Your words fill the pages of my holy book.

I soak them in with blessed praise.

I will take communion from the longing in your eyes,

Nourish and rejoice in my abundance of you.

Enter your heart and treat it as my temple.

Respect with silence the miracles you bring me.

Baptized in your showering adoration.

Washed clean of my heart’s past torments.

I will present you the sacrifice of unbridled passion

And with abandon, trust in your embrace.

Hymns are your breaths between kisses

And these sheets, the alter for our love.

We will rest together until our last days,

In commemoration of the religion we have made.



© AlyssaStarnes

Tonight I write with the pale hands
of the loneliest creatures
Tonight I am explosive with the tales of my defeat
and the short comings of what I have to gain

Tonight I light my cigarette
and watch its smoke make love to the moon in the midnight sky
delicately it wraps around my fingers like a lover
the only thing keeping me company besides language

Tonight I am vulnerable, waiting to be haunted by a captivating
lock of eyes, dark and strong eyebrow expressions
a slight hesitation of enamored cheek bones and hands
that tell stories of kings and queens
stories of war/passion/starvation/survival

Tonight I am wrapped in my sadness
shedding all over me like a semi-transparent cloak
a mistress seen behind a fog of stagnant hope
I breathe in my wine
rub my tongue on my pallet
brush my hair behind my ear
massage my temples
exhale

Tonight I tell my wild eyes and veins to be patient
I ask my trembling soul to bare with me in silence
I beg my vicious feet to remain still, please do not run away
come my lush heart, remember to keep beating
expand by black lungs, keep breathing

Tonight, there is something that has finally broke through
the message pleading for my attention from you
you are a storm, awakening yet filled with rain
how can I love you, mourn you, conceal you in this poem
from so far away

Tonight I have mastered the language of tears, just some more
yes most of the time my life is miserable, but when  laughter sparks a fire in me
I am the happiest white soul under the blazing sun
the warmth that fills me, can make the orchids smile - can make rocks fall in love

Tonight I sleep once more alone
in a small bed that I call my own
in a haven of singular sorts
this place I call home

I am the night
casting darkness upon the sky
to cry your tears for you and  
put a death to your demise
I will rinse your hands, when you are lifeless
lay inside of me - close your eyes

I am your sun
giving you life, striving to make your seeds grow
I hold my soft rays out to you, please - come
casting eminence upon your sadness
putting a warmth in your madness
I have so much to give you

Nothing can break me from you
I am your book, your lines are written within me
you are the farmer who pressed the grapes with your bare feet
and I am your wine, the product of your labor
here to ease your senses at the end of your day
forget about that rough past, give it to me to swallow

I am your wolf, black and white
I am your lion
I am your army, rest your tiered hands upon my back
I am your proud slave
I kiss your ankles

you are my knuckles
you are my veins- blue and incoherent
you are the vitality that strikes so viciously in me
keeping me breathing on this vast planet
trembling spirits, I softly place my head beneath yours
calmly like sea **** floating in salt water

you are every faint color, drained and impotent
so filled with death and soft laughter
you filter out streaks of exuberant light
blinding me with its brightness
oh when you smile, the starving are no longer hungry
the revolting become the most beautiful things
you turn a beasts heart into a hero's

you are the wisdom that flows through the natives
light like a feather, you move around hungrily on
these cloud sheets.


my eyes are so filled with your eyes
I am a tree standing in the forest you came from
I am a flower in your field
I am a drop of water in your ocean
I am your armor and your shield

kiss me tightly, hang your soft touches at my door
I will bleed these thoughts
till my hearts dust
and soul
sore

you are the toska breeding in me like vicious flowers
cannas perhaps lotus or bleeding hearts
haunting the excruciating longing in my sinking chest
a calming and white haunting

I hear a thud in the middle of my body and it seems
that my heart levels itself in between my dimmed ribs
so that it may nervously burst in my core
to let that beautiful yellow childlike  sun into my body

what am I without you, a weltering raindrop
on top of a dark wooden roof
falling into the rustic mud while nobody is watching
being absorbed into the earth while nobody
cares

when I spoke my voice was hallow
and now you fill my speech and the streaks of tunes from my neck
like a starving man who by the grace of God has been blessed
with the feast of kings and queens

the phantom artist of something like a never ending dream
the gentle spirit
the serene incubus

you
daydreamer of withering beauty
heartless and genuine
I rest my smile upon your spine
I suffocate into your talent
of a deep and barren like litost

your calm ocean
as mine
filled with creatures only our imaginations
can begin to decipher
a tender arena of hearts and fowl play
you have taught me more about myself
I am bathing in beauty
drowning in a glorifying deep silk

I would bring my last weeping words  in a coffin
with  dark and rich embroidery resembling
that of your driven eyes
for a simple brush of your hand
upon my cheek

Maybe it was weird that I didn’t move my hand

When it rested against yours

Or that I didn’t move my leg when our knees touched

Or that when we slept facing opposite directions

So we could share the same pillow

I pretended to be asleep when my lips touched your forehead

Just so we could be close a minute longer

I know I cry in my sleep

But you don’t have the same dreams I do

And you don’t have that awkward belief

That all people fit like puzzles if you press hard enough

What the hell do you think hugs are?

Or holding hands is?

I know I can’t accidentally fall into you

And sure

maybe it’s weird that I rub my socks into the carpet

With the sole purpose of shocking you

But how else do you make sparks fly?

I know that my life’s story is an open book I tell so well

My pages are shameless

And my words are honest

And yeah

I know I stare at your mouth when you speak

It’s just that

Eye contact freaks me out

And I’m sorry I spaced out while you were talking

It’s just that I was staring at your lips

And I suddenly wanted to kiss you

I know I have no filter

And am practiced in the art of bad timing

And poor explanations

But we’re only human

We only want simple things

Like to be needed by other humans

Go ahead

Need me like a parasite

I’ve already got so much excess baggage

The weight of your monkey on my back

Might as well be an anchor

Keeping me next to you

There should be dents in your memory foam by now

Pretty lady

There are dents in my cheeks from all the smiling you cause me

And I’m pretty sure you could light a match

From the heat in my face

So I am sorry if I can get a little creepy

It just means I like you

Touch me,
it doesn't matter where
and it doesnt matter how
I need to know I'm still alive
so someone touch me now
Shake my hand and say hello
or pat me on the back
kiss me on the cheek
that I may feel this sense I lack
slap my face and pull my hair
make me bleed I just don't care
dig your nails into my skin
so I can feed this need within
I've been numb for such a time
that even pain would be sublime
so touch me, touch me now
I don't care where, I don't care how

I see you.
I look at your face and remember the place that you're from.
I hear you.
It's your heart keeping pace with the love and the grace that you're used to.
And you come, with those brown yearning eyes and lord knows I try not to disappoint you.  
But I tell you, that back there is a dream of a time that was seen through ****** eyes.
Your eyes, still as young as I remember, still as wide and still so tender with youth.
In my eyes, which are old like the sea, which are cold yet are keen I see, I see.

i have a light inside of me.
sometimes it is a prickly light.
like last summer's berry picking,
and your legs in the back of his pick up.
sometimes it is a drowning light.
like your third cheap beer,
and jeans on the fourth of july.
sometimes it is a dim light.
like the pretty dress he never hugged you in,
and the bruises all down your thigh.
sometimes it is a calm light.
like the first long drag off your cigarette,
and a dry kiss on the cheek.
sometimes it is a beautiful light,
like a palm pushing out from your stomach,
and the long road out of this town.

Wine comes in at the mouth
And love comes in at the eye;
That's all we shall know for truth
Before we grow old and die.
I lift the glass to my mouth,
I look at you, and I sigh.