I like coffee after morning ***.

After the unconscious caresses, the fleeting whimpers and moans, the stickiness that lingers between my thighs, the muddle of tangles that nests in my hair,

coffee always tastes the best.

i am most alive during the summer.
i crawl through arteries filled with stars waiting to
explode.
my upper lip tastes like sweet salt and the sun
will never stop kissing me.
i am most ravenous during the summer.
i wear shorter shorts, touching myself, touching
him until i cannot find the difference between our
galaxies.
i am most insane during the summer.
i run with nothing but my scarcity, my self-consciousness,
i flip through lakes algae blooming and throbbing.
i am most me during the summer.
i find beauty within the melodies of my
peers. i dance through blades with bare toes and
tangled hair.
summer is never forever,
but tonight it will be.

Your distance felt like how it looks when cops break up a riot
with pepper spray.

I kept saying I've been here before.

I went through all the old poems I wrote
and I realized I was afraid to write some about you.
Because you know the rule:
Whatever you write becomes truth.

I kept texting my friends about the light pole sticking out of my chest
and they all said things like
"I think you're just making a bigger deal out of the light pole sticking out of your chest than you need to be."

The moment I felt you leaving I beartrapped you
so no wonder you're bleeding
I started seeing visions of the amount of time I would spend crying in my bed
divided by trying to remember everything you said
and what tone you said it in and what time of the day it was and what I said before that and what tone I said it in and what time of day it was and what it was in response to and why did I say that But in the middle of my trench warfare...


I heard a lightbulb on the top of my head
that sounded like me, but smarter, and she said

"You gotta give love to get love and you gotta do it for free."


So this is how it feels to stop drowning.

She takes his hand
not the whole thing
just the last *******
in  her  cradling fist

"she says something"
it doesn't matter

"He says something"
it matters even less

his fingers slide
through hers;
she grasps air

but she walks away
and he looks back