I have always love
the flame that you make—
a warmth that hums against my skin,

soft as whispered smoke,
kind enough
to forget it could burn.

The same kind you wield
around so desperately
toward those frozen far too long to thaw.

They were already
too deep in cold to ever feel
the love you were told

was not enough—by the people
who wore the skin of
the new generations of love.

I wanted to touch you,
but I cannot let you light so long.
not before—you turn into ashes.  

I wanted to light my own bones
and radiate the same kindness
you burn so bright

and glow the same
pinkish red of love
too tender for everyone else but you.

You feel the saddest
at the far edge of the room,
where dim, weakening light fails to reach—

the corner where forgotten toys
from early childhood
live best in shadows.

In the cabinet, you find not skeletons,
but sleeves thick with dust,
worn only once to grieve.

Beneath them, a single shoelace—
from a past that never happened,
belonging to no one but you.

As you stand,
the floorboards sigh beneath your feet,
forgetting you too.

A picture of your mother,
stained and half-burned by the sun,
leans crooked on the wall.

She wears the same black scarf
from the last Christmas
you still remember.

You wear it too,
in hopes of returning some alacrity
that once bled this home.

It’s not a good and gentle start
to wake beneath the light,
with tears that never touch your cheek—
they vanish out of sight.

It seemed far easier to hide
than question why you cried,
why even opening your eyes
felt like the world had died.

You made me feel the heaviest of all matter
that space has ever known,
when you said, “I am dying,” and
you said it all alone.

I couldn’t let my own storm swell—
to add more to your pain.
Of all the words I stitched with care,
“Just listen” still remained.

There aren’t enough old trees to hold
the names carved deep in you—
the ones who stole your brightest parts,
and left your skies deep so blue.

I longed to speak the perfect phrase,
not something cold or small—
but softer than, “just jazz will help,”
or silence, most of all.

I couldn’t lift the stars you bear
or smooth the scars they drew.
But I can guard your flickering light
and sit and burn with you.

I won’t lose one more light tonight—
not while you’re in my care.
If there’s a way to make you stay,
just say my name—and I’ll be there.

Beyond the glass where silence hums,
the sun’s sharp fingers graze the cold.

You take your place in warmth’s embrace,
yet trace your grief in brittle lines.

With every stroke, a world unfurls,
lifeline drawn for unsweetness life.

But I, a coward to your gaze,
turn elsewhere lest I drown in you.

For but a breath, the crows took flight,
mistaking sorrow for a feast.

Between your pages, I find my grip,
yet still, you slip through trembling arms.

You conjure echoes of a past,
where paths once met but never stayed.

I pressed your face in paper’s spine,
between the words of hell and home.

To name you love, I’d lose myself,
and call you mine to die alone.

I give my greetings to my dearest—
you still shine the brightest
among tulips in my memory.
And to the world well
beneath these walls,
I wish for this day to live.

I still have your name
carved on candles,
lit—in the silence
of your long-gone presence.

And time, as it melts—whole,
dulls the weight of longing.
But I can still hear your laugh
from years ago.
It still stings.

To the greetings left unsaid,
I whisper them to the air.
For my dearest memory,
I wish for your day—
to be the brightest.

You'll never know
How fast the car goes
Just by tracing the lights.

You can always take
That first short leap—
Like taking your first baby step.

And have that doubt
First cross your mind
When the light comes big.

Like spotlights for your
Dance of life and death
Between a merciless truck.

And when the time is right
Take flight, play tango
On a four-lane highway

Just to have my sleeve
Be grabbed, be dragged
And my heart—left open—on the other side.

Paper sits—no one has touched
a single piece of me,
like some old dusty ruin.

How could I peel the world down to its crust
serve the core like an orange—
and just be another failed metaphor?

The clouds, in fact, sit above me.
They were never fluffy—only cold.
And I knew, to them, they were all ugly.

And to keep on bending the world
into words, chasing
the familiar taste of mediocrity.

I know—they were all ugly.
But they were mine—they were me.
Fold them in my hands

Bury them with me—
my ugly little truths.
I’m happy to die, to live in them.