it is awfully romantic
to imagine that we do not hold yesterday's values in our back pockets
to think we never held these values to someone else's temple
the barrels of our guns do not light every limb of our family trees
we are lying
if we tell you our ancestors wanted the white house to be home to a brown boy
rage no longer pumps through our veins but it sneaks through the holes in our understanding, we are still responsible
and it is awfully romantic
that we sing songs of freedom from oppression in spite of the fear of the woman walking down the sidewalk in the middle of the day
leave love notes in our constitutions after the letters "P.S."
whisper promises to minorities that things will be better then strike them down declaring we've done enough
it's not enough
it is awfully romantic
to believe none of this is relevant anymore
the only relevance of gender is what pronouns to use
the only relevance of skin is our lover's wrapped up in ours
but we are not a love story
even when we want to be
this is not a love letter
it is an apology

she told me
if she had to be my world
she would wear the equator like a noose
she told me
that no man is ever permitted
to find the coordinates of her love
only explore the snowy mountaintops of her ice age
she will never be anything but cold
she will never love anything but herself
and that would be okay if it were true
but it isn't
I know that one day a man will happen upon
the correct latitude of her heartbeat
he will find a way to pull every continent back together
while I tried to swim from one to the other
I will drown in her oceans
in her eyes
in her words
she will tell me it isn't my fault
she will tell me she wishes she could have loved me like I loved her
she will tell me she is sorry
and she will be
and I will forgive her
but his arms will wrap around her waist
an equator she won't hang from
and he won't have to forgive her

home has never been anything but this
dark eyes promising every inch of light to me
his fingertips tracing the dips between my ribs
bruises trailing from my neck to the inside of my thighs
but this love didn't hurt
his rough hands slipped in mine
the first time we kissed
he was nothing but soft
nothing but gentle
nothing but home

hydrofluoric acid
can cleanse
away chemicals
I learned
in
chemistry love
is
chemical
how much
hydrofluoric acid
do I have to down to
cleanse myself of
you

I've always had a
sweet tooth, but
you had a
taste for
my
adam's apple
you took a bite
every time we kissed,
now I can't say your name
without my voice
tripping over
your heartbeat. the
seeds are falling out
naked and bleeding,
nothing sounds
like us
anymore

I keep lying
to my
shoelaces
one day we'll
grow somewhere
beautiful, tie
ourselves into
the soil of a
forest, the trail
tripping into
the beach
like the moon
to the tide
I want to be lost

she used a sewing needle
to tattoo stitches
up my spine
when she asked me if
I loved her I
pulled her
palm to my
blistered chest so she knew
the dull thuds
she's hearing are
not ticks of a
clock, they are
my heartbeat
making way for the
next time she wants
to use me like a napkin
I will help her get clean
every time
without fault
she can break my heart
as many times as she
pleases, so long as
she keeps
coming back to tattoo it together