maybe we don't talk as much
or sleep together every night anymore
but you still call me baby
and that's enough for me

I stay
thinking that you are my destiny

later turned into never

the tectonic plates
in me
are shifting
     as our continents
approach collide
my ocean is
getting closer
to the mountains
on your landscape
  tallest grasses blowing
         in wild demon dance,
                shaking their
          heads as heated
storm approaches
oven-baked air crackling
    with its own
         electric currents
Nothing can stop it
it's a magnetic force
              one to be
                   reckoned with
               surrendered to
as dust foams
like ocean froth
around our heads
clinging to us in tiny
starlit fragments
and soon will come
        the slick dive into
             wordless waters,
                    just skin on skin
        slippery mouth muscles
like entwined snakes
flick-flicking, shiny
in eye-lit cherry moons
Take my hand.
Just pull me in.
Enfold me,
          without talking
watch as my aura
rushes into you,
first a delicate whisk
             of cool light
to slake the thirst
of coal-licked caverns
then sparks
and bubbling oxidation
turning into liquid brushfire
Hold your palm
to my chest,
as if to keep
    my heart steady,
        my glowing flare of halo
  pressed into your
clavicle, taking in
the embryonic beats
soothing my torrid ache,
infusing minerals
in vitamin-laced libation
It is time to simply bask
in the new
crispness of radical
shake off
           the silt and salt
and rise up
into the spheres
      of memory
      of soulspeak
of collapsed time zones
budded breath
spiraling up
in curls,
       diaphanous
dark mist
ascending
                 into
           light

i am going to tell you a story.
but first, you need to look up—
no, further. further. further.
beyond the ceiling, beyond the
buildings, beyond everything
you know.

eject yourself from your body
and look up
until you can see the stars for
what they are—jewels embedded
in blue velvet, stitched there by
some god’s hand, or orbs of
burning hydrogen
destroying themselves. let’s just
admit it here—we do not know
what they are, the things
we call the stars. does it matter?
they decorate the night. they
sing me lullabies when i cannot
sleep—they will for you, too,
if you promise to listen.

listen to me, too: feel
the universe. feel all the atoms
moving around you, in you, over
you—your hands, the sun, all the
things that have made you hide.
feel them. they are nothing.
feel yourself. you are nothing.
feel the universe. the universe
is nothing. dead or alive, infinite
or creeping towards an ending—

listen to me. stars still implode
when you cry. the earth
does not stop its motion,
the galaxies keep running
further and further away from
us. i know fear, and loneliness,
and the end of the world—and
you do, too. but listen to me.

andromeda does not care that you
throw your voice into the night.
cassiopeia still blinks in the
sky, even when everything you know
on this tiny, wet rock is
breaking itself apart—the universe
will mould all those atoms into
something new. listen to me and
everything will listen to you.

you are part of this existence,
right down to the quarks
that make up your fidgeting fingers
and the electrons that buzz
in your eyes. the night sky
will swallow you up when you
need somewhere to sleep,
if you let it. do not be
afraid. do not be lonely.

you are okay. you are okay. you
are okay because the universe
stands still, with its arms open
for you.

this head
is a blur to
you, an opaque,
one way mirror
reflecting back
your own figure.
so don't try to
guess, or project
how i might
think or feel,
i am a closed
book, and unless
i open up, there's
a cavern that
exists,
a wide endless
pit, a sea, a land,
a piece of sky,
a world growing
beneath hazel
green eyes.

like the period at the conclusion
of a sentence, i just want to end.
hemorrhaging anxiety, bereft
of comfort’s tourniquet.
bend back my fingers till they snap
and distract me from the stress—
a constant threat
of white-hot pinched-nerves.

torch me alive like a burnt sacrifice.
sew my eyelids open so i never forget
perspectives that shift my world
like Atlas, adjusting his weary load.
grind down my bones, scatter me
to the furthest reaches of the cosmos.
i cannot bear another moment
in this lonely corner of the universe.

cut my throat, let me bleed out
and seep back into the dust
from whence i came. humor me:
we all nurse fantasies of death
from time to time. let me cope
in peace so i can make it
through another dead-end day
in one piece.