things you say don't belong to me.

they
puncture
once,
just long enough to
feel
familiar
before
the
universe
carries
them
away.

soft body,
you
cradled
my hands
as if
they
were
infants. precious babies from the stars.

we could get lost in the beauty of this if you want,

or we could kiss cross legged on the hardwood floor even though my parents are in the room next door and the sound your lips make on my neck is a dead give away.

love is not for hiding

although if you were listening you could hear
the
ardent,
synchronized
breath
the brief collapse of two humans into each other,
a
pile
of
heartbeats
and
explorations;

this is different. this is different because i am choosing so and because it is un rushed and  because you are

lingering.

take it off,

dump it on my floor. let the the sound of the thud

fill us both.


excited heart in the dark;

i know your presence is more or less an apology

a sorry for not calling or not thinking or not knowing how to let your love lay just right


eyes closed so that you can have the satisfaction of surprise. as if my body doesn’t leap into exaltation the second you enter my orbit


this bed is miles long as you arrange yourself on top ,

snowflake lips upon neck and the unadulterated words:

Hi pretty.



forgiveness.

well,
i am accustomed to writing about the dismal and the dingy,
the sharp corners
the foggy roads
the desperations.

now,
i am at a loss
because how do you wrap words around
love that is free
seam bursting happiness
puzzle piece bodies toppling with the feeling that we have always known each other
even before we met

this is a new place
where the poetry is
our souls
our skin
the colors dancing between us.
and i can say this:
love is not to be tasted
it is to be

devoured.

desire: someone fierce to be in my daily life

i feel weeks turn over and blow away

leaves under a tree.

what am i doing?
i'm sleeping in late
i'm working on a career
i'm doing smart, sensible things

i'm worrying like Thoreau did
that i'll die only to realize i never lived.
it's not what you do, it's how you do it
i'm doing things in a lesser shade of the vibrance i once

blossomed under

desire: someone fierce to be in my daily life

so that i don't forget what it feels like.

i have three best friends.
one is Thomas.
they asked me to sing at his funeral
but i couldn't because i was crying too much.
he left his hat
and it smells of nothing but him.
two is Aly.
we carved boundless into a river bridge before
she moved to Liverpool. an actress with more *****
than anyone claiming masculinity.
it costs eight stamps to write her but i do
because i believe in handwritten letters the way most people
believe in church.
three is a read leather journal
with graph paper pages
crawling with the inked version of my
trainwreck brain
the words that i can bury myself under
and call it art.

under the dark of covers
promise me
promise me
promise me,whisper it
that leavings are not endings
and that if you love something

you tell it goodbye.

lack therof. i spend weekends with

stale popcorn,
hot baths,
myself.

they say the lotus only grows in mud.

good
luck
running
from
yourself,
                       this city is so small

age
is
arbitrary!
is how i justify whiskey shots on the front porch with adults
singing drunken renditions of Wish You Were Here
it's tender and when our disharmonic voices pierce the quiet street
we all cry a little.

Kimmy puts her arm around me and tells me i am
going
to
do
great
things
maybe it's the alcohol burning up my throat
or something in the light

the
world
is
mine
to
change

oh,

i’m not going to be happy

ever

and i’m doomed to be

divorced

because i don’t want to be swaddled in your sugar coated comfort blanket ?

i’m sorry that you believe love is only true if you suppress all of your satisfying, swelling feelings until the day someone wants to reproduce with you

and that you have to cover your most tender, lovely parts in ugly underwear and that on your wedding night both of you will

look the other way



it’s unfortunate that your God only likes you if you give him all your money and hate the right things

and that your life is a dichotomy of

knowing you are superior to everyone who didn’t happen to grow up with your doctrine pinned to their shirt

& knowing that if you don’t color inside of religion’s lines just so

you’ll

never

be

good

enough

for

salvation



and what if that still, small voice is actually doubt

and you spend your entire human existence trying to prove it wrong

by passive-agressively pushing your fear towards others

it’s sad that you’ll make yourself small for a potential outcome

while i’ll grow, grow, grow because i am boundless

you are too, but you don’t know it so you’ll pollute your potential with petty

judgments


yes, there’s a (pretty) ******* ring in my nose and some (meaningful) ******* ink on my skin and your son and i (beautifully) **** each other

i

am

no

less

and

no

more

than

you

are


your high horse has wobbly legs and thanks but

i will determine my own



happiness.

please
be
real
because
i
dont
want
you
to
fit
another,

i don't think my bones could bear i t.

theyd crumble
blow
scatter

pile at your perfect feet.

heart will pump slowfast
morning light and his breath still
breathing; lingering

breezy
lustful
whole,

the soft of your earlobe against my cheek.

how can the future exist when

now
your wild sage smell is laced over me like a winter chill and your lips,

your lips are so

                                               dangerously



near.

stretched      across      two      rocks
theWaterunderneathandth­eMoonontop     enveloping my winter stricken body
                                                                ­        exactly the way clothing wasn't



i swear i heard your voice.

expression
is
not
limited
to
a
flap
of
a
wing
or
a
vibration
of
a
vocal
cord

it's everlasting. instantaneous

so large that it's beyond our senses
and so small that understanding is effortless
if we allow

conceive a concept and project it---

only
the
pretentious
present
themselves
as
paintings
of
the
past

place your posture in the present. take it **** it reap it.

shouldn't i be
hostile?

attack isn't my style,  darling. grace and ferocity.

besides, i know i'll just end up
leaking
for you:

unfolding into uncontrollable desire to
be
the
closest
thing
to you,


take whatever you tantalize me with
hungrily

take off whatever you touch
destructively

in love with

this

de ja vu.

i think i Indian Gave you my heart
with my infinite, innocent love and all
and i think you double crossed me
and have it still
and it makes you sad
but it would make you sadder to give it back.

we raced a thunderstorm and we won
drops formed
in
my
hair,
fell in your cup of tea
a little taste of universe to fill your bones
with.
cherish:
the way my eyelashes flutter in the nook of your spine the way moonlight mutters lacy somethings

it
would
be
easy
to

curl up under your eyelashes and never come out.

as coffee gloriously pollutes my veins
warding off sleep.every cell in my body      
                                                                       pleads to be
                                                                       aligned with every cell in his.

in the quiet
and
the
           loud
in the spaces
and
the     crowd

i miss what we almost were

cloaked in a black cave
my fingerpainted strokes
make the silence
pregnant with
care
&
disregard
&
those feelings submerged
inside somewhere.
if a ravenous bear appeared
i'd be happy for the company.

hardwood
and the smell of writing
writing
and the smell of hardwood
i could sleep here
under the disorganized desk
and wake up in

unequivocal happiness.

he stood there
skinny in the bad lighting
and his voice sounded like Modest Mouse
                       only better
                       because it sounded like him.

                        i was helpless: i swooned.

i am no murderer
time is my friend,
it holds my hand

and we


frolic.

i can feel your art
it's in the heartbeat of your palm

warm,
alluring

a springtime thunderstorm that might drizzle or might defiantly dump

i'd stand with outstretched tongue
if only for one
                                                                 drop

of your honeydew compositions   ;   sunflower symphonies.


darling,
your diamond skin is

                                                                devastating

as you dream in orchestrated swells.


i can feel your art
when our heartbeats caress

his vulnerability is a bed i never once slept in

we were cut from the same fabric,
                                                     he whispers into the morning
and my agreement echoes in the seamless stitching of our bodies

too bad John and Yoko already took that photo,
                                                     i whisper back

old school rap,
you always tried to tell me and i couldn't listen until you were gone.

sunny open window naked romping music
moving forward from your empty body music

pale skin but not as pale as yours
was.

when i met this new
person
, he said

                                          it's time for new songs
                                          something to mark this page with

but i just keep rereading your obituary

my teacher tells me

the sage is not attached.          so i cut off all my hair and quit my job and buy records despite my lacking bank account.

i don't know **** about wisdom but i know how to make myself

weightlessly
indulgently

                         happy.

it's just that
when we are laying in the crumpled sheets
and your belly is folded into my back like the tide folds into the
sand


i keep thinking:

this is the most important art i'll ever make

because i hope to absorb something i can't quite touch
a dream you wake up with in the back of your throat
clawing, scratching
to be verbalized into
a plan
a place to point your feet.

my flat will be painted red and covered in
tastefully
or maybe distastefully
**** art ,

and i will look out the window and think

the only thing i really need is myself.

climb roofs whisper in ears get uncomfortably close scream out a window hike in the night paint the details i know of you envelop don't wear clothing don't wash my hair climb a tree you think you can't meet somewhere at an odd hour slip in foggy in the morning sleep with the cold wind on your face in the warmest sleeping bag remember the smell of typewriter ink and hardwood floor kiss my nose don't go stay and build a fort like little kids stay until that world collapses rearrange say my name in my ear and in the air look at you and we both start running

but i might be confusing love for

that brief moment when i wake up before everyone and feel the hum of sleep and the afternoon light hits his cheekbones in such a poetic way that it’s almost silly seeing as how

we crashed on a crusty futon after a night of inebriation, smoke breaks and psychedelic rock.

the thing is:

you put your warm mouth to my ear, thoughtlessly, and said

T’amo.

i’m taking that and pinning in to my

shirt.

one man’s trash might just be a woman’s

treasure.

your beauty is not
hollow

starlit and soft,
kiss me clear as your half Brazilian eyes
clear as laughter that fills me:
i am your cup
press your lips to my edges and
drink.

liquid turns solid turns gas
the properties are the same,
as is love
changing but not changed.

if heaven is not liberation,
heaven is our cheeks brushing just as they should.

you know that butterfly we saw,

pinned

to the case? the one so vibrantly blue that

even your mother who takes everything literally and got eyeliner tattoos to prove a point

stopped.


it made the others look dusty and pressed,

mere textbook diagrams.


that blue,

reminds me of the way your beauty works

the type that doesn’t make a heart race so much as

purr.


when you walked through my mislabeled door, that night when the moon was curvy as a woman’s hips

i realized that when people say love at first sight

what they really mean is love at first loss of sight


because i couldn’t tell you what color your shirt was or whether i was wearing mascara or not

you leaked for me,

droplets of your oceanic soul.


we touched in the ephemeral before we hugged on the ***** kitchen floor.



electric amor,

make me the flower you flutter through fields to drink from

and i promise you’ll never be empty.