Look at this, I made for you,
with lungs and fingertips

I've painted the whole of me,
but you've always seen less.

I must have been afraid.
See how my knuckles trembled
to create something so large,
a human soul could fill it?

Don't look at it,
I'm bare.
See my face
in every stroke?

I'd rather turn from you
and quit this sick indulgence
but you must have always known
you'd claim this ruptured soul.

So I have given this nothing reason,

as I gave your darkness color,

and I have given this paint a purpose,

as I gave myself to you.

I was at home in the crooks of your arm,
tall above the root.

Our sweet-bark skin, new spring at hand,
trepidation rendered mute.

The earth succumbed to restless sleep
as I ebbed between your palms.

The moss and shroom a witness
to the wilting of our psalm.


But the story the crow told me,

is the only one he knows:

like the morning sun you come,
and like the wind go.

Your trail of ash
bright as a scar

lead me astray
in skies of tar

it was a threadbare
love affair

doomed from the very start

and if I know
you at all,


I know you've gone too far.

If time allowed
I would return to you.

You and I are far too young,
to pray this world will not turn round.

You and I are far too young,
to pray our lives succumb.

Yet we lie awake at night
and waste away
by day.

Remember our first kiss

your lips were hard and urgent

I searched so long
for another mouth
that felt like yours.

When I awoke last night
a dire wolf
was howling down below.

Six hundred pounds of sin
grinned, at my window.

The wind was fierce an' cold
I clutched to fear alone.

So I took a breath
and all I said
a quiet, "come on in."

Lit by sparks, debris in flame,
I could not meet his eye.

Your gaze was coal along my spine

burning me alive.

We swayed on lukewarm asphalt
futures scribed across the sky

I closed my eyes against the night

And felt your footsteps shift with mine.

I arched my back against your breath
you rasped, "can I cut in?"

Your lips against my lobe

left me taught and thin.

The glow of sparse-lit flares
your fingers worked against my skin

a desperate moan escaped me

at my gasp you flushed and grinned.

Knuckles clenched along my hip
bare feet weak on a damp road

the bodies parted, our gaze persisted,

swallowed pain and my eyes closed.


Because you are not mine

I am not yours

we had one night,


and yet no cure.

Your nails were
soft pink crescents

they chafed
along my cheek.

You plucked
the silken petals

watched them wither
at your feet.

I fed you dandelions,

Picked stems
from your teeth

with my tongue.

But in the creases

of your mouth,


I saw the weeds of doubt.

On my darkest nights
I awaken in the ocean
lost

your constellations branded
against the back of my tongue.

A bloom of tattooed moonlight
the senselessness of slumber--

though this ocean swallows me,
I will stay afloat.

Promise you will come.

When the light embraces dark
when the planets fade like scars,

promise.

So that we
might be the moment
of everything.