I’m thankful that I don’t know what it is
to love you secretly.
Instead I know your kiss
in the dark room that red wine blurred,
the heat radiating off your skin
in the middle of a below-freezing night.
I know what my name looks like in your handwriting,
how it sounds on your lips from across the room.
I know your arms wrapped around my trembling shoulders
in the moment before I cry.
I know the curve of your lips before you know you’re smiling.
I know that I won’t know
how to forget if you ask me to, but I’ll try.

We were moths racing towards light bulbs-
reaching out every time it got too dark where we were floating.

We were lost masochists
who spent too much time together before learning
that some of our impulses might be better off left
in silent worries, and drunken stupors, and reoccurring dreams.

The pits of our stomachs
and the holes in our hearts
started feeling too empty
so we tried to fill up
by swallowing each other’s
carbon dioxide.

I’m always buzzing.
Sometimes everything is so radiant
that I vibrate almost ‘til it aches.
I boil over; grateful, salty tears.
Sometimes all I want to do
is walk into the forest with someone
who knows me well enough to stay quiet
but no one is around
and lightening-bolt loneliness hits me
for one painful second
until I go back to a dull humming.

I miss the way the clouds
call to the sea through the horizon,
and the depths of the ocean
send secrets to the shore,
waves whispering to the sand,
foam telling tide-pools,
“Don’t worry. I’ll be back.
Just wait here.”

She’s falling in love with a boy named after a star.
I say, “How poetic.”
She says, “I’m not sure how to love a star.
I’ve never done this before.”

I don’t tell her about the star I spent all of last summer staring at.
The star that glowed so brilliantly
that I forgot about the pain in my neck
from gazing upwards for a whole season.
I forgot that I was in a land of meteor showers.
I convinced myself of a rearranged solar system.

I don’t tell the girl about to jump about the fall.
The Fall when I fell and fell and kept wondering when I would hit the ground.
The winter when I had nowhere else to go and my heart felt
like it was constantly hitting rock bottom and bouncing back up,
only to crash down again with greater force.
People who listen closely enough say they can still hear echoes
of my heart breaking every time I look up to the night sky.

Natalie, she’s always had her head in the clouds.
She swallows zodiac signs without any salt.
She feels safest on the outer edges of the Milky Way.
I don’t want her to think I am afraid of the sky.
I almost show her my scars-
Deep blue nebulae on the bottoms of my feet
from when I tried to run her out of me;
Black holes eclipsing missing memories
from when I tried to smoke her out of me;
Constellations of twisted veins in my hands
from when I tried to write her out of me.
It still isn’t quite working.

But I promise, I’m not afraid of the sky.
I’m just afraid of leaping
into an atmosphere with
too little oxygen or too much gravity.
Everything in moderation, I think to myself.
Stop searching for telescopes
that will kiss your eyelids.
They measure success
in how far away they can get.
Even some of the most intimate cosmic embraces
can start to feel like long-distance light-years
before you ever thought possible.

The best way to see a star
is to look right beside it
and let it soak into your peripheral vision.
Do not let your pupils become too attached to the darkness.

Finally, I sigh and tell her,
“I have no map of the galaxy.
I might have, at one point, been able to draw you one,
but I always leave too soon.
I still can’t sleep since realizing
that stars burn out long before
we ever see their light.”

Something about being scared to put words to this.
Something about magnets.
Something about biology and philosophy and all of the reasons I pull you closer.
Something about proximity and fingertips.
Something about ambiguity that doesn’t feel very ambiguous at all.
Something about feeling full to the brim.
Something about writing about you as soon as you leave to keep you here longer.
Something about doing everything in the wrong order and being okay with it.
Something about crying and bed-sheets and taking off my socks.
Something about trying new things,
like rain and speaking my mind and being on a level playing field.
Something about power dynamics.
Something about holding my own and holding my breath and holding your hand.
Something about languages and words and meaning.
Something about your voice on the phone for the first time.
Something about stairwells and sidewalks.
Something about risk and reward and leaps of faith and losing faith and gaining trust.
Something about your hometown.

I thought they were supposed to be big.
The clothes I have left over from him—
given when we were in love,
kept when he left
—they were never quite my style.
I always thought I would grow into them.

Now when I slip into your clothing
I feel like myself.
It fits me so well.
You fit me so well.

No matter what happens in the future,
this will always be true of right now.
Today, I woke up smiling
because you were holding me.
Yesterday, in the low light of your bedroom
it felt like we were playing house.
Outside cars drove by on rain-slicked streets,
mugs of hot tea sat on the windowsill,
and I’ve never felt safer than under that blanket.
With you and within you,
I am finding the Home I’ve never had before
as the person I’ve never been until now.

Your scars are reminders carved into every inch:
notes on the backs of your hands,
tied strings crawling between fingers,
following alongside veins.
They recede into dark space
under sleeves not long enough
to hide what you’d rather forget.

Why do you trace your bones on the outside in red scabs?
Are you afraid of losing them,
your bones deserting you while you sleep?
You’d wake up melted into your bed sheets
while your bones enjoy the sunlight.
You always look downwards anyways.
Do you forget where they are, your delicate bones?
Is that why you paint them on?
They lie right under the surface
waiting for you to notice them
protecting your vital organs.
Your heart still beats and
you have a pair of lungs.
They work hard for you even
when you forget about them.

But that’s all you are, skin and bones.
If you tear yourself apart all that’s left
is your skeleton, roaming the Earth
with that same distant gaze that
I’ve seen so many times before.
Save yourself.

Lay me down on your fragile chest.
I’ll sleep softly, rising and falling,
swimming in the tides of your mind.
But sometimes it feels
like your heart will burst open
far past your ribs and into the sky,
sending me flying out into orbit
to float on and watch life go by.

Let me disappear in your mind.
Next to you I’m so small,
there’s no need to make room.
Let me paint with your wild ideas.
Feel how I fit among your racing thoughts?
Let’s set them all free.

Hold my whispers deep in your heart.
They tremble the way your soul rumbles.
Let me sing melodies atop this fearsome beat.
Wait for the decrescendo.
Do you hear how quiet I can be?
Let’s make noise.

Rest your tired eyes on me.
I try not to shrink under your gaze.
We’re walking down parallel roads,
with matching stones in our pockets
to hold us down to the Earth.
Can’t you see that I understand?
Let’s be weightless.

Burn me. Make me feel you.
Let me see your blinding light. Be close enough
to ignite the soul. Crash into me,
walls of fire burning every inch.
You can’t burn what you can’t reach.
Make me feel you, make me matter.
Burn me, make me real.

Scorch me, singe my very being.
Leave red scars shaped like hands shaped like you;
burn them into my skin.
Don’t cut, don’t make me bleed.
Don’t force the Inside out so quickly;
it gets messy. And god knows we can’t be trusted
to clean up our own messes.
Don’t melt me, set fire to me whole.
I can’t drip; I need to stay together
to know that I’m all here.

Lay siege to me with flame.
I can’t stand smoke or ash, simply
singe every layer with your sparks
until the inside is all that’s left.  
The underneath will emerge,
maybe stronger. Maybe not.
Burn me to find what’s there.

Burn me, please, or try.
Can one set fire to the self?
When the body burns away does the soul
catch the rest? Does it spiral upwards
in the smoke? Does it become the smoke?
There has to be something more, I’m sure
that when you char my body all that’s left
will be all that matters.

So experiment with me, even if you don’t believe.
Play with fire, if you care at all.
Burn me to the core, to the innermost levels
of all that is flammable.  
I need to know I’m really here.