I’ve heard screams in bodies that
feel speechless and
Dim,
like a burning lantern,
flickering for a child who is afraid of the dark.

I’ve seen the tears of a tired lion,
sitting on the corner of busy streets
holding a thin sheet of white on their chest,
asking for forgiveness by burning in the sun.
That’s courage,
And scars are forming on skin that sheds empathy
though the soul it protects has not been touched.

I’ve tasted blood from not my mouth,
and swallowed the spit of a muttering tongue -
chanting the foundations of what love means
and why we look up when we’re
at our lowest point.

I’ve touched a heart,
and mended its beating on a last breath.

Maybe we are all the same,
blinded by our own story.

Music is playing in the background.
She is touching herself,
and your pupils dilate to the vibration of coming.
The place smells like a crying plant,
hanging from a ceiling that watches you both
when you are smoking off each other’s bodies;
                  and crying for the day to end.

You can’t help to hesitate
and rationalize your entire existence
while her heart is racing for a cure.
Skin is chapped but could use the touch of your hands.
Around this time, it is hard to count the rest
of your breaths.

The apartment is gathering your days off,
the mail you have not yet opened,
and how many times she has worn your ***** shirt.

It is past curfew
and you still don’t love her.

Our lips are silver linings and the fingers we bounded
to one another are no longer infatuated with friction.

We have rubbed the wrong ways, walked towards roads we
have stopped at  more than once.

Our tongues have tasted skins and open wounds;;
but never did we tell the story of a healing scar.

Would you please let me
dry my fingers on
your thighs as you undress
me in the bathroom where
I used to faint on
the sound of steam fogging
up my reflection —
my vision?

You are here now,
running tears down my chest
and it is harder to
breathe with one lung for
the other is being held
by your lips,
breathing me in.

I promise I wouldn’t tell
a soul of your run-away
bones; but only
if you’d let me wilt in
your lap and bathe me
with your wet face
and rent me for a night-in
with my arms and
my arms only.

If your bones
are brittle
then lover,
lay me down
with your arms
hugging my ribs,
counting the
length of
my flesh before
I decay
with you

This is the part where we sob
in our hands and bite our
tongues ‘til they bleed,
because the (I wish I could say
things to you much bolder
than the moon)
silence seizes our stirring.
And when nothing is said
and we’re hung over from last
night’s drinking,
I will pour salt in your
water and watch you gag on the
taste of bland, plastic lust.

Pretend we are fortunate and
make believe we are good at
this — loving each other so we
don’t have to look at reality;
we are alone
Like lone stars, we hide our
beauty in crevices we dare
not open in the dark.

So lets make the scene,
cause some action and
maybe light a spark just to
pass the time in our
small, lonely worlds.

I could find her in the dark. I know
every *****, scar and tethering in her
skin. Know her like a blind spot ready
to submerge and crash into me. She’s
a tidal wave, concocted by natural
significance — reverberating in be-
tween covers I cannot lift because she’s
everywhere. Honey on her breath and I
swallow her whole, feel her crawling
down my throat until I can’t think no
longer, feel no pain and breathe nothing
but an addicting catastrophe.

I find the moon in between her collarbones
and the sun on her lower back, ready to
***** my waist and burn the living
daylight into my bones while I consume
her body language. She says nothing when
the lights are on and so I trace the empty
spots of her until I am five feet under —
drowning from the thought of her leaving
come next morning.

And yet, I wait for her to smother me and pull
me down until I lose my hearing but
sense her pulsing — manipulating her heart-
beat to synchronize with my choking;
the deeper I drown, the closer she feels.

This is about the breath on your tongue
and the way you looked in my basement
when the world was asleep and my
fingers were wet;
because I can still smell you after
4 a.m. on a Friday night, thinking —
(****, this feeling burns like
a cigarette habit).
Your ******* are the epitome of thunder,
they creep into my skin and leave
me vibrating.

You are restless in between my legs
so I pretend this was easy like
the first time I told you I love you;
rub my hand through your hair as the breath
in my lungs quakes and evaporates
in between us.

It is cold and I am swooning in our
sweat and tears from earlier testimonies,
(I know you care, I saw it in
the way you arched your vertebrae)
and you whimper in your sleep —
waking your bones, your still-life perfection.
I could stay in this mess forever.

Come here. I want to tell you how much the moon
tilts its’ soft spine when you close
your eyes and dream of nothing but living sober.
I once saw light reflect off your shoulder
and that is when I knew you were a starving lover,
wanting someone to lick your bones if
you were ever cold in the dark.
And even in the daylight I saw your veins plump
and blue, shaking when you spoke of wisdom.

I love you more on Sundays
because you sleep in past 3 with your hair
on the top of your head and your hands
tucked in between your thighs.
I say yes — yes to everything you ask of me
because I want you to come to your senses
that it is okay to ask and want.
I want you, I ask you to stay.
Will you bend your contours and melt into me
like the moon does for the sky?
Come here and feel naked in the palm of my tongue
as I taste you without salt and sugar,
bear your heaviness onto my stomach while I
share a language with your mouth.
Come here and be fragile,
so I can feel your vulnerable.