i'm in a car with a beautiful boy,
and i keep telling him that i love him,
so it hurts.
he thinks it's platonic, thinks that i
couldn't turn the entire world
upside down just to show him
how wrong he is.
it's been a week, he says.
(i know this, and i know it hurts, so i
hold his hand except i don't,
not really,
because it all happens in my head)
i tell him, i know, i'm sorry.
and it feels like my hands are on fire
because all i want is to hold him;
i see the ashes leave traces everywhere:
on his face, on his hands, his arms,
his heart.
i blink and it's all gone.
i'm back in the car with the beautiful boy.
he reaches out and holds my hand
and my ribcage expands;
for once in my life,
this is something i cannot find a name for.

no one taught me
how to love
without the mandatory
'i love you's, without
fabricated appreciation
just because everyone else
was doing it,
no one taught me
the rawness of it all
how the feeling
consumes you like
fire and makes you
speak in a language
you never knew
you could speak

no one taught me
how to express myself
in ways that don't
slip between people's
fingers like water,
with palms up
heart cut out and bleeding
every pad and print
facing the earth
each vulnerability visible
from the stars

no one taught me
how to keep my emotions
running like a broken tap
because for years
i'd switch it off
once i thought i was done
dealing with them
and afterwards i'd never
want to run my hands
through the water
ever again because
i was scared to feel

no one taught me
how to love how
to express myself
how to feel
that once i loved
i burned like rome
i loved people more
than they would ever
love me, i'd always
love them too much and
once i learned how
to be vulnerable i
ended up tearing my heart out
and giving it to the
first person that
would listen
once i learned how
to feel i felt
too much to the point
of drowning my hands
rubbed raw from
running through
the water one too many times

no one taught me
how to live in greys
so i live in
blacks and whites
all or nothing
too much or too little
a constant push and pull -
i just want to be whole.

i just want to be whole.

my boy's got sunshine in his hair
and his mouth can rap pretty verses
he's looking up at the same sky
he's speaking in an entirely
different language but i can
understand how happy he is
his sharp canine smile
crooked in the light
his laugh is a lullaby i use
to sing myself to sleep
my boy's got galaxies in
his eyes and i still wonder
why i love the stars
my boy is a golden boy
and half of me
cannot compare to
half of what he is
someone once asked me
what i would love
about him if i
was given the chance
i pointed at his heart -
*"this, and so much more."

look into each other's eyes and count the galaxies in them. then remember that the universe constantly changes, and so do you.

the bible says faith
is the assurance of things
hoped for, the conviction
of things not seen.
how strange and yet
magical it is for us
to believe and remember
in things we do not know
the way the three kings
believed the star would
bring them to the child Jesus
the way people used to believe
that the phases of the moon
meant life, death, and rebirth
symbolizing the way a woman's
womb would swell once they
bear a child
the way we hold onto history
as if we are witnesses of
every horror and heartbreak
remembering the lost souls
using what we had to find out
what we will have
faith is total trust
and surrender
knowing that the world
began with adam and eve
but not knowing how it
will end
for the moon
the stars
our history
can only tell us so much
and our faith
is the honey found in heaven
the conviction that someday it
will be all we taste

i believe
i believe
i believe

(could have, should have)
darling when will you realize
that you cannot own time
that you can set clocks but
you can't control the rate
at which the arms will move
that time is not of this earth
that time never listens to anybody
it is its own mistress
time
doesn't want anything to do
with us and yet it's the most
important thing we have
time
carved itself into the velvet
of the universe
and made a home for itself
time
always seems to morph
into someone you love -
there's always the right time
always not enough time
always time and time and time
again
(could have, should have)
my darling time
is the repetition of the seasons
how everything changes but is
still the same
how we seem to stretch into our bones
but still feel how we did
my darling
time
sinks its teeth into our
could haves and should haves
feeding off the things
we wish we did
the things we wish
we could do differently
time
becomes our enemy
until we realize
that although it
will never listen to us
it will let us in
if we just let it.

46

I keep my pledge.
I was not called—
Death did not notice me.
I bring my Rose.
I plight again,
By every sainted Bee—
By Daisy called from hillside—
by Bobolink from lane.
Blossom and I—
Her oath, and mine—
Will surely come again.

I wandered blackout drunk lost
trading cigarettes for directions
from crustpunks who took swigs
from bottles of cheap plasticsugar alcohol

Muttering to myself in selfdefense
sublimating the toxic fire in my eyes
into soundwave echoes
bouncing off of plywood windows
and abandoned stolen cars

Angry limping at breakleg pace
down the heroinblessed streets
of yet another vibrant American slum.