Tiptoeing over this week
leaving fingerprints of sleep
in every fold of your shirt.
Voices like humming birds,
echo of mint and
train tracks on a hot day.

Respite.
Sounds like its meaning,
feels like a sigh.

Learned a new word.
Cafuné.
To lovingly waltz
fingers through hair,
Portuguese stuck to the back of my hand.
The air smells of limes.

Hiding cherries
every day this month
made my tongue purple.

This is not a poem.
It shouldn’t taste like purpose,
lethargic bubbles rising in a cup.
Drawing peaches and crayons
between the millimetre increments
of your knuckles.

I feel my heart
pressed in my stomach,
a tiny pebble
wishing to be big.
I count my shins,
apple caught in my throat.

A great wall of
early morning
covers my ears,
ties my hands over my eyes,
                                                           makes my ribs shrug.

The place between your lips,
a wandering perch for
emaciated sounds.
A fingerprint under your nose
shapely and styled,
too purposeful.

I can draw
stories on my thighs
under rusty Wednesdays
and paperbacks.

                                                    ­        A misunderstanding of eyelids,
overly trusting,
a turquoise thunder.
None of my fingers match,
making a path from my heels
to the crease behind your knee.
I’ve forgotten how to make tea.

I try to **** time but time is killing me.
I’m sun starved
bleached spots on all my sheets.
I ran out of dreams today.

Have I ever told you I like the rain?

I always thought newspapers
looked better on lamp posts.
I can feel my heartbeat
pressed between my ribs and t-shirt.

I spent over an hour in his room
picking him apart,

putting him together.

A giant jigsaw puzzle
completely coloured blue.

I feel like dying.
I can’t stand people.
I need to destroy
something beautiful.

I don’t really want to explain what I mean.

Take it abstractly,
like a poem.

Take life abstractly,
like a poem.

Stray between the lines,
dig deeper
than you would if
it were a narrative piece.

I find myself in a novel.

Things are more straight forward if
I tell you exactly
what to see
to hear
to feel.

It was a cold and windy day at the beach.

I think we all need
life a bit mixed up.

The wind had cold teeth
rain still soft in my hair had
the ocean desperately handing me shells.

Cover it in poetry,
decorate with words.

Open your ****** eyes,
don’t be fooled by what
the narrator hands you.

There isn’t one author to your existence.

In this house
sticky thin floorboards
slinking from wall to wall.
Everything dripping down,
pictures taped,
a story told through
ticket stubs
and pushpins.

The amount of stuff
is astounding,
every piece exact,
writing an encyclopaedia.
Teal doors chipping,
holes at hand-height
with paw prints
adorning every corner.

Pattern the ice with
your collarbones.
Showers of lavender
hidden in your hiking boots.
Hang stamps from your doorframe,
the snow will melt someday.
The taste of words
bounced out of your mouth
last Sunday evening.
Shrugging off the sun
from the duck pond
to the sand
caught between your sock
and shoe.
I’ve been memorizing
deep breaths
and the way hair curls.
The keyboard knows your
v-neck and
the cocoa powder park.

Strong perfume can’t
be appreciated
under the milky way.
I fixed blue green eyes
on New Year’s,
one side of the
collared shirt turned in,
steam rolling hair and
too much straw.

Old shoes
filled with cinnamon
sit on 4:17pm
with an unmade bed
of sour green vertebrae.
The city at night,
a crescendo,
explodes in silence,
hot tea and warm mugs
tuning campfires
built from matches.
Thursday sunrises
balancing on wool sweaters
and the smell of fabric softener.
The early morning
hurricane over worn wood and
wet pavement
sounds of winter.
The snow’s just trying
to be human.

I don’t know what to

focus
on.

My head is a poppy
with all these seeds,
choose one,
the rest spill out.

I don’t thinking

by myself for too long.

I notice all those cars,
my hand holding the pen a bit too hard,
my unhappy thoughts yelling to be green.
There’s too much stuff.

I’m tired of choosing between

The positives
and
the negatives.

I need a “siècle de lumières” moment;
where I can beckon the alphabet together
simply with the pulse in my neck and
the crackling sound when I swallow.