You would call unexpectedly all the time saying you missed me. you loved me. you begged me to come back “You know I can’t do that” I would say, to what you always replied “I need a second chance, please forgive me.” You always said the same thing, “you hurt me, I’m sorry, we’re just not getting back together”, I really meant it. I was in love with someone else already. so desperately in love. Now, he’s gone. and now I’m the one calling begging for his return, “You know I can’t do that” he says, “but I love you, please, I need a second chance” I always said the same thing. “I’m sorry doll, you’ve hurt me, we just can’t get back together, you’ll be okay.” And he would hang up. It was then that I understood your pain.

In the quiet hours
before the sun,
I shed a thousand
layers of you.
Dead, heavy skins
flutter to the ground
to decorate my ankles,
until suddenly,
I’m light.
So light that I float
and, as I rise,
breathe in
the whole universe.
I see colors—
new to my eyes.
I feel safe here,
knowing there is
no happiness
like mine.

there is, after all,
one thing
(after my breath)

–a star–

hung loose
and into the night
(which is my soul)

dreaming through
moist lips
and the cup of flower

a kissing of pale light;
the rough newness of rain;
and the smell softly afterward.

That I was alive: I suppose,

there was a certain eager meaning to
these moments–wide and short–these
hours–fat and narrow–these years
long and deep–

the stars, the lunging of my breast, the
turned curving of a sunrise, the rapid
expulsion of blood, tunneling suddenly through artery and vein;
I guess.

Looking and wondering; I turn my
hand over in a spent beam of sunlight. Its span tumbling with that heavy glow–it iridesces.

(I love you.

Knowing I will die–I love you.)

I am walking in some hall. There is the fast purring of a cat. Easily my breath inhumes and exhumes the space within my chest. Heart beating. Air and flesh exchange.

How easily it is to be–it seems these
hands are mine over your *******. I put
my fingers in your mouth. Your tongue
tousles their fiber. I make and unmake
myself in your hips.

The thick leaning of this chair into my back–where are you?

(Reading this perhaps.

And am I alive? And where?

Or dead?

Could be.)

And what is death?

Dying after all, it is, I guess, what I am.


There was the forest today. And five minutes ago I kissed you.


I am incomplete–I can feel
the way this shirt turns over the skin of
my arm. Somebody is speaking French on the radio.


"I will be dead someday." I want to whisper.


(I will be dead someday.


I love you.)

i. you will miss him in drizzles and monsoons, in swells and tsunamis. you will listen to his favorite song for hours; it will hit you every unexpected moment. it will hurt, stab, ache, and you will suppress constant screams with strained lips.

ii. you will collect everything he gave to you and wonder if it is dimensionally real. you will sleep in his shirts, retaste saltwater kisses, and reread conversations as if there's something you missed the previous thirty times. absence does not make the heart grow fonder; it rips it apart and you cannot stitch the ragged halves with no thread.

iii. you will feel his touch presently in everything you do. it will be soft and cruelly comforting. it will constantly and inescapably linger. it will haunt you in early rainy mornings and dark lonely evenings.

iv. you will read endless musings on love and philosophy. you will entirely understand foucault's prison. you will live in steinbeck's tide pools and stars, and relate to simon bolivar trapped in his labyrinth. you will wonder why everything is like this, ugly and broken (and also if you are becoming delusional).

v. you will drink tea that scalds your tongue and stand outside on freezing nights, numb and overfeeling at the same time. you will ask the silent moon a thousand questions. you will see him and blink, head swimming, heart pounding in surges. the stars will wink and the wind will mock you.

vi. you will have blissful afternoons you forget and sorrowful nights you remember. it will still consume you in bouts, devour you in spells. nighttime will become both your enemy and remedy: it will wickedly remind you, yet help you heal.

vii. you will try and fail to make sense of him (and the universe in general). you will grapple with reality and yourself. perhaps you will never know why he stopped loving you: you will keep wondering how some things can just be left broken.

iix. slowly, slowly, you will sprout on your own; you will be tender and nearly whole. most importantly, you will realize his love brought you an entirely different kind of happiness.

ix. you will stop worrying and trying to piece together an empty puzzle. even the deepest scars find their way of fading. your mom was right: stop picking at the scab and your wound will heal.

x. you will learn to love yourself in ways he never could have loved you.

She’s a walking beauty

I fell in love with her extravagance

Every moment is magnificent

Her innocence is my perfume

Just her presence alone lights up the whole room

So picture perfect

I’m zooming in for a better view

Cropping out the background

Centering my focus

Her mind is so open

Her thoughts are so outspoken

This girl is not me

This girl is who I want to be

these pale lips that so
swiftly rob me of my strength
these honey sweet lips
from which such soft words like butterfly logic
do so entangle me
and tie such aching around my very soul
with such a tight gentleness
these pale lips
that i reach over and with one finger
drawn slowly across them
i do shudder from head to toe with desires
these blue eyes
so adorned with paints
so shadowed behind lock of hair
such deep pools of hunger and light
her dream is a village road she has walked
her entire life
strewn upon its scoured bricks are
the romance notions written in french
because its a beautiful language when spoken softly
her paris clothes discarded in the dream
her skin reflecting moonlight
her lips glisten
as she walks the village road