I mean
      that I am trying to tame
      the wildfire in my heart
      built on the Embers from a
      domesticated bonfire
      during a winter many springs ago.
      i thought i had stamped it
                                                         out
                                                      out out
I mean
      that I am not trying to run
      i'm just trying to move
      in a different direction
      the scent of a breeze caught my nose
      and as i am a red tailed fox
                                                       i follow
I mean
      that sometimes i feel like
      my dreams are much bigger than me
      but even if i am a ladybug
      i am still as big as the
sea.

you make
                 my
   hands           shake
             like my
              aunt's
   hands           shake
like they haven't forgotten
                            the weight
of the last cigarette they held
even after her precious lungs
                       had forgotten
how to breathe.

Madness of misunderstandings
clarity in crystal moonlight,
            the way a cloud invades a perfect sky,
                           but only adds depth
                           to the act of perception;
not altogether altering,
                  but offering
another point of view.
Instead of being blinded
              by my own insignificant insights,
I am bathed in the sunlight
              that peeks through the windows
              of other people's worlds
and through words
              I can only attempt to make sense of what it means,
until the ultimate realization
that it means nothing,
but instead of terror
this brings me comfort.
                   *I have become the sun.

I can only remember your eyes
            looked like moons
bathing me in
                        bluish clarity
peeking below trees;
They brushed your face
like eyelashes.

I wish Mother
                        Nature
had given me a more
                                     Celestial
body, that I could show my love
in grander gestures.

Disappearing woman,
I imagine the breeze is your lips
                 unfreezing glass-water
Bringing canvassed flower -field
                 alive with just a touch.

Disappearing woman,
I looked for you on mountaintops
and beneath
            rust colored leaves
                                       that
                                        fall.

I kissed your eyelids awake
              willed them open
                           to see the warm brown
               coffee mugs behind.
I want to drink from you and
                                                   keep drinking,
             and inhale every ring of smoke
                         that rises from your lips
because the universe inside you
is beautiful,
             crystalline
             with biased clarity.
I wish you would be
                               part of me,
                                            cannibal galaxy

My throat                             is an open hatch
     for you to jump down, take a look
                around my insides,
                            see what's behind
pink skin,
                            past ribcage into
          soft tissues of lung
                  and heart
and see the animal burrowed in my gut:

How I feed him some days,
                       because his presence brings me
  comfort.

How other days I starve him,
                       because I want to be
            free.

you were the tallest tree, the oldest and the wisest, in a forest of fever dreams. i climbed to the top of your branches and when you swayed in the wind i could feel you breathe beneath me and longed for your stability until i lost my footing on your slippery words.

and i am reminded of this every time i drive too fast with the windows down, like the air is being ripped from my lungs and i’m gasping but it never feels quite as good as i remembered.

when i hit the ground i wasn’t running anymore. my bones shattered into shards of glass but they finally reflected the light and among them flowers grew with stems like your kisses, stems like your strengths, stems like us sprouting out of forevers.

i thought we would last forever, as one often does in the beginning of everything.

in the beginning there was nothing, and then it became everything. it became the stars that we are now, specks of dust floating aimlessly.

a window never closes, you just forget to look. there is always opportunity to grow.

if i could ever climb that tree again i would make a home for myself in the top of its branches because the view from up there was beautiful. even in storms, you weathered well.