There are rockets in my feet.

Take me to a new level.

Where the oxygen falls into my lungs

and my blood slides through my circulatory system.

My love is unmelting ice under the sun.

Here I am.

Where are you?

How do you get those boots on?
I’ve never seen any straps or laces or snaps or velcro.
When did you know you could fly?
Did you fall out of a tree when you were five and missed the ground?
How does Gravity feel about this?
Does that spandex itch?
Do you wear underwear under the spandex under your underwear?
Do those cuffs rub against your forearms?
How does it feel to a lift a car?
Like a tin can?
Like a paper bag?
Like a bucket of feathers?
What it is like to look eighty stories down and know that you are safe, that you can always save yourself?
Do you have a sixth or seventh sense?
Does it ever wake you in the night?
Do you experience the blistering heat and the chilling cold?
Do you feel it in your bones like I do?
Do you want to destroy your living room when someone has lied to you like I do?
Have you ever destroyed your living room when someone has lied to you?
Does your cape get stuck in the elevator doors?
Do you ever take the elevator?
Do you ever take the remote into the kitchen during a commercial break?
Can you stay on the couch and reach all the way to the counter?
Do you wear a mask?
Does it leave those red marks like my glasses do on my nose?
Do you want **** people who are dangerous and rotten in some places on the inside with one hand?
Does evil reside in you as well?

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

Love is like putting on a new pair of glasses.
But not realizing you're wearing them.
Until it registers that you are looking at small things in big ways.

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.

When I am done here,
I will be given to whom I owe everything:
Earth.

My body will become one with the soil,
and so will the invisible scars you've left me with;
and botany will bloom,
and a garden will flourish from my body,
thus making you and I:

forever.

Long after I am gone,
people will walk by at this time of night,
and if they are of the observant type,
they will see the glowing pedals in the moonlight,
and they will pause and whisper,
"Wow.
So lovely.
This has been grown will love."

And, silently, they will wonder,
"Who keeps this up?
Who trims and preens and cares for it?"

And the wind will rustle the leaves on nearby trees,
and a Black Eyed Susan will blossom before their eyes,
and they will utter a small disbelieving,
"Oh."

And that small two letter one syllable will dance
off of their tongue and into the night air,
and Luna will smile,
and that person will keep walking,
and the waves will roll on,
and the Sun will rise again.

With a smack
and an echo,

things of mine are broken.

Blood vessels detonate,
spilling, flourishing, blooming
under the seven layers of my armor,
blushing shades of
red, blue, green.

They are embarrassed
by their fragility,
shy about the reminder
that they are not steel.

Immortality is
flamboyant as ever,
my shining ichor,
a beacon for the reaper,
whose mouth begins to water.

Only a false alarm,
the green and yellow
glistening contusion whispers.

Dust myself off
and keep walking,
Pain fades,
and my heart keeps beating.

when I see you
I want to strum a chord
water flowers
make footprints in the sand
when I see you
I want to write write write
and let the silence of my vocal chords
make room for truth
when I see you
I want to create something beautiful and lasting
to show the world what its missing if it doesn't know you
to fill every moment that lacks eye contact with warmth
when I see you
I want to configure a new word
a word no one has heard or read
but everyone has felt and attempted to explain
when I see you
I want to see you
with your eyes and my eyes
window through window
to try the depths of our increasingly less imaginary story
when I see you
I want to paint a portrait of my heart
only using every shade you've caused me to blush
and pin that canvas to my sleeve
when I see you
I want to fill my lungs with oxygen and you
allowing the pressure on my ribcage
to prove this is real

cotton swabs.

iodine.

needle.

deep breath in.

deep breath out.

deep breath in.

deep breath o—.

a spark lands on my nose.

smoldering and burning.

metal is hot and loving.

rebirth is a pyrexia.

I want to hear the words
that come out of your mouth.
I wish I could see them forming in your brain
then coming out a little south.
I would crawl into that cranium
and be surrounded by your deliriums.
I would stroll around your memories.
knock on doors that lead to your own realities;
the malleable perceptions that you resort to during deflections.
I want to see what you see
and hear sounds through your ears.
I want your nerves to be mine,
get familiar with your gears.
I want to know the back of your hand
like I know my own.
But I wont enter your heart.
No, I'll leave that alone.
The asylum for your darkest parts is not mine to rearrange.
Nor would I if I could, there's not a thing that I would change.

The blackness
that fills up the shadows of my mind in the daylight
creeps down my spine, under the stars
and into my blood.
My heart beats are muddled
with these veins full of lead.
Blood splattered walls
and decomposing kindness
are everywhere I turn.
I cannot escape my own violence,
my muscles taut
from a fixation
with unborn iniquity.  

But there is no need for concern.
I run, sprint,
from these nightmarish ideas
and these inky, wicked words
that take refuge
in my dreams.

I awake changed.
My subconscious,
a worthy adversary.
Battle scars, invisible.

Until I close my eyes.

my ears rang for hours like phone lines leading to diamond mines. my breath stayed trapped in my lungs as stars flickered into view above our heads, lightyears above our heads. our veins flooded with spirits, our skulls clouded with smoke; we made lopsided eye contact and smile crookedly. my hands rested on your knees, itching to drift north. there was not space enough for words between our thoughts that linked with the brushing of our lips and it was known at once that our hearts nearly exploded concurrently, our hands were still, locked together like a riddle with no vowels, with no punctuation, we stayed, together, like that, until the air around us stilled and our ****** beats were so loud, the weeds were bewildered. and then we stood, the riddle of our palms still unsolved, and our legs took over, propelling us through a parking lot so dimly lit our pupils resembled dinner plates, and we got into the car to sit, to revel in our veins that seemed to connect at a point not visible to human eyes. our smiles askew and our brains charming each other amongst the crackling, we left.

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.

I squint so hard I can’t believe my eyes are not diamonds yet,

and there you are.

There you are, walking.

Away from me. With your dress on a date with the wind. I think you have a rock stuck in your left shoe.

Your hair is a 14 karat waterfall and I don’t need to imagine the skin you have pierced with your eyes, I still have a stud in my heart somewhere. It’s a nice memento but inconvenient at airports.

November rain,
you slay me with your bravery.

Falling without hesitation.

Gathering in clouds.

Praying;

for destruction,
for implosion,
for release.

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 windows
to your soul
lead me into your guest rooms
show me the print on the carpet
its a good print to find words in 
the artwork on the walls in your head
the hues that were splashed onto the frames of your dreams.

the windows
to your soul
lead me back into my house
show me the wood floors that I have cried on
they are good floors to cry on
the curtains that fall onto the medium dusty floor
the shades that don’t shade but instead bring on the floods.

Regret
sounds like
knees hitting carpet
faster than words can travel
through a cellphone receiver.
It looks like
a black left fender
on a brown Honda accord.
It feels like
boulders placed
between your joints.
It does not leave
until you pick it out
from between your teeth.
It is a filling meal
that leaves you unsatisfied.

You must recalibrate your scale,
convert the value of moments gone.

Wipe your shield clean,
and watch the road ahead.

Asphalt under your tires
can fill you to new depths.

And you can be light again.

my august crisped shoulders long for pallor
and the warm graze of sea foam green wool sweaters.
my tongue yearns for the pleasing punch of cinnamon
and the silent shocking spice of pumpkin.
long nights full of honey glazed tea
and apricot scones that melt me from the inside out.
electric bulbs resting on branches
illuminate the leaves who surrendered
to the numbing temperatures
that seep into all things they reach.

Your words are still here
like the streaks of mascara
that drip off my chin
and may never
wash out of my jeans.

Your eyes are still
in front of mine
like the spots that coat every image
after glancing at the sun.

Your songs are still here,
echoing through my day
as if this planet
rested in a cave.

I tried to run.

Broke down that wall.

I found myself.

I thought that would help
to fill the pocket in my chest
you filled.

It didn’t.

Out into the dark forest
I will go.
I will wait for him,
not patiently,
but I will wait;
at the mouth of an ebony river,
listening to what the Mother has to say.

And out into the thick dark forest
he will go,
hunting for me.
Searching
like my warm breath
on his neck
keeps his heart beating.

From miles away
he will hear me
whisper his name,
my love rippling through the soil.

Leaves will fall
with the trembling of my hands,
just before they rest on his shoulders.

And in the unearthly spotlight
we will be guided
into the lustrous mist.

And we will thrash and thunder
and bang and crash,
triggering landslides.

We will march on,
our hands clasped
with a fierceness nearly flammable,
fire threat level: crimson.

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.

look into those windows and see inside yourself.

look into the living room and see that beating valve which has taken the place of a couch.

look into the chimney and see those reels of dream turn to ash.

look into your hands and see the gears, the gears, the gears.

look into your ears and see the words that were rejected by your membranes.

look into your stomach and see the insecure skeletons.

look into your sequined brain and see the chemicals, the chemicals, the chemicals.

I put on the lotion that sits by the sink
and my heart briefly pauses.
I am electrified,
it smells like your hair did that night.
My bones start to rattle and hum
to the rhythm that we had.
The words "come here"
shook like mortars
on your lips.
Those two syllables
were explosives
buried underneath the wall
that stood invisibly between us.
You were my bomb shelter.
You were my compass,
I always knew which way to go,
in which direction I needed to travel,
to find you.
Even with zip codes
and times zones
and nearly a continent between us,
I could still hear clearly
your heart hammering into my ear.
Sweet noise destruction.
You were my furnace;
defrosted, I held onto you,
afraid that the cold
would slow my blood again;
more beats and I am more,
less beats and I am less.
With you I was anything,
I was everything,
I was no one
and I was every person
I knew I could be.
All at once.
You were my castle,
no moat.
You stood, humble
and wearing that shade of soft slate
that brought out the forests in my eyes.
Salty rain affection.
Your hands were my favorite umbrellas,
shielding me from the dripping universe.
Days with your sun
and I melted
into an ocean of infatuation.
The nights with your moon
irrevocably changed my tides.
I am still swimming against them.

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.

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 know that there are times, seconds, spaces of space even smaller than seconds in which I will decide to leave. I will move my feet and my heart out of reach and I will sit under the moon, begging it to light the way home. away from here, from the sound of the melodies that grew out of the trees in the mind. I know that there are days, pieces of days held together by only the breathes that I take, in which I will decide to rest, to fold my legs underneath me and hunch like I’m peering through a puzzle, and I am. the roadmaps back to my heart are intricate, twisting and winding like oak trees that have seen centuries. With each inch of ground I pass over, the leaves are drier, the soil is filled with cracks, the brooks have been parched for months. I carry a watering can the color of scorched orange peels and keep my Ts crossed in hopes water with trickle out of somewhere, sometime, so I that can grow again.

its time to look away from you
as eye clenching
gut wrenching
and entrenching on my bottom lip as that may be
and look at me
from a new angle
from a you angle
from a due angle
because when my arms wrap around you
and your arms wrap around me
and our arms are wrapped around each other
I want to make the world stop
but I don't need to
it already does
and I never ever want it to end
and I feel selfish
and I feel hungry
and I feel thirsty all at once
all at once I am
not me
but someone who loves you
seized by the affection that has paralyzed by body
I am a patient
with no patience
and I am poet
without words

Can I crawl into your mind?
Is there room in there?
What about your chest?
I could sit on the right hand side
and watch your heart all night.
I could be lulled into slumbering
with the rise and fall of your sighs.

I have wings now and then, but maybe not today.
They're sensitive to glances,
quick to retreat into my bones and shiver me breathless, ruffle me wordless,
leaving me to fight gravity on my own.
They shine with a rich silver sheen
that threatens and beckons at the same time.
Fixed with fatal angles,
my feathers can end your life, or make it worth living.
I can be freed of the ground, of the pull that never lessens,
now and then, but maybe not today.

there is a silent boom

that paves through the bones which I call “mine”

the vision I use, blurs
and the heart sputters

I think that maybe
it will not start again

that maybe this is it

that the blood will finally slow
and stop

that the skin that holds me in will cool
and harden

that the eyes I see out of will glaze over
but not leak

that I will exit
only to enter
somewhere new.

I am a flood.

Take me to a desert.

Unleash me when you are facing a drought.

I am murky,
I can soak you through.

I am teeming,
I am sure I could be heard,
splashing into the hollows of you.

A tin can,
rasping for rain.

Creak to the tune,
of the dripping from my veins.

Pouring bubbling trickling.

Come here,
basin.

Empty me.

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

I never walk through a crowd without scanning for the back of your head.

Those beautiful black strands dancing just above your shoulders 
lure me to those blades 

that you sharpen during the day and you pull out at night. 

They threaten but their beckoning is stronger. 

When I squint hard enough, I can see the magnets in your hands. 

Your fingers brushed mine enough to configure my blood to run in your direction. 

Like the river you are everywhere.

Every branch sways with your rhythm. 

You have a beautiful act. And you never revealed all of your secrets.

I am here 
and you are here
but we have disappeared.

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.

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

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.

I see you in the stars,
and you lay in all the grass,
you are linked to every tree.

All the oceans and the atmosphere are
you
you
you.

Supernovas in your heart,
lightyears of my love.

All for you.

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?

so I think its time to come out and say it because I’ve been hiding behind other words all this time and I’ve been allowing my subconscious to do the speaking but the aching of my body with you so far away has sanctioned to me to gauge just how hard I’ve fallen for you. luckily there was you to break the fall and in your arms I know I’m safe and I have finally realized that this is what I have always been without I have always fallen alone. I have always ended up face to concrete but with only a nosebleed to show what occurred. I never imagined that to stumble doesn’t mean to injure and that to love doesn’t mean to empty the contents of my eleven ounce lifeline. a quiet passion sits at the soles of my feet, waiting for my pulse to speed waiting for my pulse to dole it out, limb by limb and vein by vein until I am flushed in the face and salty in the eyes. any thing in the world you could say and I listen as if I am being explained how to cure cancer or establish world peace. every second in the same with room is like a cycle of the sun and every minute spent in you arms the rest of the universe does not exist and the only language is hysteria and heart beats. and I have always been under the impression that love is something that you are and there are signs to coming to the conclusion that you’re in it but all at once I realized that I have always felt a pull towards you and that is must be love hauling me your way.

My heart begins to
quiver, and makes a show of
my trembling hands.

If I
was a tree,

I would hollow
myself

o u t

so that you could climb inside.

Embers under my feet.
Burning into the earth’s memory.
Scorching my way to you.

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.