am I even surprised to say it?
the unconcerned let my calls go to voiceless,
any effort gone unnoticed until, of course,
I transform into that perfect little paper doll,
that chill bonafide debutante, to mirror your
cracks and crevices and nightmares;
hope and harm are imminent and strange
and all I’d like to do is tell you things,
but instead we dance around the lies
and every time I miss you it burns

facilitated intimacy using
words as fingers and tongues,
fading bruises from sunday as
anger watches in the mirror.

my window covered with
droplets, green earth and
pink bodies devour alone these
stale replacements of life.

my bedroom begs for absence;
wine drowns doubts but
overflows to stain my fingertips
like a lover, like a curse.

cursed to romanticize
the temperature it was
when we had our first kiss,
to meditate on your
cadences,
to memorialize the seconds it took
for you to call me beautiful.

my rhetorical self, the
one i've designed for you to
admire, has had a broken heart
for years. i'm getting closer
to discovering the boundary
between her and i. my
body, her heart, your mouth,
synchronized affirmations
to the unreal.

disappointment in the doubts
of dreary days,
my fingers and toes
are chilled but
sorrow burns my throat;
there's never been a time
my expectations for love
have been met, i
pick open old wounds
for strangers to lick
but they always leave,
things always get too
complicated;
my disappointment makes me
bitter sweet on the tongue
of lovers and heavy in the hands
of friends—

intimacy is
intricate, the
closer I get the
more complex
the maze
becomes;
we are standing
still in a pool of
memories and
piranhas staring
and touching
and ignoring the
danger;
I want my heart
to be soft and
malleable in your
hands but your
callouses are rough
and my patience is
wearing thin;
will you let me be yours
will you let the pain
be mine?

Purple radiant heat
Reverberations of
Exclamations
Horrific holograms
Reality has received;

Testing teapots and
Tourmaline jewelry
Shattered on the wood floors
Fluorescent firecrackers
For days upon hours;

The nape of the neck
Where yours should be
Sheds blood
Pulsating the prophetic
Paralyzing truths;

Home is a verb, the
Truly inspirational
Deception of defeat
And the drip drip drip
Of disillusioned ichor

we went to that place, that
vulnerable oasis, where
lovers are nursed  
and destroyed;
that march evening
coolness mesmerized by
the silence, by the pure plant,
by the bass in that song
echoed between my thighs

the poems are conceived
in my mouth, on my tongue,
my taste buds
prance around your skin
like honeybees,
your eyes seek perennial
poignancy
and dumfounded i open
myself like a rose