i.
i still feel you in those times when i can drain the pain from my veins just long enough to smile, before it rips my skin and crawls its way back into my blood stream.

ii.
you are every poem i have ever written about love in a nutshell. you are so **** pretty. your pretty is a shredder, still ripping me to particles when all i want to do is sleep. forever.

iii.
i'd sing no doubt but you don't speak anyway. if i disregarded that though, would you see the irony? would you see that what i mean is i love you, i love you, i freaking love you, and i'm sorry i didn't try hard enough.

iv.
i still think you weave words like blankets for newborn angels. even when the blanket is wool, and it's itchy, and god babe, was that last poem about me? because if so, i want to ask if i'm a baby angel or if i'm just one or the other, a baby or an angel. because right now i don't feel like either, i just feel lost.

v.
you make me sick.

vi.
not because i don't love you.

vii.
i'd prefer you burn me with words instead of whipping my already scarred heart with silence. now my wings are falling off and i am falling apart with them. the cloud i'm floating on is pitch black and its on a pathway to something horrible.

viii.
i define fragility with silent sobs in the back of my throat. my wrists still throb even though for almost a year, i've been totally clean. the amount time i've been clean is coincidentally very close to coinciding with the amount of time i've known you, and i don't know if ever knew you because i never thought you'd just go like this.

ix.
i left for you. almost everything i do is for you- why don't you understand?

x.
i'm still not ready to say goodbye so the change in the weather tries to do it for me. it says that a new season means a new life, and since i didn't know how to live without you in the old one, maybe now i can learn to live without you in this new one.

xi.
this is almost a goodbye. one day, maybe it will be.

Life
Baffled.
What befell
Our civilization
Is hell. There is no heaven
When religion is mistaken
For a token of radicalism.

Death
Rejoiced
What brought her
Our people
In a living inferno.
There is no pourparlers
With terrorists and benighted
Souls.

Manchester
These people are heathens
No virgins await them up the heavens
But the cold-blooded sight of a bleeding earth
Stigmatizing those out there who protect their hearths
In tears, facing the West
This is a waste of our so called civilization

Jews
Muslims
Christians
Buddhists

We aren’t.
We are humans.

In the aftermath of the deadly attacks that befell Manchester Arena, May 23, 2017.
Lyon

I said no to the man,
  and made my own bed

I cut my own trail,
  with eyes straight ahead

In debt to myself,
  but thankful to all

My words freely spoken,
  their verdict my call

I beat my own rhythm,
  on multiple drums

I structured the lyrics,
  to sing and to hum

The nighttime began,
  what the mornings forgave

A living refusal,
  my back to the grave

The years have renewed,
  all memories collide

What was old, what was young,
  the truth and the lies

A comet yet burning,
  new verse in the sky

One word still an orphan,
  and homeless,
   —‘GOODBYE’

(Villanova Pennsylvania: May, 2017)

I saw the morning dew betwixt thine thighs
as I removed my source of Grecian power,
as if King Midas dared to touch the skies,
upon thy body fell a *******.

Thy body's temples, two church bells had rung
upon thy chest, a row of pearls bestowed.
The sun had set, thy set with wary hung
I thought, "How black a night, and blue a lode!"

I said, "What light through yonder ****** breaks?
It is the yeast!" And now my belly's yellow.
My pole gives cause to storms and earthy quakes,
but 'tis not massive, I am no Othello.

And when that final moment came to pass,
like Christ I came a-riding on an ***.

i can't fit between my hat and my boots and still you treat me like i am here - you think you need to face a certain direction for me to hear you and you think if you whisper quietly i won't feel the electricity moving from my face to yours and back and back and back

your toes tickling my toes (are these really my toes?) how can i be sure you aren't imagining that i am someone else? i have lined my stomach with reasons why i cannot think of someone else

my boy
can't help but worry
i do not want to be alone anymore

i want to inhale the rosemary of your aura until it settles into my veins. i want to bathe in the honey that sits in your voice. I want to drink you in/breathe your air until the two of us blend into one person, until your breath is mine.

god, i love you. i love you and i want to give you all of my good moments while still letting you into the bad. i just want to share my life with you.

one day i will memorize your skin and when i close my eyes, i will feel what it's like to be near you even though i am not. i don't know who i am, but next to you i like myself.

i want to tell you to close your eyes. i'll trace your eyelids with my thumbs, put your bottom lip in between my lips, and kiss you like you are an angel, because in some way you are.

i'm ******* glowing, like fireflies and faerie lights, i'm the sparkle in your eyes when you glance at me when you think i'm not looking. you're everything i can't remember, but i know.

i want a slow dance in october, i want whatever love that lies inside of your chest until you cave in. and i'll still love you when you're fragile.