(if) when i
turn to stone, take my
heart and bury it
beneath a garden.
let vines embrace my
frozen form
and a forest grow
above my useless body.

find the grave of the cosmos
that convinced the stars
we were right
and salt the earth.

(eye contact is
inevitable).

put me to rest as my own
grave marker
surrounded by soil
crawling with the things
she’ll never give me. let
it seep into my
pores and manifest
as the dirt
under my fingernails.

(who’s to say
i wasn’t made of stone
to begin with?)

(i’ve a habit
of hiding
inside parentheses.)

it’s two o’clock in the morning
and all i can think about
is the way
your eyelashes
fluttered
after you winked at me.

photographs feed my urgency
as i drown myself
in thrashing, foamy
rivers that
glisten with memories.
we held hands
with linked fingers.
(we both acknowledged it.
i
wasn’t joking.)

with broken hearts, we were
magnetized. only
brute force
and the physical presence
of sixteen pairs of eyes
pulled us apart.

a logical explanation
was given
for the tipi. you must know
by now
that i take rationale
at face value.

if you’re a book, you’re
wide open
but your pages are written
in invisible ink.

i need to know
what you
know.

(as of now, the
you&me;
i dream of
exists only
in hypotheticals.)

i.
i’m stuffing my ears with cotton
because there will never
be enough pores in my body
to absorb her voice.

too many people talking at once
and i can catch every
other word that she
never meant.

ii.
but her eyes remind me
of the way
freshly ground coffee smells
and she knows
i could never give her a solid

iii.
no.

she feels like the
real thing
but the nerves in my fingertips
have become calloused and senseless
so there’s really
no way to tell.

iv.
(she told me
that my voice
gives her butterflies

and i still can’t
really believe her
despite this dragon
breathing fire into my gut.)

v.
i’ll sit on that brick
as long as it takes
waiting for her to blow that smoke
back in my face and say
“taboo”

vi.
because i was never
the one she dreamed about.

i will not
close my eyes.

i’ve only just begun
to reopen
the doors that keep
my heart tucked away, yet
you rushed forward
with a romance
i didn’t expect.

you took the emptiness
i had forged
from fires of the past
and tossed handfuls of
stardust
into constellations
on its surface.

the nerves in my neck
tingle in anticipation
of the promises we made
to each other.
the salt in our hair
and the sand on our
skin make it real.

(i promise.)

so eagerly
peeling back layers, you
just make sense
the deeper
i sink.

(no matter what.)

i have lost the ability
to distinguish
between
the physical inability
and my own unwillingness
to stopper the words
that pour
from my lips and
my pen, and my
heart.

i have this thought
(though i know that
it has no real merit)
that if i let them
drip
eventually the ripples will reach you

and you’ll understand.

all i want
is to read the braille
that is written on
your skin
when my fingertips
leave trails
of goosebumps

if you dig deep enough
into the sand
i promise you will find yourself
uncovering
cosmos, beneath
half-formed palaces of earth
and ocean, lost for centuries
or perhaps
seconds
(who’s to say, really)

you will find, scattered
among the burning grains of
“i was a crystal
in another life”, a glittering
dust - remainders not of
life denatured, but
stars whose deaths
cannot yet be mourned

ours is a universe
that cannot be defined
(it’s no matter, of course, for
words
only ever tell
part
of the story)

i wonder what i would see
if i waded until my feet
were as much afloat
as the rest of me
and the sea
swallowed me whole - what
multitudes
are contained under the
surface (blue only to our
lackluster outsider’s
perspective), what
planetary infinite
lies with its arms around salt, grimy
only to those of us
who return to airy shores
at the end of the day
(if there are galaxies
behind your eyes, only
time
will tell)

i am
a romantic
cliché.

my eyes close
and yours
are there, shimmering
under beams of
dusty sunlight, blue
waves shushing
your lashes.

i want
moments
with you.

my heart calls out
for sunrises
sat on the hoods
of our cars
and sepia-tinted afternoons
on your bedroom
floor and
goosebumped midnights
beneath velvet skies.

i want your sleepy
grin, your hair
between my fingers. i
want your
lips on my skin.
i want your shuddering breath
in my lungs.

i would compose symphonies to
the beat of your pulse, if
you asked it of me.

the question is:
will you?

[she is everywhere.]

the twinkle in her eye
has diffused
into the atmosphere
and become an
element
of the air.

the sound of her
keeps me
warm
and her arms
are an orchestra
of their own.

i want to study her.

i want to
memorize
the muscles of her legs
and count her eyelashes
when she blinks.

i want to read
the curve of her
hips, create
new words
suitable
to define her shoulders.

i want to watch her
sigh, and feel
the clench of her jaw.

i want to wrap myself
around her and
introduce her to the sun.

[i want to understand
what it is
to hold her hand.]

i.
i want to tell you
that i think

ii.
you’re beautiful

(you are)
(i do)

iii.
but i’m afraid that you’ll
see past
what i really mean
and find the simplicity
of the words
more captivating.

iv.
i want to describe to you
the way in which my heart beats
when i hear the syllables
that form your name

but then you might
smile
with pity in your eyes

v.
because you know
that if i’m able to
say it

vi.
it’s probably already
a lost cause.

i.
i’ve been working on
breaking down the walls
that i spent
so long
building up, hoping
that she might
peek through the holes
and want to join me
in my abyss.

ii.
the others came instead.

i waved them over the mess
hesitantly
and tried to smile as they
surveyed what lay behind.

iii.
it was only as the clouds descended
and laid their tears
across the pavement
that i felt the pain
of letting the old stones
litter the ground.
lightning struck my
exposed chest
and the blocks
fired nerve endings
with every crack
of thunder.

iv.
the urge to line the bricks
and spread the
mortar is undeniable

v.
but i’m still waiting
for her

to come by and tell me
that i don’t need them.

i.
i wake up
and i miss you.

ii.
the space just
below
my throat aches as my heart
tries to inch
up and out my mouth  to get to
where you are.

iii.
i think about you too much - more so
than would be expected of me
and my position - but there is no one
i can imagine
who would

iv.
blame me.

v.
your smell lingers on my rags
and your tears stained my cheek and

vi.
i really can’t
tell
if you know.

the idea of you
follows behind me
a pace and a half; far
enough that i can step
forward without trouble
and close enough
that i can’t shake
the goosebumps from
my skin.

vii.
my natural response is
no response

viii.
and my lungs burn
with the effort of
screaming for you.

ix.
i’m falling up and over
and my sense of
direction
has never been
reliable.

x.
my fingernails are bloodied
from scratching at walls
and dented
with bite marks.

i never meant
to think of your
teeth
or your lips, yet

xi.
my nerve endings hum
when your fingers brush
mine. my chest
creaks as
velvety wings try
to force their way out.

xii.
i searched
and you
were there - clawed
your way under
my scales and
armor
without shifting
even one
of your
dusty cells.

xiii.
your eyes danced
with a light
reflected in the
fire.

xiv.
i looked and
i saw you.

xv.
i blinked
and i loved you.

you told your heart, “listen
to logic.”

you hated the storm clouds
that thundered over your head
and loosed rain
on your dusty windows.

you had it all wrong.

the sun is bright
but it burns - inch your way
out of the atmosphere
and you’re scalded
through and through
the moment you get in its way.

night settles because
it’s only in darkness that
stars get their chance
to shine.

i do not sleep
on a bed of bones.

i want for us
to belong to each other.
not you to me and me
to you, necessarily
but the both of
us, separately, to belong
to an entity that is us
both, together.

i want filtered sunlight
and sunday
afternoons and
lying on the floor
-heads together, feet pointing
in opposite directions-
with music
quiet
in the background.

the things you look for
cannot be found
in my shadowy lips.
my secrets are not hidden in
the crevices of my
skin.

my breath quakes
as it tries to force itself
down my throat
and i do not have the lung capacity
to whisper platitudes
into your neck.

the link between creativity and
pain
is one that i tried
so fervently to sever.
no one had to tell me
that there would be
no fruition.

(if knowledge were strength
i would have carried
you all
on my back.)

my depth perception varies
day to day
and the idea that
everything extends
endlessly
inwards and out
reminds me that we were
never meant to
understand.

(all things are true
if enough people
believe in them.)

i was never the real thing.

but then
neither were you.

i have a warped vision of love.

my heart is too heavy
to carry
inside my chest
and so i break bits off
as i would pieces of a
sugar cookie to share
with those who might
appreciate it.

i get lost inside myself, the marrow
that twist through my bones, the
vessels that
redden my cheeks.

i’m slick with guilt over
the things i can’t control
and today’s tears
feel like falling back in time
because their explanation is ugly
and therefore doesn’t exist.

(i hope it’s true
that linear time
is just
an illusion.)

feeling whole
was never something
i could keep a grip on.

(i can’t help it.)

rustle my leaves. you are
one of few i trust
to push me
without knocking me
over. be the wind
that sways my branches.

shift beneath my
toes. uncertainty
is all that can be
counted on, i’ve
learned. be the grains
of sand that stand
solid
but relaxed
and carry me across
the surface.

wash over me.
i know you
and i am weightless
despite the stones
i carry. be the sea
that salts my skin
and drifts my body
into oblivion.

i.
there are two
different
faces that i see
when i close my eyes.

both are lovely
and bring mist
along with their
heartache

ii.
but neither will
bring their gaze
to meet mine.

iii.
she saw me, once.

iv.
i retreated
into myself, as i
always
do.

v.
i fixate, i
know.
it might be a
coping mechanism.

but her lips
were beautiful
and her hands
fit
in mine
and i think

vi.
i might have loved her.

vii.
i saw her, once.

she squeezed back
when i took
her hand, and

viii.
i still have
the piece of her heart
she slid
across the wood
into my grasp.

ix.
i see them both
when my subconscious
has the reins. (it
makes me wonder
if, perhaps, i
haven’t quite rid myself
of the self-hatred
i’d shed with the season.)

x.
(i’ve been
teaching myself
not to
blink.)

i.
i ask you only
to remember me
as a statue
in that
despite the earth’s
rapid
furious
careening through space

ii.
i am still.

iii.
i appear made of
stone, sometimes, but you need
only tap me on the shoulder
to know.
(life leaves its
marks and
sometimes bandages
don’t do it justice.

iv.
sometimes walls have doors
that can only be
opened
from the inside.)

v.
your heart weighs on you
for each day
it is filled further
and you daren’t let any
spill over. but what
you must remember, dear
friend, is that

vi.
as the universe of possibilities
extends forever
outward, so does
that space in your chest
reserved for such things as
love, inward.

vii.
i am here. i stand
at the head
of your terracotta army, laying
in wait underground, unmoving
until called. i am
dust
and i am dirt
but i am one of many, and

viii.
i will protect you.

you with your
ink
and your words
which drift over air, carried
on currents of
seamless eloquence.

ix.
i am a
statue, in that
i can always be found.

x.
i am still.

you
aren’t real.

the fist that
closes around my heart
when your face
appears in my mind
is a simple
projection

(albeit, one i am
content to
believe).

the pictures on the screen
have been gathering
dust
and grown blurry
with time.

(lights flicker
but the mirage won’t go.)

it’s been two weeks, and
i miss you.

and i miss you.

i know
i know i know

it was never my place
it was never going to be
me.

tangibility
was a made-up word
but i thought
maybe
if it sunk its fingers
deep enough
into my flesh
the line between
“probable”
and
“plausible”
might fade enough to cross
with a bridge built of
“maybe”s.

i’ve a bad habit
of only letting myself
ache
for the things that are
so minutely
out of reach.

(a heart half-cracked
a mind
beaten down
a life twisted by fate.)

just once
i closed my eyes and smiled
because really
aren’t all injuries the same
if they heal?

[simon says jump.]

would it surprise you
to know, i
wonder, that when
my mind wanders from
the space
that surrounds me
it goes on
magnificent journeys
to find you?

the first thing i saw
when i
first saw you
was the way
you crossed your fingers
when you smiled.

[simon says stop.]

(you are safe
with me.
lace our hands
into a ladder
of bones
and don’t let go
until we’ve found
the top
and it’s time
to leap.)

[simon says touch your head.]

would it
surprise you to
know, i wonder, that
you’ve drifted
in and out
of my subconscious
but when i rise
in the afternoon sun
your role has faded
to little more than
existence?

[simon says stand on one foot.]

(i’ve been affected
in the most
basic
and essential ways.
you wrote your name
over my head and
grounded me.)

i wait for you
in the dark. you try
so hard, but i
strain my eyes, beat
my toes on the ground
hoping for a sign
that you felt
the humming
of my nerves.

(your arms were anchors.)

[simon says stop.]

it was clear
from the beginning
that we were
not
a match.

(years
mean a lot
to the world
and my stride
was much
longer
than yours.)

yet from those first
simple words
there was so much
more
to be said.

(i’m an old soul
with a
young
heart.)

there was something
in your expression
the day the mail truck
passed by your door.
i saw the clouds
that threatened your eyes
with rain
and suddenly your hand
was a magnet.
no sound escaped my lips.
all i wanted
was to envelop you.
it was instinct, a
force
inside my chest.

(who am i
to deny nature?)