i.
if i came to you with a shroud over my eyes, would you ask me why i’m hiding? there’s a whole lot of love, you used to say, and i would stay quiet, while my eyes overflowed with the least of it.

i’ve got lessons to learn, i’m trying to escape it. i’ve got a lot to grow, but i swallowed the seeds- hey. will you kiss me again? you used to tell me that the world is our constellation, that we are all dots connected. will you go? or will you craft me into your grand masterpiece, because i’m still waiting.

the best of us lies in between my sheets, in words i can’t say because they burn my throat. i’ve always been good at swallowing **** whole.

ii.
this is where it started: her lips on my neck, her hands around my neck, doors locked, eyes locked, fingers interlocked, then wandering, but then:
     high dives.

and her skin is soft beneath her t-shirt, and her eyes are heavy beneath her bangs, and her body’s weighted blanket as i lie beneath her. some bit of drowning, and i wanna swallow her whole, hold her quiet shaking in my palms, i’ve a palm on her chest and suddenly we’re
                  just gone.

so all i remember is her mouth and her skin and her, and all i want is her mouth and her skin and-

next time she asks if i’m alright, she guides my hands. she leads me to her jannah, to her atlantis. my hands are under her skirt and my eyes are nervous and she tastes the way she did when we were drunk in her kitchen and i ask her what’s okay and she says it’s okay okay. and for a moment i’m all she wants.

it's just us in this hazy bedroom. me & you, your mouth & my neck. i know that these bruises are the kind only love leaves. your teeth, they sink into my skin like i am a fruit forbidden from your tongue, like i am a fruit you needed to taste even if it meant succumbing to the shame of sin.

but there is no shame here, & i'm only allowed to glow, i'm only allowed to sing (to bleed) when you leave me little stab wounds onto my bare skin with the sharp edge of your canines. with your animalistic passion. & when god turns the other way, my nails scrape your skin, digging through your flesh to search for the paradise that lies underneath. you ask if i have ever felt so holy, & i can only respond with this hot spring of tears down my cheeks & eyes that beg you to devour me.

you stab your way into my fallen kingdom. you wash over my collapsed temples. you bite into my fruit. you cry amen & my choir follows suit.

winter
the wreath’s rustle interrupts my sleep. in my dreamy shiver there is lucidity. between my toes there is carpet; I can feel its green, sense its virginal cool as I shuffle across the hall. I have the urge to scream, to tear the milk-matted blanket muffling my fervid anticipation. I hear you, then: the creak of the door, the friction of skin and silk, the sapped wail of youth’s wasted power. starlight pierces the linen curtains and casts my shadow ten feet tall, two feet tall, not at all. I crawl into bed and feel your breathing but it is not you. you are the unbroken hum of the furnace.

spring
the sugared smell of candy fruit depresses my throat and ***** threatens. my eyes search the window for a stranger but only rain knocks; my clothes are still wet, dripping one, two, three on each step. they dry more quickly than the boards creak; more quickly than I can find the storm drain, my translucent skin sloughing off at your touch. you are the static of broken vhs, the rattle of the closet mirror door as it slams, the easing cries through a premature mouth. I scream again, only to feel you in my ears as cotton, in my limbs as rigor. you whisper my name and I turn like a dog.

summer
dandelion seeds litter the dew-fresh yard. sing louder, you say, and I run faster. the wet heat is psychoactive. I trip and fall and you are the grass; you are the mud, the leaves, the water, the worms. you are the earth who protects my knees, careful to keep pristine my blue-jean jumper, careful to capture every moment of fleeting touch. oak leaves sway above. as intently as I gaze at it, the sun gazes at me and my doe eyes well. maybe there is something in them. maybe there is something in them with your crystal reflection, an eskimo kiss to speak what I cannot.

fall
afternoon sun rules my body and becomes blistering, unbearable; I stir, pressing against the heat, pressing your fingers into my skin, seeking to relieve the thrill. steam curls from my eyelashes as they squint to see you through the illuminated dust. it accumulates. you are the sudden cognizance of the windburn on my cheeks, lingering october air sharp behind my eyes, forcing tears I cannot help but to explain incorrectly. you are their singed, sweet-hot puddles in my hair. you are the residue they leave long after your sublime touch made them invisible.

i. i've been praying all week for my shaky bones to harmonize with the crash of the city downpour, but right now they just yearn to collide gracefully with the strong bones of someone who has yet to learn the meaning of 'rhythm'. i ask myself, staring out at the rain, "what does it mean? to conduct an orchestra of chaos? of thunder?"

ii. i've been praying for this grief to be good to me, to solidify my roots, to ground me & make me the version of myself that i couldn't be when my heart was still at its fullest. i can't stop begging for loss to be what makes me before it breaks me.

iii. i've been praying for an autumn angel again, to remember how it feels to be so fragile beneath the cool & careful touch of another that i can't help but shiver / revive / shrivel / fall / die. (one more fallen leaf lain to rest among the others.) maybe this month i will rest again, my ghosts whispering "suddenly" or "finally", knowing it is all the same.

i want to tell a story about the colors in the trees.

i want to tell you about the quaking in my hands.

i want you to know where the rain falls,
how the crashing voices
sound like waves in the night time,
tugged tides tied to the moon
like a leash to a dog.

i want to give you something to regret.

i want you to recall how i, in all of my
innocence and passion
fell over you
(in concentrated lust
but also romance)
on that day in late may,
how you held
my bare body against yours
how in that moment
i remembered nothing but skin and skin
and
skin, nothing
but firsts,
but blessings
but

i want you to wonder how the holy swallow their love.
(i have confirmed, they do it like one would pomegranate seeds- with their eyes shut, but you wouldn't know)

i want you to believe you lost a good thing.
there's love grown in my belly the way
i was told watermelon patches would when
i was young and didn't
know any better.

i want to say that i didn't know you would destroy me.
that the rips under my skin were a shock
the ice-pick to my heart was unexpected.

i want to say something
but all that comes out is
i'm sorry
not knowing what i'm sorry for.

the world is spinning backwards.

you look me in the eyes
pull my hand to your mouth
and graze your tongue along my 3 fingers

my mind is spinning backwards.

you planted this seed
and i swear to god, as she is my witness,
i pray that you return to grow it.

my heart is beating backwards.

i just want to be alone
with you
it's the only way
i'll ever feel at home

i just want to be known
by you
where the moon and stars
embrace us in their glow

in this place you can not erase the truth
look into my heart because it's filled with stars for you
all in all my heart it calls out into the blue sky
i look into your eyes and i know
that i can say hello, hello
to forever
hello (hello)

i just want to feel you close
to me
it's the only way
i think i'll ever feel whole

i just want you to hold
onto me
while our hearts race
and these lights are turned down low

in this place you can not erase the truth
look into my heart because it's filled with stars for you
all in all my heart it calls out into the blue sky
i look into your eyes and i know
that i can say hello, hello
to forever
hello (hello)

rip me to shreds i won't even mind
just swear you won't try to leave me behind
because love like ours only comes once in a lifetime
i still can't believe you're mine

i just want to be alone
with you
it's the only way
i'll ever feel at home

i just want to be known
by you
where the moon and stars
embrace us in their glow
i look into your eyes and i know
i can say hello, hello
to forever
hello (hello)