It is heroic to attempt to stop time
To pick a moment from a tree
Like a ripe red apple, sweet and shiny.
It is heroic to bite into a moment
To break the seconds with soft yellowing teeth
Taste the bitter, brown, grainy bruises.
It is heroic to keep eating away the seconds
To consume the glances, grazes, gazes
And transform it into something nourishing.

inspired by e.e. cummings’s 'into the strenuous briefness’

how many hellos
has the earth heard?
how many beautiful beginnings
has she seen?
how many roses has she bloomed,
and how many of them have been gifted?
how many hellos
have given way to friendship and
love,
how many of them have turned into light?
she keeps them all,
the roses and hellos,
turns them into poems
and turns them into time,
sunrises and sunsets,
beginnings and farewells,
you and me
in between it all.

you will never be forgotten.
ever.
your name twisted into metaphors and colors and distractions will forever
be painted across pages and pages of her favorite brand of notebook,
no matter how many she burns
there will always be one she forgot,
and she will only find it once she had almost forgotten you.
she will find the one Papyrus notebook
and all of your metaphors and colors and disractions will come flooding back,
just like how the ocean in your eyes
flooded her heart all those years ago.

Lotus petals woven into her hair and

wrists bound with reeds,

she descends into the murky

warmth of the river bed,

where the minnows and tadpoles

nestle against her

***** affectionately–

“Sister,

at last you

have returned

to us.”

We are but so young
We could chase down the world
Yet the past that haunts us
Weighs down on our shoulders
We cry and we scream
Nobody hearing a thing
Stuck in the abyss
Of what could’ve been
Cause I was a fool
And shouldn’t have let you go
They say our first love
Always hurts the worse
The scars you left me
I can’t wash away
I lost you once
Then twice and again
Living our own lives
But if you ask
I’m not ready to lose you again
I never will be
Because we’re still too young
You’re supposed to chase the world
Not lay around waiting
For your world to end
I’ll never be ready
Come next year or one after
To never be with you
Ever again

Too long have I waited
The heat of you, the smell of you
You make me
Miss you
This yearning, longing for you
I cannot quiet the fire
You make me
Burn
I see the smoulder in your eyes
Taste the desperate need on your lips
You make me
Breathless
I feel your body, contours so familiar
As your arms wrap around me
You make me
Feel alive
In a deep tidal rhythm that ebbs and flows
I am rising, racing up high, higher
You make me
Fly
Arms entangled, our hearts slowly fall to a quiet beat
As breath deepens, readying for sleep. You kiss me.
You make me
Love you

If a person is quiet
enough inside,
they might just be
able to catch on to
the table of contents
of what it is
I’m trying to say, to
get to, to put away
before it's way
too late, and I don't
mean to
confuse you,
like before men
could speak,
they enjoyed confusing
one another
with signs,
they enjoyed this
as much as
a mirror enjoys
an image shine,
or the evening,
like a ship, enjoys
a sapphire grave,
but that's not what
I'm trying to do,
I only want you
to hear what I have
to say one more time,
just one more day
before it's weight
becomes way too great.

Everything I say or do
Is a contradiction
Every time I craft a truth,
It's a work of fiction.

Right when I learn who I am
Is when I misplace myself.
Right when my self is stable
Is when I fall off the top shelf.

Right when I am confident,
I become a scared little boy.
Right when I'm a wholesome noble,
I'm ****** into a dark ****** void.

Right when I'm valued and happy
I'm alone with none around.
Right when I'm completely lost
I find a simple lost and found

Sign. I take it with me
And bare it across my chest.
I'm lost and found! At the same time!
I'm simply a clearly labeled mess.

I never know what will come next,
I've not seen a creature more amorphous.
Maleable beyond comprehension
Walking through a flourished forest.