You bring tornadoes through me.

Furious infatuation fills my torso.

Thunder cracks between my thighs,
the lightening is warm and shuddering.

My hunger for you is never ending,
rolling over hills like clouds about to burst.

I do not need to wait for rain.

I am drenched in anticipation,
I am trembling like the fault line.

There are no lines between us,
only a small distance buzzing with electricity.

Our tides are ripping,
Our currents,
pulling and luring.

You are the waves rising to my knees,
the breeze teasing my shoulders.

You are the calm,
You are the storm.

I never dreamed of sitting in the meadows that blossom in your chest. I only allowed myself a small window to hope, to wish, to crave. I know now that it was big enough to climb through. We were meant to align, to feel the pull of each other, to recognize the thirst. We are lock and key. We are the lonesome trees, greeting lighting. We are the sound of jars taking their first breath after so long. We. It tastes so soft when I say it, falling out of my mouth like honey vanilla.

I thought about running my fingers through your hair a hundred times. I didn’t. I stayed exactly as I was. I was afraid of the electricity in my hands. I did not want to start a fire on accident. I did not want to mend the burns. I thought about resting my hand on your wrist. I didn’t. I did not want to wake you. I imagined lacing our fingers together as our body temperature dropped and our breathing slowed. I didn’t. I do not know how to sew very well. I was two heart beats away from lightly placing my leg over yours. I didn’t. I was afraid of wanting to wake up beside you too much.

My heart is a deck
with vein blue grip tape
and you are the wheels.
The trucks get looser
and looser
and before I know it
I am
swerving
across the white line,
dipping into love
like it’s a bike lane.
I cannot steer
with you
holding my hands.
The sun is a retired drum set
beating
on my shoulders,
your hands
land on my hips
with the sound of cymbals
murmuring.
Our melody is silent
banging,
the sweat
and the blood pressure,
the only remnants
of the music.

the soil in my soles
is wet
this time of year
the cracks
filled with summer sun
are mending

the seeds
of recovery
have been carefully
placed between
my veins

with every heart beat
I can feel the green
starting to make way
to the surface

it will be a long autumn
blooming with sobriety
nursing the chrysanthemums
adorning my lucidity

I heard someone utter the words,
"Sober is just another word for thirsty."

And I did not believe her.

Until my throat started itching,
the moment I stopped the stitching
of molecules that altered me,
turned me around,
I had been treading backwards.
My body ached with vacancy,
my hands trembled with an appetite
that played the part of
of my hands on the wheel.

It is an agonizing contradiction,
to be weighed down by nothing,
every drop that plunged into my mouth,
every plume that escaped
the narrow path to my lungs
was a nail in my soles,
keeping me firm to the ground,
I became stagnant,
only dipping under the influence
to ask for what I thought
was needed assistance.

My temporarily
stainless bloodstream
bred venomous ideas
while the darkest parts of me quivered
with insatiable hunger,
and made a show of it
with my fluttering fingertips.

I had dreamt
on nearly every day of the week
with my eyes open,
of clawing my out of this
canyon of flesh
I had been trapped inside of,
the echoes of an empty heart
were enough
to keep me awake for days,
witnessing a continuum,
of sunset,
sunrise,
sunset,
sunrise,
yet the sky never brightened.

The darkness was addictive,
I became a ****** for the murky,
and I have been buried.

Underneath habits
that stifle me.

Smoke that leaves my lungs
no room
for new air.

There is an invisible layer
of soot
caked onto my skin
falling from my nights spent
drunk and unaware
of which direction
I was growing.

My odometer
slowly screams
for me to stop,
to reverse,
begin again.

My shower head works hard.
It tries to bathe me in rebirth.
The shampoo bottle whispers
with its shape,
asks me to sing again.
Why did I stop singing?

Because I no longer enjoyed the sound of my voice.
I stopped believing in it.
Drenched in half truths
and uncut delusions,
my tongue was poison.

I had denied the beautiful methods
of me.
And employed the ugly.
I gave a managerial promotions
to the mean
the spitting mad
and the angry
slices of my heart.

But I will dig through
these concrete slabs
of toxic routines.

And I will take back my beauty
and revive my love.
And become who I am,
climbing out of who I have been.