Dance with me,
my soul cannot be still
around *you.

the wolves in me howl to the moon in your eyes
and I wonder if you have any idea that you can stay
inside your walls of ocean and be separated miles away
from where I am standing and still own my whole heart

there will come a day
when you finally arrived to me
for I am the only one
—your only one
who can make you stop hiding
from your own darkness and fear
cause I have saved up enough light
inside my heart for both of us

It started in a hurry
In sounds like the sizzle of summer air
Between two chipped teeth
Two chapped lips.

There was never to be enough room
For the all encompassing mouth of heat
Colored like the sticky surface of a blow-pop
Orange until you lick down to the icy blue center.

Only then do you notice the icy blue center
Has left the felt tip a speckled white
Like looking at winter treetops on the horizon
Littered with broken branches
Weighed down by Christmas carols

And slowly the head tilts to the left
Like a child whose favorite question is “why?”
And whose waxy fingers are now covered
In the sweet slime of a blow-pop

this poem
is not about you

even though
your spirit is in every word
your voice sounds strong
in the halls of my mind
telling me things
I am now sure
I want to know

this poem is
about me

trying to understand
you

Love is the smell of spoiled milk:
even after you're rid of it,
it still lingers in your space of
solace.

Love is persistence
and dedication
even when your best is dismissed,
and your worst is worshiped.

Love is when you can't breathe because you're afraid of stealing someone else's last.

Love is not like -
love is more powerful
than a single syllable;
you should feel the power in every letter.

Love is the word your shoulder Angel sings
that makes you calm;
Love is the word your shoulder Devil
blames for the demons frolicking in your head.

Love is liquid;
it takes the form of something solid
until it eventually spills over.

Love is the understanding
between the sun and the moon -
Though they exist all at once,
they share the sky
so the other can shine.

Love is limitless;
I don't waste time trying to count stars.

I am a mirror.

My father looked at me
and he saw a disappointment;
so he ran away
to find someone with a kinder reflection.

My friend took a peek,
and they saw something pleasant:
They saw themselves in a different light.
So they put me in a place where
I was never more than a glance away.

A former lover glanced at me
as she passed by;
she saw something unstable,
so she found a mirror
whose glass she could bend at her every will.

My mother stood before me
and she saw her hopes and dreams -
I've never known someone to admire their reflection
more than themselves,
so that's why I love her in return.

I can see it all:
the beauty,
the filth;
In fact,
the only thing
I've never seen
is me.

The thaw begins with a drip,
builds to a roar, subsides to sunlight
prisms playing over every surface

illuminating still-wet velvet wings
maroon and yellow, neon blue
pseudo-bark underneath.

In the clear-cut, pink fireweed
pierces a sky alive with souls
reveling in their last year on earth

sampling nectar with newly curled
tongues while summer degrades
to fall, burrowing in the cool

damp cord of fir put up for winter
awakening in spring, tasting summer
before the reprieve, too soon over

time come to fold
battered wings, to slip free
of this mourning cloak and rise.

His Star.

I chased this evening
evening's fade in sunset clouds,
silver tin-foiled filigree
tied to grey-as-granite mountains.

Tinted skirts of hazy
daytime's late farewell lit night's
ballooning moon parade
displayed as fire on quiet shoreline.

Invasive scarlet-swathe
hued day's best forgotten noon
when darker stronghold's rain
rolled dust-cascades forming gloom.

Drifted with waning sky's
azure came memory's beams,
pain-shot their spotlighting
shadows still haunting my dreams.

Yet I chased tonight
night's demons away by love's
recall when I saw brighter
his star winking at me from above.