love feels like
holding your breath
a strain in your chest
a rising
you can feel it in the back of your throat
in the pit of your stomach
it’s warm and heavy honey
drawing your ribs in snugly
lying flush against your heart
purring

you lie in bed next
to me
with the world tucked
beneath your chin
spinning gently

your sleep is restless
sometimes
in the middle of the night
i hear you coughing up stars

1 the breath that travels from my throat to yours
2 light dripping like honey onto the windowsills
3 the dust from broken glass embedded in the
                pads of your fingers 4 and i'm sorry
5 the way you looked at me like you wanted to swallow me
6 my eyes (in response) melting and 7 cooling
8 kissing boys as they stand soft 9 between your thighs
10 hands matched like magnets
11 the tracks turning electric when the train runs near
12 coming home with palms scraped 13 or not at all
14 trying to sit still for family photos
15 the love you kept like a mint behind your teeth [i’ll hook my
           tongue around it and try to pull it 16 free]
17 to be the only one who can hurt yourself

18 falling in love in a way you never can again:
                for the first time

is a scary thing
to feel blood
rushing from your feet
to feel fingertips on your shoulder
when he is thousands of miles away
to feel your heart pounding as you run
run and surge, rippleless, into that fluid gentle dark
to feel your lungs fill and collapse like
an accordion

i couldn’t stop feeling
anymore than he could stop being who he was
which was simply:
not mine

do not let him own any bit of you
because in losing him you will lose
a part of yourself

i have just stuck a needle
through your ribs
you made a little flutter
but are quiet and still now

your eyes are dark and striking
and your legs are spindly
a little clumsy
you were supposed to go places

forgive me:
you are the most beautiful girl I've ever seen
delicate, dusted in gold, and sweet
i wanted to keep you forever

And if the girl with black eyes is as pure as anyone why does she bleed the blood of a criminal and if there is no one waiting for her why does she still purr up through the warming whippled rafters and along the whispering telephone wires and up to the moon which has begun to peel and if the moon is not listening why does it return and if there is beautiful power in locking eyes with the one you used to love but cannot let yourself love again why are my hands limp and numb and heavy as if I’ve never had feeling in them before and if this world was once as round as a grape why is it now so twisted and if justice has been served on a silver platter why are the most titled people as empty as death and if it hurts to watch why do I watch at every chance I get and if deep inside I want to fold in two

(even as I raise my two
                 arms up
with their numb hands dangling)

why
do I
begin to rise