when I was a child I was told that the earth and I were water, so I grabbed a snowflake between my fingernails and pried its glassy bones apart, wondering if I would see in its chemical flow some evidence that I was anything more than a droplet of mist on the hair of your memory's arm

( but today, I find it comforting)

from behind my eye I glance at her and wonder with what shades she sees the world
and I think about how tightly she grabs her body,
as though her heart were falling out,

through her tissue skin I see that her blood is grey,
her brain is grey,
her grey guts spilling like inky oily sludge and flooding even the sun,

in april, living in an endless december, the weeds now soggy in her veins,

and as I peer into this rippled reflection I wonder how my little fish soul,
moving only with the pull of the stream,
lived in that lightless world of death

are you there?

listen, i'm going deaf, you can go on without me,
i need to wait out the post-sound cacophony in my ears,
to clear out the sonic clutter,
the finely-braided metal radio chains in my head, you know -

it's soothing, the sound of silence, it's bliss, that rich, negative space -

you go on ahead, and after the war,
the ringing detonations,
and the harmonic riots,
after the static on my tv is carefully rearranged
grain by grain into a colorless frame of the past,
a pointillistic polaroid,
maybe i'll catch up, that is,
if i can somehow hear the world again

you, the one who is fluent in the language of my flesh, temples to neck, hips to         heels

        who cradles my name on your tongue like a peppermint, your chapped         lips twisted into a grin

        who carries ***** words around in a matchbox then dances dangerously         around my body of fire

        who, with plaid cotton patches of tan and rust, muffles my mouth and fills it         with sweet ash and dust

will surely be the death of me

Delicate breeze brushing through trees
(if you're quiet, you can hear)
Frogs conversing
(cricket sparklers crackling)
People hustling
(by the rolling ocean roads)
The sky is clear, a blank slate
(if you squint, you can see)
Stars begin to etch themselves in the marble
(yellow threads of old light)
The spring air sweeps the chalky clouds away
(floating down the back alleyway)

i was motionless like the moment just before a storm
my hair clinging to the sheets, my eyes on the ceiling
and my hands draped above my head in a solemn halo;

my blue gasping fingers swallowed your kisses and
my mouth filled up greedily with your breath and
my body consumed every thought you gave to it;

in a dusty sweet voice, your words enslaved me politely
as the blankets of stars wrapped us up with love
and the rain courteously offered its applause

once when we were speaking candidly
in the car or maybe at breakfast
I told you how much I love the you
that comes out at night in your room,
the Bogeyman beneath your glasses who
leaps out of the shadows and, like a
ravenous beast, topples me over to
devour my tasty flesh —

you shrugged at my suggestion and I
wondered if it ever occurred to you
that your lust simmers so near the
surface on those nights that smell
so heavily of *** —

when I asked if you noticed any
Bogeyman in me, you only admitted
that I become more “blunt”, not
commanding, necessarily, but
straight-forward and concise —

it makes me think of those shivering
nights without clothes when we haven’t
made it beneath the covers yet
as something like a ritual where we
shed our daily roles and put on
those of the beast and his master,
where I conquer you and clean up
your spoils, leaving only a
slick orange sweater and a
hasty a capella symphony, a
prelude to sweet and somber slumber.

oh entropy, i am a leaning tower.

     i am a patchwork raincoat
     i tried to fill the holes
     with someone else's fabric
     but the rain comes in hard
     and my patchwork is destroyed

     i am made of brick
     and slowly i am being disassembled
     one crumbling red slab after another
     until fragments of me
     lay scattered and naked in an unsightly pile

     i once stood tall
     carrying my own weight
     carrying your weight too
     i once had strong shoulders,
     strong mind, strong heart

          but i am a leaning tower
          and slowly i am being dismantled
          my patches are being dissolved
          and i am returning to Nothing,
          to a place where i can be rebuilt.

the color red was never so warm
     until you taught me how to fall into it,
     until you wrapped me up in its richness,
     until you.
the morning was never so gentle
     until it began to tangle our bodies together,
     until even its light couldn't part us,
     until you.
the parts of me that were missing pieces
     were never so full until you filled them,
     until you showed me what I was missing,
     until you.

our home was a ship.
I loved our red sails
and every creaking board.
we took turns as its captain
to chart the gentle, desolate sea.
the morning sun was warm
on our bare and rosy shoulders.

our home was a ship
away from which I have been torn along with mossy memories and bleached sea shells,
and though I cling to this debris in hopes that it could lift me up out of this choking unfamiliarity
I still sink further,
my body numb
and breathless,
up to my bare
and icy neck
in the foggy darkness
of the cold,
deep,
and begrudging water.

our home was a ship.

my home was our ship
and I am stranded -
stranded, but even now,
our red sails and
creaking boards and
you are a misty silhouette on the horizon.

your peacefully sleeping body is unaware
of the breath-taking gratitude I carry;
as July daylight settles upon the landscape
of your softly rolling bones, I meditate:

even the warm crimson sheets don’t know
of the tender, reverent gifts which you gave me;
that gentle evening, a delicate Love Dream,
my pieces became a whole and we shared in it:

my threadbare spirit slowly mends under the
meticulous lacing of your fingers together with mine;
my once-blind eyes blink into the bare clarity
of some uninhibited purity onto which we now hold:

and somehow, your enraptured, calmly sensual glow
still eclipses even the radiating fullness of my feelings;
the upturned corners of your smile and your contented voice
still brush the long-forgotten blush onto my cheek:

but even though I twist these words into the shape
of my adoration, they couldn’t shine brightly enough;
it does me well to simply thank you with my lips
in the sweetly-lit lightness of our happy silence.

silver beads of summer rain collect
on the silk petals of your skin
and in whispers i trace the dew
like a frantic scattergraph serenade

but the taste pools sweetly on my lips;
it trails warmly over my chest, dripping
into your eyes like a river symphony
against eager candlelight applause

then into the smoky midnight air
your breath flutters faintly and fades
like the shadow of a hummingbird
cast against the kitchen wall

i have been blessed with the beautiful burden
of being your first love;

i carry you in my heart like a pail of sea water,
salty drops falling down the sides as it
rocks in the gentle green tide, overflowing

and though my feet are pierced and burned
i tread on, cradling the pulsing newness
of your love, your naked and innocent heart

knowing that my love for you will give you strength
and one day you will return to the water to be free;
i have been blessed with the beautiful burden
of being your first love.

you may come to do or say something absentmindedly
that leaves a scar - a dark, chipped blemish on the porcelain white;
(but will you forgive it? Will you love it?
this is love.)

you may come to accept the past and future
as gifts which you cannot change or predict respectively
- and that hope is heavy like a second overflowing heart;
(but will you trust it? Will you love it?)
this is love.

the cricket sound of hot-love dusk,
the silently fluttering madness of moonlight,
it hides under her eyelids as she
presses her sweet lips to the night;

you tremble beneath the weight of her molten stare,
your teeth piercing the solemn reverence of her ashen heart --

oh, god, touch her
hands cold like ghosts
in your arms like a guitar, her
soul bleeds onto your naked chest
warm
breath
slow
breathe, oh Dawn, look,
your hot-love is fire;

two die
and one becomes

lay my tired body down
        into a coffin of empty verses
        built on broken winter promises
        and forgotten eyelash wishes


and fall my dreams like snow
        into the shadow of a bed,
        cold and dead, silently sleeping,
        weeping under the weight of the day


then walk my soul into the beautiful night,
        a silhouette of yesterday and the
        hazy oasis mirage of tomorrow,
        deep and dark like my grave

like the black fog that suffocated us that morning
carving a deep depression into your chest,
like the scar that's left behind by your smile and
the wet aching silence of your fear,
like broken ice on a bleeding wound and look
at you
look at you
lookatyou with your
love like daggers,
eyes like death
  
then like the hot acid touch of anger,
your miserable face sour bile in my head,
like my voice too loud in the slaughterhouse of your heart,
like the sick stench of rotting flesh, the corpse
of a poison promise made beneath bedsheets and look
at me
look at me
lookatme with my  
love like daggers,
eyes like ******"

what a radiant soul she is,
do you hear her sing?
  
She is slender, strong
and comes alive beneath your fingertips;
you lean into her
and she notices it,
she notices you.
  
the sound grows larger in her throat
so she swallows it,
crawling burning cold hot to her heart
and she feels it,
she feels you.
  
the pain sets her on fire like a star,
she screams your name, she screams into the dark;
your stare is silent, biting back the words
but she knows them,
she knows you.
  
what a lonely soul she is,
do you hear her sing?

I want to become the wind
I want to rush through you
kissing the corners of your eyes and tugging your hair
disappearing without a word

I want to become the strike of nine
I want to cry out for you
singing mournfully into the ignorant night
laying my hands on the heads of the weary

I want to become the wind
I want to move you
pushing you forward until your steps become easy
then I'll disappear without a word

everything about you is soft and radiant
like your smile, your silhouetted countenance;
the bright snake green that bites me from below
swallows the words that blossomed in my throat
  
if only i could give you rest,
a resolute peace that undulates through you
as my lips map the feelings i cannot impart
in haphazard lines over your bare beating heart
  
and as i walk alone you linger in my mouth
a deep red flavor, a taste of rust
and ribbons of warmth, a sweet moonlight gold
which let the colors of a gentle love unfold