My foggy mouth tries to hide behind rain-smacked glass.
She says goodbye with complacent stares
and with the sudden flash of an umbrella.

The red of her dress doesn't belong in my life.
Each of her strides carry my resentment and weariness,
alongside the melting grey of the Seattle skyline.
So, I don't yell for her or imagine our lives,
as the windshield wipers sweep her image, out of sight, but not out of my head.

I return home, the half I was for decades.
The tread of my shoe mashing bluegrass,
digging up seeds and insect carcass, with every step.
Storm-soaked magazine subscriptions lay on the porch,
and her name is tattooed on every one.

The dog lays on the carpet, ears and eyes perking up at me.
And he knows he's truly alone, because I'll depend on him.

Eggshell kitchen cabinets are jammed with her:
Vermilion, saffron, and burgundy glasses hold
half-empty hangings of golden flat draft,
keeping her day-old, dried saliva smothered on the edges,
like transparent ocean waves dying on a glass coast
and buried in the bottom of the sun-pierced vortex.

What I couldn't realize is that the cup was me:
marked in so many ways,
letting decaying memories burrow and stay.

There are countless of metaphors I could create to express how much you mean to me, but the one idea I haven’t quite put into words is this; when there’s a warm breeze brushing against my skin, there could be a storm tearing down the trees in your backyard. While Florida’s gust of wind is messing up my hair or calming down my anxiety for the night, a Texas thunderstorm is tearing your house apart, and the reason for your last breath. And now the trees in your backyard aren’t the only thing the storm tore apart, but my heart too with every grain of faith left in me. The Florida wind isn’t going to mess up my hair this time, but the Texas catastrophe will mess up my mind and the love we once shared from a distance. A person’s last breath and the narrative of it has never been more important to me. Thoughts rid me of sleep when this is what they whisper; the detestation of the miles between us only multiplying, wishing it was you whispering sweet nothings only inches between us instead. Wanting your fingertips brushing against my skin instead of the breeze in the middle of the night. There are too many moments I long to, not have sun kissed skin, but my skin kissed by you instead. I just pray the trees stay in your backyard and you become the reason my hair is a mess because I’m tired of giving the credit to this dreaded Florida wind.

When I was younger, my biggest desire was to travel.
Dreaming of swimming with dolphins in the Amazon River.
Dreaming of floating away to the Niagara Falls.
Dreaming of running all of the United States.
Dreaming bigger dreams than Martin Luther King, Jr could ever.
Maybe even go away in a hot air balloon until boredom struck.
See the highest peaks of the Earth, maybe until I’ve reached the gates of Heaven.
Have brunch with the President of the United States, or with a beggar I come across with on my journeys.
When I was younger, my wishes were beyond my reach
God’s angels seemed closer than my dreams could ever be.
And so, I made contact with one of God’s angels, as I floated on the cloud of my imagination.
This angel had brown eyes; hair fell perfectly every time
Perfection came to this angel without ever trying.
I fell for this angel faster than Lucifer fell from the glory of God, it was so unplanned and perfect.
Unplanned and perfect.
That was this angel’s method to everything in life:
Unplanned. Perfect.
Everything he did was unplanned and perfect.
It was… spontaneous.
He was spontaneous.
He was perfect.
The way he didn’t think about anything too much, and just did everything. Only thinking about things twice – or so it seemed. The way he didn’t have a planning sheet for life, he just wrote whatever came to his mind, like me. Except he didn’t write, he acted upon his thoughts. I literally write everything that comes to mind. But this angel? He acted. The finest actor that ever descended from Heaven.
Now, the perfection of his beauty leaves me speechless every time, making me a mime of some sort. The perfection of his beauty is marvelous, I just don’t know how to put it into words. All I can say is that, with this angel I’ve fallen for, I am somehow satisfied. Somehow, all the dreams I’ve been yearning for so long are brought to life at last.
The words he speaks flow perfectly - I promise you, I could swim in them. The ease of his tone makes me feel like I’m swimming in the Niagara Falls. Oh, and that laugh is so sweet and just as cute as the dolphins in that Amazon River I had wished to swim with.
He makes me feel like I’m running more than just the United States of America. This amazing angel gives me an adrenaline rush… I could run miles and miles. To him. To hug him. To kiss him. To get high off of his touch and feel oblivious.
God sent me the best transportation to the Gates of Heaven.
And this transportation is the most spontaneous and perfect.
This spontaneous piece of perfection is the best adventure, and I’m so ready to have brunch every day with that marvelous angel God sent.

Her ribs crackled, in the skeleton night.
And I remember my mouth on hers,
where atomic fish hooks attached our lips.
Where there was nothing like kissing
like our God wasn't dead.

She was accused of killing a taxi driver
in the Brazilian underbelly.
Smoking a cigarette, she dropped it on the ground,
spat on it, and crushed it with her bare foot,
saying she fell in love with the way
his sleep-drenched body lay.

And I told her to stay home.
And I told her that they'd find her.
But she didn't stay home.
And they did find her.

Chasing her through the Babylon brush,
insults were thrown and so were balloons of gasoline.
Each pink, yellow, and green vessel floated in the air, as an internal opera heightened.
And sour splashes spread across her body,
as she fled from the vigilante mob.

The children danced along the panoramic horizon she ran beside,
laughing, pointing, singing.
The slumbering sorrow of the situation became evident,
and she started to feel the calm of fleeting life.

Her dreams aborted and her ideals became fallacies,
and with the sound of fuzzy motors in the background, her heart leapt and her feet slipped.

Rope ate into her, wrapping her like the orphaned recklessness of each set of eyes that painted her.
She squirmed amongst the cheers.
She cried with every thrown beer and balloon.
The empty-eyed males gang ***** her.
The women covered the children's eyes,
and the children tried to move their mothers' hands.

And I pushed my way through the crowd.
And I saw her smothered in blood, beer, and gasoline.
I wanted to halt the hurricane that destroyed morality.
But I am a coward.
Frozen by my fear, I, too, am a murderer.
And a murderer I'll always be,
for the burning of all that was good.

Sudden flames soared towards the sky.
Laughter escaped as molotov cocktails exploded onto her body.
Her head turned towards the crowd,
as flames scampered across her face.
I saw in her, what I never saw before,
which was the human race.

I'm afraid to fall in love because I know what it feels like to love someone so deeply that it takes over your body. it's this feeling of despair mixed with happiness and it's so confusing. it's craving the other person in every aspect of the word, physically, mentally, emotionally. it's insanity, losing your mind over them. the jealousy and the feeling of insecurity that you might not be enough. the swelling in your chest when they say they love you and you feel as if you're floating. I'm afraid to fall in love because what happens after that, the crash, is too much. it's a feeling of despair and sadness. it takes over your body and washes you out like a tidal wave. you crave the other person but you know they don't feel the same and your cravings only strengthen. it's insanity, losing your mind trying to figure out why you weren't enough. knowing that you were never enough. and the knot in your stomach when they tell you they don't love you anymore you feel as if your whole world has ended.

There was once a girl who had her peers’ approval: skin like silk and her eyes could be compared to a freshly polished wooden floor, her laugh could light up a whole town - the hearts of the broken. This girl’s heart was said to be golden – the kind of gold used to build the streets of Heaven, the kind the kings yearned for; delicate and sweet too, that heart of gold. The way this angel walked wasn’t **** nor was it seducing; the way this Mona Lisa walked: dumbfounding. The way this Mona Lisa walked: beautiful. The way this Mona Lisa walked: full of grace. Grace. She spoke of this word: grace. Grace to this girl was more than just a word, it was a lifestyle. She spoke of the grace of God and God’s grace descending upon His children. This wonderful girl – who spoke of God’s grace – had her peers’ approval, yet not her family’s. This dumbfounding girl, who did not have her family’s approval, started giving up on the grace of God. This girl whose laugh could bring life to the dead souls couldn’t find life in her own, couldn’t light up her own heart not made of gold, but of cheap metal, and it was rusting faster than God’s grace could find her. This graceless girl got tired of waiting for God’s grace to arrive. This graceless girl was yearning for the same gold the kings did. This graceless girl wanted to turn her heart to gold. This graceless girl wanted to touch the golden streets of Heaven. This graceless girl wanted to be one of “His children”. This graceless girl wanted to find the grace of God on her own terms.
Twenty four hours later.
There was once a girl who had her peers’ handkerchiefs and flowers. Her skin of silk was almost colder than her family’s hearts, not made of gold nor metal, but of ice. They would not go to her wedding (if she had one, they said).
She didn’t.
Instead, this girl who had her peers’ flowers in respect laid there exactly like a carcass: dead.

you feel the tightening of your chest and the knots in your stomach, the lump in your throat getting bigger. all of a sudden you're drowning, but everyone around you is breathing. the crushing sensation settles over your chest and your vision is blurred . your ears are buzzing, not picking up on what anyone is saying. you can no longer breathe, but the pain gets stronger. you know that any minute you'll be blinded by how much your chest hurts. but then suddenly you see the one who saves you, but there's a twist to it. a sharp blade replaces who was meant to save you, the ocean you're drowning in is replaced by your mind, and so as you drag the blade over your skin over and over and over and over again until the only thing you can see is thick red blood, you can breathe again. the sun shines and colors seem brighter. you look down at your blood stained clothes but at this point the wave of regret gets smaller and smaller with every drop. you're too far gone to be saved, but you somehow feel alive.