fingers curl into loose fists,
grasping softly at the frigid air in hopes of
feeling the temperature change.

january, i adore you.

a fresh start, a blank slate: one entire year
of endless possibility.
january, you are freezing;
but with you comes change.

i love you, i do. but please excuse
the way my hands hold out
to grasp at March’s warmer breaths

i, too, wish to breathe a new life
warm and
full of sunshine

is it that you desire
to stuff your tongue
down my throat, playing
“loves me, loves me not”
to the melody
of my choking, guttural
pleas of “no more”
no more lies, no more
deceit spun off the tip of your
***** tongue.

take your tastebuds back;
i’ll ******* own truths.
i don’t like this
tonsillitis, i can’t
soothe it
like kids do.
lactose intolerant, and
struggling to tolerate
the way your eyes shimmer
like you’re enjoying this

just two silhouettes walking
never intersect, done all their talking

parallel lines, this road’s been taken
the path is set with no equation
he did the math—no explanation
no words to describe this excavation

the broken bones, the muddied holes
tried to force the pieces, guess he’s got soul

tried so hard to wash them clean,
but the truth whispers behind the sheen.
pressure wash, sludge swirled the drain
from pressure: bruises, exposed the pain

rinse away the dirt, the cracks remain
prevents infection, still poisons the brain

got any guilt for me, or still just the same?
soap suds and lies can’t erase the shame.

Another glass
(bodega red)—
Christmas lights,
all buzz-eyed bokeh—

I want you close,
my nervous tic,
my lunar love,
Cassiopeia—

this holiday I
said too much,
I made a fool of
both of us—

but I don’t drink
to disappear—
I drink to kiss
my fearless lover.

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.