I want to be
wrapped in your arms
how the tree's branches
intermingle with the wind;
how the peaks of the hills
tumble over
one another's shadow at dusk;
how mist clings to dew
on grass wisps
whistling a good morning tune
back to the roosters' song at dawn,
the silent clap of two hearts
high-fiving
amidst the storm's handshake
with forest fingertips,
complimenting eyelash bats
and butterfly kisses
under the Moon's pupil;
how the stars trip
over their two left feet
and come crashing down
into your atmosphere
intertwined with mine.

I can sleep with you,
but I can’t be asleep with you.
I can drive you mad
bent over the headboard
of your expectations,
but I can’t meet them.
What you are looking for
does not hide between my legs
panting for salvation;
it hides trembling in the bend of an elbow,
tucked away in tracks that mark the spot.
Treasure coves lie in the hollowness
of my sunken eyes
and under the thickness
of my bitten tongue
until the only thing I can taste is
the bitterness of my laughter
like a hangover
from too much sweet talk the night before.
Some nights,
the holes in our conversations
"with the lights on"
leave me crucified between
two lines I should have never crossed to begin with.
Other nights,
I am stretched out across the entire room
and your eyes touch nothing
but the bathroom floor we grouted together
with our spines.
The backbone for this poem
isn’t your unattached vertebrate,
but the committed soft spot
behind my promising kneecaps
that give out each time
you ask me
when I’m coming to bed
because a mattress
may be the sole platform for this love,
but your sheets
can’t cover the indifference in my touch.

Feet are the best place to look in a crowd
because,
even if they aren’t painted,
toenails offer a reflective surface
that reassures our presence,
no matter the floor we walk on.
I look down so often
that I forget I have that identical shell
on my fingers too.
They shine the sun in your eyes
when I blindly fix my hair behind my ear.
I know it disgusts you,
but I bite away,
in fact,
I chew that casing away
from my forgiving palms
and tuck them safely in my nail beds
where I drip bedtime stories from my gums
like a blanket fort of crimson comfort.
My stories get so crusted
on the nights when
you’re not here
that scar tissue
becomes less than something I blow my nose with.
I long for you
to tell me your stories
and let them faint into my wrists
so then I can carry your pulse
through my veins and feel alive again.
Let your heartbeat
guide my wandering hands
down your ventricles
and let me be the reason you stir at night.
Let me shake your bones
until the birds trapped in your rib cage
start singing again.
Let me be the cool tongue that
laps your broken heart back together.
Let me be something more than debris
hanging loosely from flesh,
but less than a bomb nestled
between the hollowness in your skull.
I hope you look down
and feel the weight of my lips from last night’s goodbye
pressed against your forehead
and realize
no matter how lost you get
in a swarm of shoes,
you’ll always have my bare feet
next to yours.

You are the sun and you are the moon;
I hold you to the highest regard
at every wake and at every sleep.
I miss you on the days I don’t rise,
but you always rise,
regardless of the weather.
I solely like rain.
I like the way your condensation
pours over me
when we are in between the sheets,
the madness of the storm between your pelvis,
thrusting thunder and lightning bolts into my bones
and I’m ignited with the blaze
you course through my body.
Your touch leaves me with
burn marks
trailing my thighs
to follow back into the bed
where we lay together
and it reminds me
I need the rain to so desperately put me out
when you set over the hills
and run away from me again.
You’re so different at night.
You’re cool and quiet, but you’re so cool.
You have the stars
and the comets
and the constellations
and the Milky Way,
but you choose my terrestrial body
every single time
you come out.
You remove clouds
and whisper through the stillness in the sunset
to bask in your luminescence with you,
just one more time,
the last time,
tonight.
With a sliver under my nose and above my chin,
I watch
the stars dance on you,
the comets open their legs for you,
the constellations bend over for you,
the Milky Way wrap her arms around you,
but you,
you are a constant and never move.
We hold our stare like the lights will go out
and I stand in the moon light with you
just to cringe in the sun with you
the next day
and the next day
and the next day
and the next day.
And we do this
and I keep a part of you
hanging on my lips,
the crescent that never fades.