
blurring old contacts,
unfocused on laptop glare.
You are the approach
of a passing car outside the window,
and the fading headlights bright.
You are the static in my pillow ear
as I contemplate why you are
in my head and on my skin, and yet,
you are not.


**V. K.

I am the flower petals
and fairy dust
mixed for dark magic
luring you
out of the dark with
a burst of
dragon fire and
silver.
Your devil laugh is
mine.


**V. K.

I was never shocked
at how quickly I became
used to the way
you make me insatiable
for lips never known before,
infatuation is a danger
and I’m self-indulging,
but let me pull you down
with me. I promise
there are beautiful views
in Hell.
That stark wasteland,
putrid and silent and dark,
makes it easier to appreciate
whatever we have now. But
I’m sure you already knew
that, leading the army of
the only man more evil
than you. The flames
in your eyes I mistook for
passion never hesitated
to burn me.
How wicked. Wicked, wicked,
wicked eager me jumping
to trust you while you licked
the purity from my soul.
One day someone else will
feed my voracious appetite
and I will simply know that
numbing, blissed feeling as
“the way you used to make me feel”.
Without the smoldering core
of being used.


**V. K.

Still sleep warm,
I am coaxed into
consciousness
by your fingers lazily
grazing the elastic
of my underwear.
That smooth plateau
between the mountains
of my hipbones: home.
Overnight, my shirt
has ridden up, too hot
in the California nights
neither of us are used to
yet, proven by the pool
of sweat beneath my
lower back. The sticky
staleness of my skin
matches yours.
We are anything but
a disaster, and still,
I am a fault line. Feeling
the tremors rumble low
in my belly, your overheating
hands the magma forcing
plates apart, revealing
the new earth beneath.
There's danger in my inhale,
the risk of being shaken to
the core and unfixable.
Yet not even an earthquake
could divide us: love.


**V. K.

A wine bottle
filled with keys
is all I drink.
I never cared
for the bitter,
sick taste of
old grapes,
taunting me.
But the bottle
fits nicely
in my hand
and I enjoy
the tang of
metal
on my tongue,
reminds me
of the blood
I used to draw
when you got
close.
Lip torn,
to kiss, or not.
To speak, or
be silent.
The keys,
I find them
forgotten
in crevices
of other
people's
lives, after
they've released
what had to be
locked away.
The edges cut
on the
way
d
o
w
n
...
Some part of me
is still soft, now
I can prove it
with the blood
I've coughed up.
Paint this truth
deep wine red,
with spare keys
jangling loudly
in my stomach
like the nerves
of my body, if
you'd listen to me.
But now when I
speak, you hear
silence.
You’re done
kissing me
and I taste
salt. Tears.
Still drinking
sharp keys from
a wine bottle,
hoping they unlock
something inside.


**V. K.

Others promised
to fill your eyes
with stars. Only stars.
But I will populate
your mind with galaxies,
complete the space
with swirling clouds
of asteroids and
black holes to swallow
your sadness. After all,
stars are obviously bright
and beautiful, but alone.
I will help to discover
somewhere within yourself
the need to create
constellations of us,
where our myths
and morals intertwine.
You and I and our
moments, syzygy.
Gravity only exists,
so we can fall together
but still weightless
to see that our mass
doesn’t affect our matter.
How stars collapse
under their own weight,
fading out, is so unlike
the way we expand
amongst the cosmos,
heavenly bodies of ours
joining the rest in the halo,
interstellar where I will
cascade over you, a pulsar
radiating waves of energy.
These shockwaves form
a singularity of us,
with no time or direction
but we know what we are;
a meteor shower for those
still simply Earth bound.
Gazing into the sun, they
promised stars, blinded.
Blinding, our explosion
of formation from nothing.
Let there be planets
where beings flourish
and evolve, and I will
gift you their moons,
the craters filled with
dust of my words hidden
where no winds can
ever disturb them.
They promised you
stars, so you can become
a satellite and orbit
and worship their light.
I will give myself,
a supernova, and you
will learn to craft galaxies
so I can explore them
within you, and revel at
the beauty of the unknown.
Our universe won’t fit
in their telescopes.


**V. K.

The sun itself follows
your radiant beauty,
as though it were a
sunflower searching
for the brightest ray.
I'm sure anywhere
you go could double
as spring break, warm
as your smile is, and
your lilting voice
inspires me to write
verse after verse of
flowering poetry,
that even if I were
talented, would still
not near your level
of welcomed grace.


**V. K.

Sometimes,
I will myself
to forget
you hurt me,
and then I am
in pain.
Consumed by all
I didn’t do and
ravaged by what I did.
You are always
without guilt,
smoke in my lungs
as I ignite.
You were on fire
and I was so cold…
Sometimes,
when I am
burning
for the touch
of your hands
on my skin,
I distract myself
with the singe
of an overheating laptop
on my thighs,
thank god
I never let
your embers
land there,
and I write.
About how warm
my eyes are and how
someday, someone
else
will worship them
as they make me smile.
The heated hope
evaporates my tears
and sometimes,
I remember how
you made me combust.
Red. Red. Red.
I will smother
your memory
until it is ash
and you are
the only one choking
on smoke.
I am the fire.


**V. K.