The history books say we outgrew a "phase" of nomads.
We don't move,
or do we?
Do we move in our childhood?
Interrupting friendships and education.
Removed from a house built of brick, mortar, and memories.
Thrown into the populace of new locals.
They're kind, welcoming.
But they're not the people I know.
The school is strange and I have no friends to share my time with.
They say you're supposed to fit in after a couple weeks, right?
Or maybe it's a couple months.
Or years.
Or maybe it's until you become anorexic because you realize there must be something wrong with you, never them.
Always you.
That's when you fit in, right?

They say we're not nomads.
We're done with that phase.

If people were like peaches
the scent of their beauty would slap your face and astound you before you catch sight of them.
The constantly blushing skin breaks when bitten to reveal the sweetness cloaked within.
Some flesh is left around the heart that has been hardened by too many days abandoned in the sun.
The body is consumed ravenously by the eyes and mouth, the most beautiful part of the fruit.
But then the heart appears, the absolute entity of the fruit.
The heart has never been a competitor of beauty for its delicious casing.
And so it is disposed.
Without a backward glance.

My heart melted at the temperature of her words.
But it would not freeze together at the absence of her voice.
The orchestra of her vocals ceased for an instant,
the musicians halted their strings to leave room in the air so that her thoughts could be heard,
mulled over by the world,
and exalted as the word of god, for truly she is a goddess

i dressed up in my midnight-black everything
and showed up at your door with a handful
of wilted daisies.
i tried taking your arm but you chose to just walk by my side,
silent and cold and as frightening as a bolt
of lightning in the summer heat.
and so we walked along the cracked sidewalk,
both silent,
both afraid,
until we chanced upon a narrow creek running
frigid above sheets of blue-grey rock.
you jumped in and i followed suit,
but when i surfaced you were nowhere to be found.
i've been drifting ever since

A bite.
A painful, swollen,
itching to be noticed
lump, that,
once I delve beneath the surface of temptation,
I see it for what it is;
a burden.

or-ange, mango,  
banana too,  
hell-bent on regretting you.  
campfire-chair-sitting on hardwood floors  
in a stranger's home, i think.  
turn off the lights, it's raining.  
i had some to drink (not enough)  
but you had to drive  
but so did i.  
turn off the lights, it's raining  
on the bannister,  
your piano-key-fingers cascading over my  
carpals, metacarpals, phalanges too.  
topple me into a room  
but today it's not for laundry,  
‘cause the only thing that's getting washed away
is my record of not saying  
i love you (in my head, because
strangers
don't say that to each other).  
you lassoed me in and we fell  
into the empty hangers that i pushed away from you;  
shadows on a skeleton’s scapula.  
tabloids never told me that three months’ salary couldn't  
buy the rights to the song  
of your heart beating darkly in your chest.  
turn off the lights, it's raining  
and you can't see the way i  
feel you.

I slept 3 feet from the edge of the bed tonight
thinking it would save me from falling off
and waking up to reality.
But I woke up on the floor, delirious,
curled up with a picture of you