Tell me
you know
your blood runs
red and red
just like mine,
you don’t have
enough gold
in your stardust
to convince me
of anything
otherwise.
But the sky:
it might blind me.
It’s still grey,
blue and blue.
You must know
the color of
your own eyes
by now.

My mother decided
that I was thunder,
rumbling from a place
hidden in dark clouds
and booming, echoing
unseen across the sky
with my heavy nature.
She told me to find rain,
a soft caress
for my weathered skin
to mute my intensity.
To dance with a light
shower against the
setting August sun.
Instead, you are lightning.
Sharp and dangerous,
you are wild strength.
Crackling with an energy
that summons me,
brightens the sky
and lights trees on fire.
We should have been
a storm. Breathtaking.
Thunder and lightning
who bring the rain
when they clash in awe,
but neither of us
wanted to be soft.
But we did bring wind.
It whipped past our ears
with anger we held
closer than each other.
Giving nothing time
to settle before we blew it
away like scattered leaves.
We created masterpieces
in the heavens, my angels
answer to your raw power.
But I always follow,
trailing behind farther
each time you flash hot.
The rain never came.


**V. K.

It’s like
the only a i r
left on earth
is what’s trapped
                      in
                     my
                   lungs,
but I am needing
more than oxygen
to survive.


**V. K.

In a broken shower,
where the cold tap
doesn’t work
and water sprays faster
than it drains,
when you close your eyes
to wash your face
it feels like wading into
Hell’s ocean.
Imagine it.
You don’t know if it’s
scarier to pretend
the water is perfectly clear
or layered in murky darkness.
Do you want to see?
Soap burns your eyes
when you panic
and open them
before any decision can be
cemented,
like your feet to that
nightmare world.


**V.K.

Out there is the sight of rain in the distance.
That particular shade of grey
falls smooth as a new pen on a bleached page,
which makes the softest and loudest noise,
drawing out words. You're drawing me
away from my thesaurus, my dictionary,
and my scattered pages.
Maybe I need to concentrate on something
more than my vocabulary.
My stiff wool sweater and the kiss
of your thighs, shivering in stale air just
waiting for the chance to wake up to
the soft patter of rain against our windows.
Lethargic, the muted lighting makes us softer
than we are, you are flickering between rain
sheet grey and a new pale blue and watching me
fall away from any definitions, synonyms
and the ink stains on my fingers.
Maybe I just need to focus on the smudge I leave
on your cheek, marking the sharp junction
of your smile and eyelashes.
Here, heavy rain still can't dim your eyes.
Blue. Grey. Blue. No pen is that bright.
If I could leave you here, because I know I can't,
I wouldn't write anything except your name
until my writing scrawls across the page and
ends up covering my walls in all capitals.
I have the image in my head, rain clean,
but I haven't uttered a word because
I don't know if the descriptions are enough
to gift such a patient goddess with,
so trust in the dark that my silence is
the heaviest and lightest sound of my heart.
You bring the rain on Tuesday
and then invite me to dance, there are no other words
for this.


**V. K.

You are a familiar
downtown intersection,
even though I'm
from the suburbs.
You are streetlights
that don't flash yellow
at 9:00pm, busy
don't stop but
go slowly. Careful.
You are construction,
hazard lights,
hiding caution signs
in bedrooms
and you are painted
in warning orange,
red lights and green,
stop and go cars
lining the way.
You are brunch time
traffic and stale car air,
loud music on the radio.
You are being late
for our reservation and
not knowing what to order.
You are mimosas
and caesers and sangrias
before noon,
spice in my mouth and
burning my throat.
You are unorganized,
not knowing
formal table settings.
You are hungry, you are
full of Spanish breakfast.
You are unsure about
where we should go,
where will we end up?
You are a lazy midday walk,
the cloudless sky.
You are skipping rocks
under bridges and finding
perfect pebbles.
You are inappropriate
footwear for the task,
my blue dress by the river.
You are slick shore rocks,
tears or waterfalls or sweat,
slipping into danger.
You are sirens, my wailing
drowns by the water.
You are flashing lights,
here and gone and here and -
You are what I think about
in waiting rooms,
off white florescent lighting
and white tile ceilings
and business black chairs
and a heavy ticking clock.
You are the dead space in my life.
You are the dead space.
You are the dead.
You are.


**V. K.

You are the cracking bones
beneath my stretching ankles
reflected in the mirror.
You are the dry eyes at 1:08 AM
blurring old contacts,
unfocused on laptop glare.
You are the approach
of a passing car outside the window,
and the fading headlights bright.
You are the static in my pillow ear
as I contemplate why you are
in my head and on my skin, and yet,
you are not.


**V. K.

I am the flower petals
and fairy dust
mixed for dark magic
luring you
out of the dark with
a burst of
dragon fire and
silver.
Your devil laugh is
mine.


**V. K.

I was never shocked
at how quickly I became
used to the way
you make me insatiable
for lips never known before,
infatuation is a danger
and I’m self-indulging,
but let me pull you down
with me. I promise
there are beautiful views
in Hell.
That stark wasteland,
putrid and silent and dark,
makes it easier to appreciate
whatever we have now. But
I’m sure you already knew
that, leading the army of
the only man more evil
than you. The flames
in your eyes I mistook for
passion never hesitated
to burn me.
How wicked. Wicked, wicked,
wicked eager me jumping
to trust you while you licked
the purity from my soul.
One day someone else will
feed my voracious appetite
and I will simply know that
numbing, blissed feeling as
“the way you used to make me feel”.
Without the smoldering core
of being used.


**V. K.

I don't remember
the last time
I was hungry.
My anxiety
shrunken stomach
and I prefer
the cool dimness of
our secluded bedroom.
Alone. Better
than shoveling food,
flavored nothing,
into my dry mouth
under the heat of
your gaze and
listening to how
you've interpreted
my feelings.
Sorry I've ruined
your appetite but
I said I wasn't hungry.
Plus, I worry about,
if I open my mouth
to chew, what would
emerge.


**V. K.

Still sleep warm,
I am coaxed into
consciousness
by your fingers lazily
grazing the elastic
of my underwear.
That smooth plateau
between the mountains
of my hipbones: home.
Overnight, my shirt
has ridden up, too hot
in the California nights
neither of us are used to
yet, proven by the pool
of sweat beneath my
lower back. The sticky
staleness of my skin
matches yours.
We are anything but
a disaster, and still,
I am a fault line. Feeling
the tremors rumble low
in my belly, your overheating
hands the magma forcing
plates apart, revealing
the new earth beneath.
There's danger in my inhale,
the risk of being shaken to
the core and unfixable.
Yet not even an earthquake
could divide us: love.


**V. K.

A wine bottle
filled with keys
is all I drink.
I never cared
for the bitter,
sick taste of
old grapes,
taunting me.
But the bottle
fits nicely
in my hand
and I enjoy
the tang of
metal
on my tongue,
reminds me
of the blood
I used to draw
when you got
close.
Lip torn,
to kiss, or not.
To speak, or
be silent.
The keys,
I find them
forgotten
in crevices
of other
people's
lives, after
they've released
what had to be
locked away.
The edges cut
on the
way
d
o
w
n
...
Some part of me
is still soft, now
I can prove it
with the blood
I've coughed up.
Paint this truth
deep wine red,
with spare keys
jangling loudly
in my stomach
like the nerves
of my body, if
you'd listen to me.
But now when I
speak, you hear
silence.
You’re done
kissing me
and I taste
salt. Tears.
Still drinking
sharp keys from
a wine bottle,
hoping they unlock
something inside.


**V. K.

Others promised
to fill your eyes
with stars. Only stars.
But I will populate
your mind with galaxies,
complete the space
with swirling clouds
of asteroids and
black holes to swallow
your sadness. After all,
stars are obviously bright
and beautiful, but alone.
I will help to discover
somewhere within yourself
the need to create
constellations of us,
where our myths
and morals intertwine.
You and I and our
moments, syzygy.
Gravity only exists,
so we can fall together
but still weightless
to see that our mass
doesn’t affect our matter.
How stars collapse
under their own weight,
fading out, is so unlike
the way we expand
amongst the cosmos,
heavenly bodies of ours
joining the rest in the halo,
interstellar where I will
cascade over you, a pulsar
radiating waves of energy.
These shockwaves form
a singularity of us,
with no time or direction
but we know what we are;
a meteor shower for those
still simply Earth bound.
Gazing into the sun, they
promised stars, blinded.
Blinding, our explosion
of formation from nothing.
Let there be planets
where beings flourish
and evolve, and I will
gift you their moons,
the craters filled with
dust of my words hidden
where no winds can
ever disturb them.
They promised you
stars, so you can become
a satellite and orbit
and worship their light.
I will give myself,
a supernova, and you
will learn to craft galaxies
so I can explore them
within you, and revel at
the beauty of the unknown.
Our universe won’t fit
in their telescopes.


**V. K.

The sun itself follows
your radiant beauty,
as though it were a
sunflower searching
for the brightest ray.
I'm sure anywhere
you go could double
as spring break, warm
as your smile is, and
your lilting voice
inspires me to write
verse after verse of
flowering poetry,
that even if I were
talented, would still
not near your level
of welcomed grace.


**V. K.

Leave me
in the pieces,
the shambles,
you found me in.
I have not begun
to fit them together.
And I could not allow
another to solve my
broken riddles for me.
For while my puzzle
remains unfinished,
I do not yet know
if I am missing
any edges or
a vital part.


**V. K.

Our conversations are tepid.
Perfunctory, they run in circles,
hamsters on wheels, wasting time.
I don’t care how your day was.
Undress while we mention some
senseless detail about the weather,
buttons still done and silk pulled
over your head to save seconds,  
so we can lose them between us
and pretend it never happened in
the morning.

I only kiss you when I’m tired of being
alone.


**V. K.

When I was born,
I took a breath and
absorbed all the
dreams and lives
I could lead soon.
I took a breath,
just before my
parents held me
between them and
in that loving nest,
a second womb,
I grew. Their warmth
kindled my flames
and I burned to try
living. I grew until
the space was too
small. Suffocating,
The flame was stifled,
smothered, I prayed
for death, if I died
they would have to
let me go, I swore
they would. I would
slip like ash through
their fingers and then
I could join the fertile,
nurturing soil for
wildflowers. Wild,
no one would ever
put them in a vase.
My parents could not
display them at the
funeral of me.


**V. K.

Sometimes,
I will myself
to forget
you hurt me,
and then I am
in pain.
Consumed by all
I didn’t do and
ravaged by what I did.
You are always
without guilt,
smoke in my lungs
as I ignite.
You were on fire
and I was so cold…
Sometimes,
when I am
burning
for the touch
of your hands
on my skin,
I distract myself
with the singe
of an overheating laptop
on my thighs,
thank god
I never let
your embers
land there,
and I write.
About how warm
my eyes are and how
someday, someone
else
will worship them
as they make me smile.
The heated hope
evaporates my tears
and sometimes,
I remember how
you made me combust.
Red. Red. Red.
I will smother
your memory
until it is ash
and you are
the only one choking
on smoke.
I am the fire.


**V. K.

And yes, I still write.
I write him delicate letters,
like the ones I saved for you,
but I think of you
to fake love on paper.

Sometimes, I write the color wrong
of his eyes.
I’ve whited-out my praises of
the dreams I saw in your blue skies,
for the bland, brown that
are his.

And I don’t know
who hurts worse between him or me,
that the white out is still wet
– smudged –
and he sees when I hand them over.


**V. K.

Wilderness in our eyes,
running from our destiny
with trees whipping past.
I was gone and so were you.
Laughing in the face of
the meek, who never dared.
Sharing stories and dreams and goals —
our escape plans. Knowing that
if that destiny was catching up
(hanging heavy in our dense minds)
we could find somewhere to hide
that no one else could seek.
We believed we could escape this
dreadful, dreary, destroying destiny
on a pre-emptive honeymoon with
almond flavoured last resorts.
And with arms wide open, we drink the poison.
Overdose on our medication and
wash it down with
wedding champagne.
We won’t apologize,
falling for the wrong

love.


**V. K.

Although the world is glimmering
your eyes are dark.
I think.
They won't meet mine and
your hand curls tighter around her,
while I twist myself into knots.
She looks, though, can she feel it?
The tension?
No. Your stress and my eyes on
her lovely party dress are
subtle. No else can see this.
They see how your smile tilts,
how her eyes shine, how that ring
sparkles.
They see how my drinks sip away.
I've only just finished working,
and some clever friend of ours
– of yours –
I can hear him say he loves
my book. I am listening to you.
You say it often. Murmured softly
against the shape of her neck.
I always needed to remind you
to say the same to me. Oh, yes,
you were so forgetful.
I never said it though.
But you never missed a night  
with me. Did you ever miss me?
And behind your smile, I see pores.
The sweat on your forehead.
You're as nervous as you were,
with your thunderous heartbeats
kneeling in my apartment.
Asking me a question,
the numinous question,
I could never answer right.
Right next to my manuscript,
that held the weight of souls
I created, when I sacrificed
my own.
It's obvious now, a loaded gun,
pressed to my temple, filled with
conventions  and editor meetings  and
my detached penthouse.
I never said it.
It's after, that I think.
In the dimness, that I think.
And I can't stop myself from asking it.
How did I forget so easily?
I never said it back.


**V. K.