a chimney once held between
******* lies on the pavement
head kicked in
ash spluttered
against the concrete
embers refusing to let go
of their blood orange glow

My father is a lion with his mane cut
                               and slicked back, learning to walk
                   on hind legs, back arched high.

                                          ~

             ­         My mother has a wolf in her chest
             howling for light, for the
                                          lantern hanging in the sky.

                                          ~

                   ­                            My brother has a cage
                                                            ­        for ribs
                                                        but so do I.

                                          ~

I am a wild safari:
             a bathing elephant, a sleeping
                                               tiger, a brilliant peacock fanning its
                                  feathers, waiting to
     **** its head and release
          a warrior cry.

If the sun had hands, he’d reach out
to touch the curve of the moon’s spine, tracing
his fingers along each crater as she lit up
for him like a paper lantern
in the sky. His flamed limbs enveloping
her, his Luna. The arch of her back
against the backdrop of night, her fullness
intoxicating. After all this time, still burning for her.

When the sun was given hands, he cursed them
as he watched the moon crumble
into ash in the blaze. His hands were Rome
and he couldn’t stop the collapse, the ruins of her
scattered across his cupped palms. He prayed
to Moirai for revival, but all three gods
were silent. Choking back flames of fury, he tossed
his beloved into the black expanse, each flake still lit
with a passion to rebel the stars
that continue to burn with foolish hope.

I wanted to be light so I swallowed the sun.

The tangerine stained race track
spread across our **** carpet, a turn
by the wooden bed frame, a loop
near the five piece drum set.
My brother’s fingertips gripped a Hot Wheel
by its rear end, its rubber wheels
greeting the track, propelling it forward,
launching it into another plastic vehicle,
and Crash.

I nursed the toy cars through emergencies,
playing doctor to replace cracked windshields
and torn plastic bumpers, victims
of one too many collisions. It alarmed me
how easily the 1976 Mustang could lose its wheel,
sending it spinning like a dreidel while my brother grinned
with splintered teeth, feeling nothing.
The car survived the impact, but people
don’t always walk away from accidents. They can’t be raised
on jack stands and tinkered with. The operation table,
home to drivers with fluttering heartbeats,
can hum to the deafening beat of a flat-line monitor.

My touch can start brush fires.
My fingers are ***** matchsticks,
the kind your mother warned about.

My petaled lips spark against yours
like flint against steel.

My volatile breath, an overcast of smoke
creeping from the belly of my throat.

My twisted tongue douses your chalky skin
with fuel, a gasoline spreading to your logged limbs.

I leave your organs to curdle,
and by morning glow,
you’re nothing but a burn victim.

I think about you around the holidays,
how I’d follow the sprinkles scattered on the floor
like bright constellations guiding me to you
kneading dough on the kitchen counter.
Your dress shirt, missing a button near the pressed collar,
was painted with flour. You carried those grains of sugar
in the pocket of your fingernails for days.

The holidays aren’t the same since you left.
The wreath has shed its needles
like a rattlesnake stripping of its skin.
The Coca-Cola snow globe on the mantel has cracked,
leaking snow confetti onto the rug.
(I swear it was sobbing, too.)

Last night, I awoke to a glass ornament
dropping to the floor like a fallen angel.
I sliced my fingertip on a shard
while sweeping the remains.
I found your missing button under the tree skirt,
the only piece of you that stayed.

Rusted trailers file in,
carrying pop-up roller coasters
and tilt-a-whirls. A tall man, face splashed
with paint, trips in oversized shoes.
His drawn lips smile, but teeth do not show.
A ferris wheel spins in the distance, time
measured in each rotation, the carnival's only clock.
Perched on a saddle, a small tot
rides a stallion, tangling her curled fingers
in its mane, cotton candy stained palms
shaking the reins. The steed chained
to a central post, muzzled in silence,
frozen like his carousel brothers.

your arteries are wired to
sound an alarm if thieves
come to rob you of your heart
but I swiftly stole the wrinkles
on your brain so maybe you’d forget
the mole below my left eye, the
faded birthmark embedded in my left shoulder

if that makes me a criminal dress
me in tangerine, let me play
tug of war with a noose

I took a polygraph test last night, the examiner
asked if I still loved you
I whispered no but the needle painted
the cadence of your voice instead

My brittle skeleton has become an abandoned motel
and you
were its last visitor.

Why didn't you enjoy your stay?

I made a trail of light kisses across your forehead
like spreading mints on your pillow in the morning.
I peeled back the curtains
to let rays of light color your cheekbones
and swept your troubles underneath the wooden sofa legs.  

A motel's only guests
are faint silhouettes of those passing through.
How did I believe you could be permanent?

I have cleaned every inch
of this haunted cottage,
but when I dust the mantel of my shoulder blades,
I only find your smudged fingerprints.

I cannot scrub you from my skin.
It flakes,
it scars,
but you are still embedded there.

How did I mistake touching for feeling?

A closed sign now dangles around my neck
This vacancy can never be filled.

these bones have outgrown these thin sheets of skin.
every stretch causes a mark, a blemish.
they fear for the day they will rip,
tear their outer shell,
leaving them
vulnerable,
open,
exposed.

some things are meant to be hidden away.

You are a stallion,
The wind running through your knotted mane,
Free and wild.

For years he has tried to tame you,
Mold you like clay into something he can understand,
Something he can control.
(You belong wholly to yourself.)

The stable is crumbling,
The fence is decaying,
The trough is empty.
(This place has nothing for you.)

Use your hooves to gallop away, my dear.
Do not ever come back,
For this is not your home.
It never was.

my father was an electrician
but he never taught me how to remedy
strong jolts of electricity
that leave your limbs quaking,
your lips shaking,
your soul aching.

they say a bolt of lightning
can measure up to three million volts,
but, then again,
your touch holds more power than any storm.

Goosebumps cover my
skin as I shiver from the
chilled touch of your soul.

i.

You say 
I look like a twig

as if I should be ashamed

to be compared to a strong tree.



ii.

You hold my gelatin arm,

letting it hang, 
laughing
that I am all skin and bones,

but aren't you, too?



iii.

You think I should come
with a caution label
explaining how to properly hold something

as breakable and fragile as glass. 



iv.

You slink your arm around my waist,
dancing your fingertips over my protruding hip bones,

confessing it feels like it doesn't belong.

Why isn't it beautiful
a part of my vessel isn't
 hidden?



v.

You are aghast when my ribcage

slightly shows, stretching my masked skin.

Why are you horrified
to see the very structure

protecting the ***** I love you with?



vi.

Twice the portions,
 twice
the helping.
 Will I always have to prove
I am anything, but 
empty?



vii.

Last time I checked,

you were a skeleton, too.

a bundle of
brave little bones,
all i am.

but i’m starting
to deteriorate at
a quickened pace.

my skin’s peeling,
abandoning my body
like everyone else.

the vessel of
my soul’s learning
to leave me.

left to rot
alone, the same
fate as you.

Eyes like fireflies
dancing in the black of night;
My lantern of light.

Scientists divide my body
into systems,
cardiovascular,
circulatory,
respiratory,
but when you are in my presence,
it all becomes nervous.

i.
You realize life's real currency
isn't money, which can be spent on me,
but time, which can be spent with me.

ii.
The others saw you as a beggar,
but it is me who has begged for you to stay.

iii.
Tie a ribbon around my finger,
it all means just the same.

I can no longer hear the smooth notes of jazz,
how the saxophone, trumpet, and piano
worked together in harmony when we didn't.

I can no longer find shelter in the soft chords,
for the safety I once felt in your presence
has been compromised once again.

They call jazz a dying art, which,
I guess, is what we became.

a
flower
does
not
bloom
when
it's
told;

it
blooms
when
it's
read­y.

Everything in life was enough
until you realized I wasn't.

I either lose sleep
for you
or
because of you.

As I opened the medicine cabinet
carefully hidden behind a broken mirror,
I discovered transparent orange bottles
with broken childproof tabs on each cap,
concealing diet pills the size of ants.

I replaced the capsules with fully bloomed daisies
and I hope you swallow each petal
and ingest each stem entirely
so you can eat something that,
like you, encompasses beauty.

You nurtured the garden of your mind,
letting the most beautiful parts of you grow
and bloom like healthy tulips in early April,
until a single **** poked through the soil
and continued to spread itself, seed by seed.
One by one, the flowers all began to wilt with grief,
giving way to the **** that plagued your mind.
If you don't have the strength the pluck each ****,
you don't allow for the exquisite flowers to bloom.

I'll act as though this pen is a sword
and carve the words on the blank page before me
until my fingertips bleed the truth
begging to be set free from my wounds deep within.

I do not wish for
a sharp needle of
ink as black as night
to etch eternal
flourished designs
and embellished words
on the canvas of my skin
for it is my humble belief
that nothing in life
should be permanent.

I cracked my bones,
curled my legs,
and bent my spine,
forcing myself to
fit your definition of
human perfection.

I presented my morphed bundle
of brittle bones and stretched skin
before your dark eyes...
and you still walked away.

I was never going to be
good enough for you, was I?
But now that I see what I've become,
I am not good enough for me, either.

I continue
to write
about flowers
so they
never die.

She prayed for freckles
to inhabit her pale skin,
the small pigments covering
her defined cheekbones,
displaying an intricate pattern
as rare as the beauty of her hidden soul,
begging to shine through her open pores.

Millions of people
work nine to five
breaking their backs
for disposable paper bills
and small copper coins
never realizing currency
cannot guarantee tomorrow.
The promise of another day
can only be granted by
a phenomenon we continue
to waste: t...i...m...e.

Darkness, when he sobs,
turns his sadness into storms,
his tears into rain.

I.
the cloud yearned to sweetly kiss the sea
for he reflected the colored sky  in his crashing waves
so the cloud could see her mirrored image was beautiful.

II.
the cloud lived in eternal sadness
willing herself to sob salty tears
a sacrifice to save the sea from emptiness.

III.
the cloud fell in love with the sea
because no matter how her shape or size changed
his waves formed a curved smile of affection.

The sea is the only creation
that can feel

(s)ympathy,
(e)mpathy, and
(a)pathy

all at once.

A beautiful contradiction.

Mothers don't allow their young daughters
to experiment with make-up until old enough
but I had no choice but to bring a brush to my face
and paint the canvas to hide each blemish.
Long sleeves, loose scarves, fitted jeans,
anything to hide the daily playground ritual.  
The swing I experienced was not hanging from chains
but rather from the tightened fists of someone I once knew.
I found solidarity underneath the weeping willow tree
as we sobbed together in the cool air of November.

The small boy dreamed of
small pink rose gardens and
playing with bright-eyed dolls.
He never found the joy in
the crack of a baseball bat
or the rolling wheels of a toy car.
Mommy and Daddy never understood
where they had gone wrong with him.
They were too focused on the debate
of blue versus pink to realize their child
was wiser at five than they were at thirty-two.

A plane ticket can help you
leave this hell behind,
but it can't help you escape
from your dreadful mind.

I have become endlessly infatuated
with the low cadence of your voice.
The way it crackles before dawn and
strengthens after your morning coffee.
Your soft lips part to bare its splendor.
It tickles my earlobe when you whisper
soft melodies I could never grow tired of.
It covers the rim of your coffee cup when
you take a sip; it sweetly kisses you like I do.
I believe in the beauty of simplicity once more.

You try to blend in
with the beautiful daisies
when all you feel like is
a dandelion, a ****.

What if our tears of loneliness
fell from our wet cheeks
and met at our chin
to make each other whole?

In the warmth of May
I look at the magnolias
And wonder when I, too,
Will bloom into something
Beautiful.

Bruised,
Bewildered,
Battered,
Broken.

What else starts with B?

Beautiful.

Our malnourished souls
beat in opposite time.

We are not in sync,
in pattern.

Deprived, we are together
but somehow
a  p  a   r   t.

It's beautiful.

How the wave kisses the rocky shoreline
begging to stay before it retreats to the sea.
How the moon kisses the cheek of the sun
waiting patiently for the next eclipse.  
How the raindrop kisses the withered leaf
filling its veins with hope before it falls to the soil.

You hear about the kiss of death,
But never the kiss of life.

His bare arms wrapped
around her like seaweed,
pulling her further into
the deep dark blue lagoon.

Her soul was lost underneath
the crashing waves of the sea,
drowned in the deception
of his deep dark blue eyes.

I feel you
in my bones.

All 206 of them.

I.
My first in first grade
I carved your name in my desk
I hope it's still there.

II.
Made class valentines
Required for everyone
But mine was special.

III.
You begged the teacher
To sit by me on the bus
With a great big smile.

IV.
The first who wanted
To take me out for dinner
But it was a joke.

V.
Dedicated song
I can no longer hear it
Without thought of you.

VI.
You never said it
But your eyes always told me
You had wanted more.

VII.
You dated my friend
And I never told you how
Much I adored you.

VIII.
Playful like a child
But mature like an adult
So interesting.

IX.
You asked me to prom
Yellow flowers for friendship
That's all I wanted.

X.
You said you loved me
I loved you like a brother
It would never work.

XI.
You swore up and down
You had changed for the better
You didn't, first kiss.

XII.
Late walks on campus
Never saw me with makeup
We were so natural.

XIII.
Eyes found each other
"I don't forget pretty girls"
you whispered to me.

XIV.
I fell quickly, hard
But you still loved someone else
A girl with my name.

XV.
A friend of a friend
Texting non-stop everyday
Going nowhere fast.

XVI.
Liked me from the start
Bruised and broken, I do care
But not in that way.

XVII.
The piano man
It was all right but timing
One that got away.

XVIII.
We tried to fight time
Thinking that you were ready
Left us with heartache.

She had a storm brewing inside her
Every pulsing vein feeling the thunder within
Flashes of light filling her darkened eyes
Her tears falling like rain down her pale cheeks

Facing destruction, she caved in...
Destroyed before her eyes could see the clouds part.

Death's shadowy figure hides
between the small cracks of my
home's crumbling foundation.

I fear to close my tired eyes at twilight
when Death may rise from the core
and run through my pulsing veins.

What I would give to be the shadow
cast upon your paralyzed body
from the dim light shining through
the cracked window of your quaint flat.

What I would give to be the oxygen
filling your heaving lungs with new life
keeping your nightmarish reality alive
while you're lost in your heavenly dreams.

What I would give to be the one.
The one to bring you out of the shadows of doubt
so you no longer need to close your eyes to escape.