Let the Moon spotlight
On this masquerade,
Some psalm they say
I think I’ll pray.
As my toes weave beneath
Crushed leaves and starlight imagery,
I think I’ll pray.

We hummed along to every song
We ever knew.
Licking the lyrics out on
Scattered starlit scratchpads
With the tips of our tongues.
Ink-dipped ego trips about love
Etched out top-chart carbon copies.
Our cursive grew sloppy,
But that hardly seemed to matter.
From tattered verses about fictional characters
To Hymns about God
To an aucapella exploring the difference.
Every song seemed to be sung specifically for us
And, Oh, how we both knew it
As our eyes jumped the stars and
Traced the constellations
Searching for inspiration in
The echoes of deteriorated light
From thousands of years before.

You spoke in absolutes.
To which I’d reply vaguely
And we dug up the roots of a tree
That we never let bloom;
Clawing hard and deep at the
Untasted foundation below our feet,
Despite the build-up of dirt
Under our fingernails.
But between the grass-stained knees and
The hail of stars that poured on our backs
We couldn’t find time to breathe,
So accordingly we ****** the sky
And lit up another last kiss
Which we’d miss again in
A matter of minutes
And make a habit of the instance
Exploring a distance supported by
Limp wrists that gave way to
Two-ton daydreams, which always seemed
Just out of reach
But that doesn’t mean I didn’t try like Hell,
With locked-joint elbows and fingers widespread.

And while I read the symphony that the
Wind silently recorded on the back of my hand
I remembered how,
Once,
I whispered a song in your ear
And my breath gave you chills
When I got to your favorite part.

Will the Sun ignite
On this matinee?
It’s safe, they say,
Don’t be afraid.
But their water’s gray,
And it tastes like silent yesterdays.
‘Don’t be afraid.’*

You closed those eyes and smiled that smile
That I write poems about.
But I shouldn’t be allowed to draw out such
Brilliant arched lips
So I ****** it back in mid sentence
Before it could drip
Through the cracks in my teeth.
I’ve chipped so much away beneath this surface
Which our toes cling so tightly to
That my bones have grown black and blue
But I’ll continue
Because this tune makes it worth it
Each time my pick-axe sparks stars when it
Collides with stone.

And amidst the skin and bone framework
Of a canopy sky, it seems to me that
You spoke about the history;
About the end of things, so many times that
For a point,
All you’d breathe is eulogies.
So momentarily
All our songs forgot
That the finest things in life
Truly are free.
That the buzzing of bees
Can be music too.
A tune so true
That even trees will dance,
Their leaves will cast sunrays
In rhythmic waves
Putting ripples in timelines
And making tomorrow’s yesterday
Something worth remembering.

"As long as there is room for error,"
she said,
"I am content."
her hair was that of a shih tzu,
her eyes were those of a raccoon.
when she felt something deeply, she couldn't eat.

she whispered about the color orange(turned a sickly green)
and enjoyed the repetition of vowel sounds.
one spell away from invisibility—
like shutting your eyes when the world is spinning too quickly—
and three snaps from sanity.
she held my hand before I knew her heart,
her fingers were a birds nest
but mine were chocolate and
melting fast.
"I'm feeling another person,"
she said.
"It is from my soul, and it is giving me cancer."

before dawn she got up and stretched her limbs
until they were elastic,
(longer than sausage links)
and almost reached the moon.
I was never afraid of the marks her teeth left on my furniture;
still,
it was coming out of her pocket.
her eyes were those of my dead husband
(I was almost sure she'd dug them from his very skull),
and she looked from side to side
until they rolled back in their sockets,
demonic
sensual
fiery.

"Dying is something I did in my past life,"
she told me.
"I won't be making the same mistake in this one."

so you sit there,
your awkward little hands folding awkward little birds,
as if you could inhale your own paper wings.
so you sit there,
and you think
about you watching the people and the people
not watching you.
and i whisper darling,
darling the only thing you're good for
is reading walt whitman out loud
to your used-to-be-white walls
until your throat chips, and your eyes dust over.
and you just shift your weight
and shake your head
like something
buzzed in your ear.

the concept of death lies parturient in your mouth,
swollen and festering, writhing in itself,
as weighty as a missing molar and just
as visible.

retch and gag,
spend nights fishing for your soul
through your stomach,
you are beating bus seats
for dust, for dry little particles
that will hopefully soak through
your skin.

she is organza and rough, nubbly raw silk
that tears your fingers
and bleeds you purple, sweet.


civilizations rise and fall
in the curve of her mouth.

with taffy wrapped across your scull for warmth,
you look at me in secret glances
—there, beneath your heavy eyelashes—that make my heart flutter so ironically
like the soft shake of my bed when snow drops from the sky in chunks.

you are still the same pile of bones
but flushed and grown,
still the same gentle glow, but now are close enough
for me to feel your warmth,
and for me to become wrapped inside of your exhale.

even if I am only using tears to hide from the wind,
they are better than bare-***** chill, or the helplessness
of true winter
, darkness
, space.

how full can one mug be of slowly climbing steam and the gentle loss of speech?
it rises until it is at the ceiling, and it sits there
taunting my empty lips with calm silence, embarrassed touches,
accidental movements
until we are only pretending to hide behind walls that we are only pretending exist.

I do not know how many times we will need to close our eyes
or how many times you will reach for my cold fingertips,
but these things are irrelevant
(immaterial)
(unrelated)
(extraneous)
(beside the point)
and the doors that come unlocked open to cliffs,
the steps we take cause us to fall eternally, spinning into blissful
"nothingness"/"somethingness."

there is no space between the lines we carve ourselves
unless we fall asleep too early
or we decide to go out for food instead of writing down our futures in pen.

is deaf.
talk here: whisper into the part of me what still works

sometimes I feel like a clock left ticking,
there must be someone out there who knows that one day I will stop.
I'll be an hour behind, then days,
then nothing matters; I am only in your parlor for looks.

when you move you're hesitant
but you cannot break something that is already (            )
no measurable time has passed, though I have waited like a bird in a nest
for its mother.

it's too hard to admit how much I miss you
and it's too far to walk to your arms(whatever shall i do?).
but if I close my eyes for long enough, maybe I will hear

some secrets you say to me are better whispered into blind spots
and I cannot help but hope,
                                          even a sliver or a smidgen,
                                                        ­       that you will save me all of yours,
                                                          ­     like a child collecting stamps for  
                                                               a letter he will never send.

I'll promise my immobile body warmth (if you will someday do the same.)

i am a thing dug of poetry,
labeled *****,
and mangled into death masks
for the tortured,
burnt, and drowned.

if i slept, i would sleep
between your fingers,
then twithe down to the padded
things that hold your words,
bend them in a kiln
fired hot by the breath of
my hellos.
if i were to eat,

i would consume the entirety
of your vision, swallow
the rods and cones
to curl in your tear-ducts
and taunt by holding
back the curtain
just long enough for us to smile.

if i drew, i would outline
myself on your forehead,
as a stamp, swim under your skin
and carve each bloodcell's
name into their limp, cracking
foreheads. if i breathed,
i would

breathe in your humanity,
and char it, exhaling
only the cinders to
gift on the outstretch of my palms.

i am the death that
encapsulates some,
only weighing
in the mouths of others,
tacking their days on my body
for a high. i am
more tired than you,

but i will be around for longer.