If I could crawl into a furnace and not melt I would crawl into you. You would warm me to the tips of my fingers and the ends of my hair could draw glass letters in the sand. I could glow orange and red with your veins glowing with the combustion of our love filling your form to the brim to the brim to the brim. Let me lean in, I don’t want to you to spill any of that love on the carpet.

The weather was not the norm there. It rained red rusted leaves and stones that landed on the ground like cherries. The tree trunks would hold you, hold you until you weren’t lonely. The grasses did not sway in the wind, but the wind swayed in the grasses. The rivers were highways that, like veins, carried precious cargo. Heart beats in jars on boats, and as in our bodies, they traveled from mouth to feet. Inside every bird there was a bird; working the wings, flashing the talons, snapping the beak and turning the head to get a bird’s eye view. The raccoons flaunted their gills at the pond during their lunch break and the frogs swung from the trees, croaking their hoarse pleas for sanity. We might survive there, you and I. If only we used our teeth and our tongues and learned how to better use them every night and we could strengthen our lungs so as not to drown in a lack of words. We could make it. Even if the seasons were not the norm

my eyes close
and I see a spectrum of forgotten things,
my subconscious unfocused,
so as to not remind me of things I told myself not to remember.
my eyes open
and my pupils shrink from the light
still allowing me plenty of sight
pulling with them everything I told myself I would not forget

the girl in the bath tub stares back at me
she’s got eyes like forests
but no blue jays in sight
she looks the right
when I look to the left
she stares me down with eyes unwavering
she knows what I deny
denies what I believe
who does she think she is?

I don’t know who I’m not.
is this girl all I’ve got?

Hold me.
Squeeze me.
Hard.
Break me.
Shatter me
into p i e c e s.
Lay me out on the cold wood floor.
Put me back together.
And tell me how you did it.

There was a planet within us
and a bridge between our minds,
two walls between our hearts. 
The echoes of our sighs 
bounced off of raindrops 
and soaked into oceans.
That cold morning my heart expanded, 
it tried to fit all of you inside
but your voice alone
filled it to the brim and
now these quiet nights
leave that pocket on my left hand side
aching for your love.
I've never been good at arithmetic
but you were more than fraction.
Infatuation is a slippery *****
and I've never been someone with traction.

I wish I could take hold of these words
and these letters
and mash them together
tie them together
use steel veins to chain them together
and create something so grotesquely beautiful,
something so dissonant and so lovely,
that the world would be shocked
into uncontrollable fits of laughter
and bouts of tears spurred by sudden shared sorrow and
love would roll over every hill and
seep into every brook
every vein in which infatuation was present
would glow
and we wouldn’t have the wear hearts on sleeves
or buy roses that cost extra with bows
or even use our vocal chords at all
because we would see it.
we would see it.
we would see the love,
see the moonstruck fools who make these worlds go ‘round.
and every single one of us
would light the night with affection.
carpe noctum, carpe amāre  
and it is during the nights where the inky vast dark floods my ear drums
that I want to dust off the shelves of my mind
and I want to find you there
want to find me there
I want to find everyone
and I want to grab them
and shake them
and wake them up
I want to them tell them where they were
I want to scream from the rooftops,
“HERE YOU ARE!! YOU ARE NOT LOST!!”
I want to give everyone the key to the room in my head
where they stay most nights
I want them to feel like they have a home
even if they already have a home
they can have a second home here
but I want everyone to have somewhere
they feel they belong
a place where they always know what the living room smells like
where the furniture welcomes them
where the stains have stories
that are full of hilarity and embarrassment that pales roses
I want everyone to know
that we are all home
if home is where the heart is
them home is where you are
your belongings are what you can carry
what you carry at all times
the words in your head
the flavors on your tongue
the patches of healed skin on your arms and legs and shoulders and elbows
the things you have seen
they are what you own
what no one can take from you
no matter where you live
where you reside
where you spend your days or nights
you are your home