i disembody you in poetry:
thin scabs film over your bones,
i pick them until i find new skin to lay my kisses on —
a new land to baptize
with my own heathen hands,
i disembody you with them:
chest spread open like that of a dressed foul.
my body is too corrupted but it knows of intense longing,
piercing live-coal eyes, it burns
my neck like a crucifix,
like flames on a burning metal —
it heals, almost cleanses like holy fire
and with new bones,
i disembody you in poetry:
an attempt to see you, hold you, love you whole
without it consuming me:
a sight of pink lips, pink tongue,
pink columbines on your wrist;
i take apart your entirety,
press it, piece by piece on my fragile nail bed — hidden away
somewhere the world loses its sight.

and maybe now after all the cycles, it is the world's turn
to fumble far and wide, to despair in search for your hands —
your eyes
that unsettle and leave the cosmos
collapsing majestically
in its own harshest daylight

leaving us all disembodied
in blinding, vivid, solar colors.

forgive my compulsions to love you like this.

you are resilient to the tides of this sea;


there are shells in the sand, unshaped
unlike the stones smooth with ages of storm

Fashioned in enameled vacancy,
the gentry’s veil was pierced

Exposed unclean, all vices seen,
through fury sharp and fierce

The folly of their blasphemy,
whose cover all but blown

With blood to flow from ramparts high
—once driven from the throne

(Dreamsleep: December, 2021)