I know what love tastes like

sort of like the warm berries on your lips
mixed with chlorine and
       cheap pink perfume from a plastic spray bottle
              like lukewarm coffee that was carried on a bike by a underage boy  
  it tastes like jealousy on the roof of my mouth
at the success and intelligence that sweats from him
    like
pride that overwhelms me--a wave of warm sunshine
like a cold metal ring in my mouth (biting it nervously--the raw disruptive taste of metal waking my senses)
as I say goodbye for the day
(or week)

the glow-in-the-dark stars on my wall
are brighter than
my ambitions,
vicodin washes down with
stone cold fear,
and mercury is in retrograde-
not that we felt the need to communicate.
tiny planets on a string,
we danced in the
orbit that we shared.
you had misgivings,
told me pluto
never made it around the sun,
not even once.
but earth created a moon
with her soulmate.
mercury doesn't return direct
until february 11th;
by then
paracetamol and hydrocodone
will have passed.
opiates and human beings
both sources of anxiety
but i don't mind
drowning in them both.

I think I loved you most the winter your heating was broken
And we’d stay inside all morning
Pretending to complain that we couldn’t get out of bed
Our clothes becoming little islands on the floor,
Ones that we could not quite find the courage to visit

Your hand stayed glued to my hip,
Your breath warming my shoulder
Like a long drag of whiskey
That kind that had a home so far away,
In a glass bottle on top of your refrigerator.
The one that would not be opened
Until that fateful day in February,
When everything went wrong

And on that unbearable night
When you joked that you’d freeze to death if I left you
There was a long silence
Like it might be true.

Now it’s warm enough
That I show too much skin when sitting in bars
And you avoid me like the plague,
Whispering in any girl’s ear that’s near to you
Every time you see me watching out of the corner of your eye

We should have stayed inside when the ice began to melt
Because I think
When those doors opened and we finally ventured outside
The world had changed,
And so had you and I.

if I love you
you will know because
I am all consuming
I will adore ever inch of you

(the bones in your elbow
the creases by your eyes
the space above your lips beneath your nose
the strand of hair behind
your ear
the way you blink
the shape of your toes
the way your
eyelashes flutter
the
slow
and then fast
beating of your heart)

I sweep myself
into a puddle
and I evaporate
into the dirt

and I drown in
the sand
and I freeze
under blankets

and I hunger
for water
and I thirst
for words

and I taste
the anger
and I breathe
the impossible

and I cry
in sheer happiness  
and laugh
from a broken heart

but I still live.

Dance around me
Kiss me like a flame to paper
Consume me entirely
And then let me fall apart
And get carried by the wind
Until I am nothing more than an echo

Sing to me
Embrace me like a tree to earth
Hold me tightly
And then speak to me calmly
Until I realize that I am not frozen
In this simple place forever

Play inside me
Flow through me like blood to the body
Fill me relentlessly
And let life carry me up
And be a storm that sustains me
Because the storm is the purpose to live

Whisper the truth
Free me like a caged animal
Engrain me with reason
And unchain me from the rules
So that I can finally breathe
Because freedom you tempt me
Dance, sing, play, whisper to my soul
Show me how to live.