low self-esteem means
i don't deserve anything
better, my failures reflect
my person, my value is based
on a number, my i's
don't deserve to be
capitalized, never expecting
a love letter from the world,
worshipping people over
religion, trading my volition
for his capricious affection, the
hope and despair of being
lucky to be loved at all.

No one could be red
Quite like her, a crimson-
Caped gal full of rogue
Thoughts like fire storms
That burned for revolution.
If I wasn't so afraid of setting
My dry-leaf life ablaze, we'd
Be more than just two grey
Facebook users playing the
Block game. But from those young
Days and long nights, the vague
Inklings of camaraderie linger. I
Remember her velvet soul, a fine fabric,
Tough and royal but always
Twisted. She kept roses in her
Wild hair but thorns in her
Tongue. Light refracted through
Her ruby body, beaming out every
Color of the human psyche,
But all I remember was the red.
Perhaps I saw the blood in her
Lips, the glow of passion, the
Spark of something I couldn't yet
Understand. Perhaps I was nothing
More than my fears. Perhaps I
Simply mistook her for a mirror.

my time has come; true love, please
take my soul into the galaxy of your
hand, spin me into orbit around your
dreams, dance with my devotion to
your desires, feel the fire burning in
my eyes when our celestial bodies
collide—we are one divine moment
apart, separated by the future tense,
misled by mundane mirages of fear,
the gray unknown that steers our fates
astray; but my time has come, and
so has yours—align me into your
constellations and know that I already
belong to you; I beg you to risk the
impossible; it's all that's left between us.

i let the sidewalk catch
my daydreams as I practice
the motions of love, imagining how
long it should take for you
to fall into my arms, confecting my sweet
words into perfection, testing
the way we cannot fight
the current in our oceans,
imagining life that started
with a kiss—smirks becoming
adventures, worries flattening
into horizons, the contrast in our skin
tones creating a balanced ink, our
oneness a calligraphy that
cannot be rewritten.

slowly, warmly, we
crane our soft necks,
catching the droplets
of sun while reaching
for palms, sticky skin,
interlaced fingertips—
outgrowing our shells
that drop like sky pillars
around us, blood racing
through veins in a dense
forest, our romance like
infinity in water tubes,
a melody in ocean waves,
the gravity in his words
causing me to accelerate;
the world divides us into
night and day; the earth
mistakes us for air.

finally understanding the science of
freedom—loving mad, thoughts
running in firework circles, chasing
horizons, befriending the alone,
choosing the way you die—I
stopped staring at ratios & coercing
them into gold; alchemy is dead, and
art is not a numbers game ((division
is a terrible skill for writers to have))—
expression is not mathematical, and
my words are not for calculating eyes
to evaluate; follow a formula for desired
results—my breath cannot be defined.

Seconds fall fast
fleeing forever I
feel evermore forgetful—
we dance on our delete
buttons hoping all is
well capitalized forever
assuming quality can be
quantified like ***** drug
money, stopping to wonder
why fear is America's Most
Wanted why nothing sounds
infinite why I hide behind
commas why thoughts don't
shoot like bullets how
poems are made when the
words will finally flow
free of doubt, full of fantasy,
fighting the force of friction
I feel the world falling fast
as the mind collapses like
pillow frames a second too
long, a spark too alive—
we live for sightless speed