Your smile, sweet flowers
Electric eyes, a girly smile
Curves for days, sass all night
Dancing to the mariachis
Laughing like there’s no tomorrow
Chasing the children chasing each other
Staring at each other from across the room
Smiling every time
We saw the future together
I wanted it today
You always looked at me different
I always made you laugh
We’d always talk ****, hiding our real intentions
So our eyes did the talking
Wishing our hands could do the dancing
So we waited
We were still young and stupid
Yet we learned so much
But when we couldn’t hide it anymore
Others began to notice
The games became the only game
We were not playing it right
We were from different worlds
From different lives
But we didn’t care
At least, I didn’t
We were warned and threatened
But it was too late
Soon the night was our dance floor
We loved and sang as one
But always in secret
Sometimes, that made it sweeter
Made it more dangerous
Added to our fun
The forbidden made it all the more passionate
And each night when we said goodbye
We kissed at laughed, children committing their first crimes
Runaways clinging to love
But it wasn’t love, you said
Our future can never be
Our families would wage war, our friends would rise up
You’re too you, I’m too me
Our worlds would never embrace, only collide
I’d bite my tongue, pretend not to be hurt
Because I still had you, thought time was on my side
How foolish
All good things end
All great things are torn away
Your brothers threatened violence
Your mother threatened banishment
“He’s not like us”
It was more than fun to me, more than just an adventure
It wasn’t easy for you either,
You just pretended to be stronger
“This isn’t really love”
Speak for yourself.

our most intimate moment in my imagination
is painting poetry onto your moonlight-drenched chest,
hot and writhing underneath me,
mirroring each stroke by tensing the muscles in your abdomen–
your vessel of a body,
becoming frayed and singed at the seams as you
burst.

I never cared much for my words.
when I write them onto my own starved skin,
I find, disappointed, that the greyed valleys are always
a poor substitute for the scorchmarks your fingers
track behind them when we
touch.

but I imagine that
covering your skin in my ink would create a
constructive interference, that
engraving into you my
scarlet-tinged idolatry would cause

our cores like stars inside of us to magnetize –
solar flares erupting, surging through every ****** crevice –
to collide in a kaleidoscopic supernova,
tearing flesh to confetti
in a glorious funeral that reeks of
destiny.

My beloved earth:

You built up walls
to keep others out,
or yourself in?
This garden has gone unseen
for long enough.
Lungs rich with soil,
riddled with roots,
They creep up your throat
and spill from your lips,
so every exhale is reminiscent
of sweet spring.
Just be mindful of each
breath and your speech,
There is beauty
in a mouth
full of roses,
but danger
in a tongue
made of thorns.

It’s still early in the season
but longing lives in me
for the warmth of sun-touched days
for the songs of greening fields
for a tangle of butterflies
for a rainbow slanted up to the sky.

I long to lie with my nose to the earth
to smell the grass rising
to feel the freshness of dewdrops
to listen to the hum of life awakening.

Let April’s elevator
return birds to their places in the trees
increase the barble of growth
polish the heavens with soft white clouds .

Let the basket of winter sorrows flow past in the river,
Let the days lengthen and explode into growing light,
Let renewal sink into the earth deeply like gentle rain,
Let us come out of the darkness into the newness of spring.

It's only love
no reward required
Tell it like it is
this is your story
your life your truth
let them hear your heartbeat.

You,
I tried to forget

Does my longing
not reach you?

You,
who abandoned my trembling hands,
it is my dreams you will not leave

But tell me,
is there a cure for longing?

We do not say the word love
it is ice we dare not tread for fear of cracking

We say:
Care, cherish, treasure, admire

To say love would be jump into
The fullness of emotion that lies beneath the ice

I am trying to write a letter to the man who tried to save me.
I don’t know what to say
And maybe that's why I stop
Maybe that's why the ground remains the same distance away.
Maybe that's why the bridge doesn’t win this time.
The characters of ‘dear teacher’
are the only things that mark the page