your words are the honey,
your brain is the hive.
pollinate my words, so my
creativity can thrive.

I feel you like
                        slamming
                                doors.
I see you in
                    the same
                                shifting focus as
when I take off my glasses
                  too quick.
I hold you like I make
fifty                               dollars
                  a week.
                                                          "I miss you"
I scream into my pillow.
                                            "I miss you too" you whisper back
        in prayers
in dreams
                   in your arms wrapped around me
as I cry into your neck.

I want you here: you
                            tell me: I'm beautiful.
these slow steps that I'm taking (toward you)
(away from you) I'm learning your name
easier than cleaning a fish bowl
harder than saying it out loud
easier than writing it down
harder than taking birth control
or wanting to,
because I'm not interested in ***
at this age:
in this age I'm younger than those actions
older than those thoughts,
lost in a limbo, found swinging from a bar,
skipping down a street, turning down what I can't see
"no thank you"

I can hear you.
                              "I'm listening"
     I can't hear you.
"you're screaming"

your face,
                 in the mirror: "you're beautiful"
your face,
                    in the street: "I'm disgusting"

sincerely,
                because I know you're quiet when you're unhappy
because you're trying to tie knots with broken fingers
          because your eyes reflect blue in the shadows of your smile
because you're more than any fabric, soaked in any chemical thought
                                                                                                                    (or feeling)
because the islands of you create an escape better than the moon.

Sincerely, because you're you.

I found myself alone
in the cold dusk
at the crease between
night and day

Over my shoulder the illusive flesh of light
meagerly permeated through refracting clouds
above an ocean enclosed from my view
by lulling hills and warming homes

My hands finally quiet
my legs began their routine stretch
for the solitary walk to the local cafe
where heat anticipated the arrival
of my cooled skin

It wasn't the element of instant gratification
that spun the anxious gears
mechanizing in my chilled blood
but the thought that

Had I not taken the time to strengthen my relations
with the setting that was to remain my home
for the next few years

I would become just another lapse in time
among the earth's surface

The windows never reflecting my spiritualistic limbs

My home untouched by the graces of fond strangers

The light always before me never behind
in that distant place shielded by panes and lenses
and the hungering sky

So I found myself alone
silently walking along
a dimming sidewalk
to a warmer place
with the diluted light filtering
through refracted clouds
against my back

I stare at your eyes and gather;
I close mine and wait:

the soft, yet vapid
on my lips, slightly open.
Yours cupped on my overlip.

The charged air, the sublimed space.

I close mine on yours,
and stay.
The comfort of overwhelmed.
We stay, please.

I push.

The warmth
of your every breath on
my philtrum:
you are with me, now;

I feel my bridge on yours
point it
and rest
on the vast, skin beside.
(carry me)

I run my thumb
on the smooth of your jaw,
the tender and sweet in
them lips
your delicate beauty.

Yes, dear:
I drown myself tonight
in your mouth.
We glow
in our little corner of the dark,
and starless sky.

Your brow loll on my forehead
your eyes gently unshut
looking
beyond the locked lips,
and the caressing chins,
on us.

Because.

My love,
more to tomorrow
and growing surround,
the ephemera of the night:

our lips,
inevitably,
will part.

“d’ya see it yet?”
“no, no, swing harder!”
Tink tink TINK TINK
“A hole! Hit there!”
SLAM! Crumbling
Falling through
Landing soft on
Nothing
“Her head-”
“There’s nothing in here!”
Skeptic now
Of their own minds
“there should be
An entire world in here!”
Banging at their skulls
“is that how ours are?”
Picks through their own bones
They look into empty worlds
“anything in mine?”
“nothing!”
“yours, too!”
Climbing from the shell
Cracking others open
“there must be
A thought in one of them
For us to live on”
Splitting into white
Finding only white
Staring in dismay
At all the wasted gateways

I look up
At higher faces
Suspended in
Disastrous places
Their eyes don’t blink
They cannot see
Their mouths, they gape,
And scream at me!
I’m terrified
And now I find
With a tremble
That I too am blind!
I can’t feel the ground
I must be in the air
I sense wary eyes,
And know they must stare.
My mouth hangs wide
Flies catch on my tongue
And to those below
My words must be sung.
When the wind starts to gust
I belt out my song
The air around me trembles
When it reaches the throng,
And now they have joined us,
In these disastrous places
Forming so perfectly
A sky of blind faces!

There is a child starving
Save your soul and drop a penny in the box
Leftover from your super-sized meal.

My heart belongs to myself
Right now that much is true
But lately I’ve been thinking
Perhaps it should belong to you
You walk by and it hiccups
You talk to me and it sighs
It’s telling me it wants you
And my heart rarely lies.

You said you knew the truth for me
And whispered it on the breeze
You opened up your heart to me
Then pushed me to my knees
You painted out a world for us
Full of sun and smiles
Then you put your words into reverse
and back-tracked several miles
You promised eternal friendship
Beyond all other ties
Your open mouth let snakes fall out
The serpents of your lies
I sent my dove over blackened seas
Olive branch in beak
You turned your back and walked away
So, which one of us is weak?