Packed in the back seat of
your cramped Chevy Lumina,
and parked on the frontage road
behind the conifers
in your backyard—

the moon is low, a jaundice yellow,
the car is stalled, the heater grumbled;
you pull me in to warm me up,
my glasses fog,
you steal my smile—

[Your father, for his Sunday sermon,
packed the house—Leviticus:
“’Their blood shall be upon them,’ and
all God’s children said?”
“Amen.”]

Our breath condensed, whisper-white,
traced our initials on the window—
in after-laughing afterglow,
you swallow, nervous,
before you kiss me.

We don’t let go, till cabin lights
illuminate your father’s form—
the verse, full force, the wrath of God,
a hurricane—
a Horrible.

I never saw you afterward,
poor pastor’s son, where have you gone?
Like Pyramus, at the sight of blood
on Thisbe’s veil—
we don’t prevail.

what god created in seven days
a seven word summary:
it’s all a lot of needless ******.

but you’ll say these evils are necessary.

When the wounds whistled me
into weary sleep, I dreamt
I had a cozy little corner of the universe
all to myself. The tune of your lips
puckered against the sky; I watched
as you kissed supernovas into life.

See I bloom so easily, sometimes.
Just purples and blues, maybe green
and some yellow if the star bursts
just right. Often, I have to sleep off
the black holes that rip through me.
Fizzling, I shoot across and fall

Into blessed bliss of ignorance.
Asleep, I see you there. We got ourselves
a nice little place in the stars,
where knuckle dusters cease to exist—
so it’s just space dust, quite magical.
You could make billions
of anything out of this. Eternal. Ethereal.
People spend souls for escapism.

Could you refund mine, actually?
It’s kind of cold up here, now I’ve
stopped dreaming. I kind of
miss feeling the breath fill my lungs.
I sort of want to go home again.
You drifted from my orbit. I think
I miss you.

i’m not quite the boy
that i used to be:
i give up on people now

do you remember
the boy you used to see?
he’d never stop clinging,
white knuckled and
bruising

this is the new me
still fighting but
living, too; breathing
without asphyxiating
under the strain of holding on

it’s bitter but it’s sweet
no more dedicating time
to fixing other people mind’s
and forgetting about mine

these shoulders are yours
i’m listening to your words
and these eyes see you

i am still him
that soft and sleepless boy
but now a man, grown

i will love you
but i will love myself too

you were born on the cusp of spring,
a breath of warm sunlight
coaxing bright life back into
dark husks of wilted stems
and barren souls in need of bloom.

i died the day i came to life.
a beginning amidst the beginning
of the end. four days of stuttering heartbeats later,
i was hurried home under a heavy sky
of god’s tears and thick cloud

your eyes are sick with grief in winter;
i think your chest aches to heal
the fragile, frosted frills of flowers
that suffered and struggled
and surrendered to the cold

you are burdened by empathy
for the crumpled caskets lining the flowerbeds,
impatient for a fresh start
so you can refresh these corpses
into new life. new roots
and petals flourishing in the image of your beauty

you are a god i could worship.
you are a god i could believe in.
you are a creator of life, and colour, and new starts
you created happiness within me,
so i can only hope to do the same for you

i, dead the day i came to life,
belated winter baby with blue lips, blue veins
am alive for perhaps the first time in years
sleepy, but still awake—breathing, blooming
as if spring came early just to kiss the feeling back into my fingertips



a fistful of sunflowers clenched tight,
and with you by my side
my chest is set alight
with a sun’s ray of hopefulness
that the day will eradicate the night.

you will make it,
even if it's by the skin of
your teeth --
which will pearl
into a smile
that reaches your
endless eyes

sleep if you're exhausted
but you will rise;
energy cannot end, so
your soul
will be fine

arise, darling,
we're going to be fine

i just wanna sleep
but all my dreams are dead.
maybe i could find a way
to wake them up instead,
‘cause all i am is tired bones
longing for my bed;
every minute standing is
a blur of pain in my head

shut my lids, count to five
nightmares flicker behind my eyes
darkness creeps, i’m alive
and time keeps slipping by