Your name burns
at the base of my stomach,
it tastes like flames
when I say it
but I continue to swallow,
big gulps
that drown out the ringing in my ears

I wonder what it would have felt like
to kiss your lips,
taste the fire in your heart
blood red lust
like innocence dressed in her mother’s lipstick
to trace the outline of your freckles
on soft uncharted skin,
I wonder what it would have felt like
to be your cartographer
to sail the high seas in your iris
and find sand in between my toes
after every visit

I keep imagining the things I would say
if we had met at a different time
I could have started by throwing matches
into your puddles,
and noticing how you smile like sunlight
glinting of the ocean

you are across the world
exploring,
mapping your own skin
and sailing with a crew called options,
they beckon your name
and make you forget that our hands ever brushed,
that we ever exchanged smiles
like two preschoolers
making engagement rings out of fruit loops,
you’re standing tall and brave
shrouded in the peace of letting go
while, I,
wait at the port
for you to return
knowing at the base of my stomach
that you will pass me by on your way home.
“land, **!” means refusing to
acknowledge my tedious “hello”
you will step on my apologies
like the creaky old boards of a ship,
and I will become the tide
lapping at your bare feet

Kiss me.  
                                 Kiss me, soft, as I am… passing.  
          kiss me while my lips are burning, while I yet believe in romance
                                  with soft blush face,
                                                                ­ hammer heart,
                                                                ­                        sloppy eyelashes.



                     Lift me.  
   Lift me like a child on stilts, elevated above the feeble dreams of adults
                                            with tendons taught,
                                                                ­  fingers splayed,
                                                                ­              playing my hair like seaweed


bless me.
                              bless me with your consciousness,
          with your most pensive furrowed brows
                                                         with your aspirations
bless me with your future.

Feed me.  
                                    Feed me at my bedside—but not just tepid broth.
                       Feed me the window view
                                                     when my eyes forget to flash,

Feed me the sky

Free me.  
                          from the IV,
                                       the monitors,
                                                          the smell of chlorine

          So that it may be you and the moon
that sing my last lullaby.

Somedays, the tide only laughs
at the sandbags we put up.
When the ocean of emotion
breaks with waves above our hearts,
we swim or drown.

The swell of current overrides
and riptides pull us down.
Move parallel to shore against the tide
till firmer ground is found.
Swim.

r ~ 4/6/14

if i could write the way that you'd speak
my days of slinging beer would be behind me
     and i'd be sinking my teeth in to my third or fourth release

i just can't remember your voice

but i do remember your eyes
and if i could paint anything as gorgeous
as the way that you saw the world around you
     i might finally understand what you were always trying show me

i'm miserable at sorting through clues
     though i have been spending nights on end
sifting and measuring the magic of you
that still can't evade me

Enter softly, she spoke to me, twisted like fungi on a tree trunk. For every spot of desert there's an ounce of ocean to fit inside it. Our tunnels will meet someday I told her. Do not be afraid reading this, doom can be sweet as a garden or smelly like an eye ******.

My abdomen is creased with age and tourniquets. Every time...I tie myself to a lamp post and wait for my Master to come with the next direction. I eat sugar cubes, carrots, and stand eight feet- so dive with me. I am a Pisces. I have been built to swim and suffer intolerable cruelties. Break me with your hand, your closed fist, a strap of leather, a bagful of flour. I am not the valor of   your toothbrush or table cloth. I do not follow the sunset home, instead I fly over the bayou, scouting for sandpipers in the low tide.

Looking at the telephone for you to appear, playing the songs of you in my head. I hear you, I remember the airports, the MCA, the head holding, and the longing. In place of reality, I choose your colors boldly and stuff them tightly into my left lapel and chest breast pocket. You are superior evidence that I exist.