I want to be your reformation
So holy a scripture you forget damnation
I want to be the heaviest book you've ever read
In a tongue so thick your skin will shed

"With that body you should get whatever you want"
And I am not just this body.
But
With this body I hold a heart that has loved flesh stretched across continents
A beating monster misunderstood but listened too, with teeth rigid and shined like opal or mother of pearl
A pounding prophecy promising something else, something else, something else is waiting beyond every time I have felt for the off switch with tired eyes
With this body I hold a mind stark in its quest for answers
One that does not settle on maybes or tomorrow or partial answers
A mind persistent in its pursuit for wholeness for oneness for connection to other tanks of skin covered bones with minds and hearts that beat and pound and pursue just as hard
With this body I hold a soul that is as vast as the cosmos.
Stardust sunken in long necked jars lining across my ribs whispering answers that my mind cannot read and my heart is not yet ready to see
This body homes a soul that is part moon, part star, part divinity.
One that finds its homes along stretch marks and supple flesh alike
One that is not dictated by the way I clothe or unclothe my skin
With this body I should get whatever I want because this body is a home and it has never been empty.

I found you sitting along the pages of your favorite book, on my bookshelf, replacing your favorite words with question marks and X's.
I think you wanted your flesh to be as easy to read but it wasn't.
Instead you took trains to faraway towns so you could find names for the words you could feel but not spell.
And you found home along skeleton streets empty with memories, ghost towns that mirrored your hometown but felt harder to leave.

My body is my altar and I'll let you worship at it if you want
But you shall not find any holy books along the shelf of my ribs
You will not find any ancient scriptures along my spine
You will not find any commandments carved in stone except
"I worship at a temple with closed doors
I worship at a temple that belongs to itself
I pray to an altar thats last candle has burned but there is no darkness here
There is no yearning to be lit
I worship at a temple whose stillness should not be mistaken for emptiness
I worship as an artist overcome by his muse

I want your bones, rattling cold, every one of them.
For a second, you won't stop, not even as you reach my flesh and cascade like a snowfall
Too quiet to make a sound,
Over each pearl that kisses your skin.

You have a traveler's soul.
And a mind that wanders just as restlessly
As a ship lost at sea
Refusing to sink and become forgotten.

You have the eyes of hand woven tapestries
Hung on the walls of childhood homes.
Laden with memories and first kisses
Riddled with promises and Sunday afternoons.

You have the bones of a life felt from the other side.
A spirit touched by what it means
To be human
And what it means to be broken.

Come and look at the way my skin sheds at the sight of the setting sun
And see the stars placed along my vertebrae
Settled
In nooks your fingers will never touch.
Trace the outline of the skin along my thigh with a gaze
Shaded
By eclipses.
Breathe the scent upon my flesh settled with stardust and your fetishes.

From forgotten parts of darkened forests, I have seen your eyes peering at the parts of my soul I have grown unaccustomed to showing.
Or maybe it’s the way your curtain falls after nights spent lingering in the shadows- wondering what’s best for the somber spirits you ****** with your cologne.
Your kisses lay like razor blades on skin that’s close to cold, moonbeams flickering on the edge of dreams that crawl between nightmares and terrors.
I have yet to let you in.

I have written about you on napkins in coffee shops and restaurants that traverse continents.  I've written your name on foreign pages in cities you'll never be, at least not with me. I've etched your name onto trees but your initials always feel out of place alongside my own, or at least that's how it seems. You have always traded a taste of ink for words you'll never let me read. You're darkened melancholy that you think tastes too sweet. You had me, oh you had me and I've written down the verse. But the tape is skipping, the record is broken, a melody and a curse

We crave a comfort that touches us like silk
But are afraid of a softness that loosens our skin
There is safety to be found in spaces that are filled
And emptiness tastes bitter when there aren’t hands left to sew you close
Do you find solace in other peoples heartbreaks?
Or are you yearning to let go of your own?
Do you crave promises because you know you can’t keep them?
Can we really find a comfort in someone else’s bones?

Men with your sort of name are dangerous.
The way each letter makes your tongue work as if it knew you would never be easy.
The way you sound sharp and ready to break me like the bones you wear.
You carry the weight of ghosts I'll never know, the way each vowel kisses the next.
Men like you are dangerous, and your obscurity makes you all the more sinister

Where’s the step between comfort and apology because I think I’ve yet to find that place.
Instead I think my blood will boil before it curdles.
(Leave memories of how your skin made me feel)
Where do you turn to in the dark and who do you watch.
When your footsteps shatter the silence you left when you said you would never go.  
(But you left anyway)
How can you expect to trust a soul, if you don’t even trust your own.

And why have you gotten me stuck in the place between the two.

You are strings of pearls that cross thresholds between worlds
Little beads of ecstasy threaded through debris
You’re a smile in the morning when the sun is fresh and bright
You are scratches in the dark when the day has turned to night

You hover in the space between heaven and hell praying that if there’s a god he lets you in.
And your vain attempt at kissing darkness only gets you through this life with one foot in reality and the other foot in your grave.
Darkness doesn’t promise anything except blurred edges and escaped time and there comes a point when pity doesn’t look pretty, even on you.
So hold yourself to esteem higher than the lords, and pray that your ego will be the death of you.

You’re movements in the earth trembling like unsteady stars
You pull my limbs apart like planets orbiting a dying sun
(Tell yourself the truth before you get cut off)
There’s petrified stardust immortalized in your blood
You claim to own the nighttime like she’s a war that can be won
Counting down the minutes until darkness shows her son
A soldier versed in a song unsung

You’re angular asymmetry caught in the in between
Black holes and dying stars in a universal tragedy
I wanted you to banish but instead you banished me
And now I’m writing letters to shadows of what you used to be

You’re all bones and no talk.
All dislocated ribs and shackled thoughts.
Contain them contain them, don’t you dare let them escape.
Hold on to what makes you broken, I’ve heard broken thoughts carry less weight.
So guard your bones that home your soul.
Sharpen your ribs and polish your throne.
Count the minutes and the hours and the seconds as they go.
You can’t expect royalty when you’re six feet below.

You’re all skeletons and veins
(or something like that)
Just a pile of bones hanging on an empty frame
With walls that feel too close for comfort
(You romanticize the dark as she sings your name)
I want the moon to light up your bed
And your flesh as we wait for the dark
We’re counting empty minutes so we can feel our ribs as they sink
Finding empty beds of flowers and empty bottles and empty seats
Stones carved in cemeteries with graves emblazoned with no names
Skeletons and souls, we are hanging hearts on empty frames