When I die
I hope I'll begin to spread roots
As my soul
Is absorbed by the earth
And as I spread
Parts of me will
Begin to reach ever upward
As I begin to form
My canvas of emerald and gold
Everlasting
And forever growing
-
I will not be worried by strife, and
Fire will only serve for
New possibilities
As well as
The potential for growth.
I will become a sight
For others to behold
And feel at peace
Whenever they venture
Through my dappled sunlight
-
When I die
I hope to become more
Than just cold

summer nights are best spent with you.
greedily scarfing down ice cream,
watching our feet touch the sky from old playground swings.

and the ones in your mom’s car
-the soft music, the hard music
singing to melodies that we’ll never know.

each night, we feel each’s wishes.
i, i want to give you fairs, and cotton candy,
and hold your hand as we walk along the sidewalk.

i want to twirl you around,
because though we’re very summer friends
i want to keep you forever.

our feet scrape the gravel,
toes tap the sidewalk,
noses breathe in the air.

distinctly, i remember something
-us in a concert,
our shoulders brushing as we danced.

i remember laughing with you in the water,
because i hated being short,
so naturally i had to climb you.

i remember every year
we laugh away these nights,
until they become memories.

they, were, definitely,
polaroid worthy.
you’d give a blank look.

and then spring would come again,
and we’d be sitting in your mom’s car,
watching the sunset again.

remember this?

we are like stars, like dying embers,
clusters of us and only one
explodes.

my dreams have turned me into desire,
and i wonder where my desire will take me,
i wonder what my desire will make me.

will i be like star, or ember,
or will i be like the fireworks at night,
the ones no one notices until they explode.

that boom sounds like my heartbeat
-it’s still looking for a beat.
hasn’t found one yet.

hasn’t found one yet,
but it seems to beat for you.

darling, you know i love the stars.
at night, they light up the sky,
they’re brilliant and i can’t not love them.

you’re a star of mine,
brilliant,
but do you fade?

in the morning, will you still seem
bright,
or beautiful?

are you even there?

i’m scared you only glow at night,
and that my eyes will lose you,
and my heart will just beat somewhere else.

will you stay in the morning,
or will you be gone
like the fireworks last night?

you burst blackberries between
your fingers. blue juices, sweet somehow,
drip down the curve of your wrist, bleed
like ink over the soft lines of the palm,
skin-colored fortune tellers. the spilled
blackberries leave letters in their ink-paths
here; perhaps an anagram of my name.
now sun calls you daughter. she nursed
you in her light-womb, watched history
unfold on earth like a crane stretching
its feathers. dropped you like a blessing
and brought the first sunset, beckoning sky’s
cotton-candy pinks, sugar-coated cream,
freshly-squished blackberry colours. dancing
down your hands still, sweet, saccharine
ink; all earth’s berry bushes stretch their
twig-arms toward you. the apple trees
call you sister, pick you bouquets of
honeysuckle. sun warmed their blossoms,
they say. their smell is smooth and sugared,
melting in your rosy-fingered hands,
like soft slices of daybreak, snippets of
syrupy dawn. you are eve now, stretching
bare skin in twilight, opening love-laden palms to
blooming bushes of roses, plucking them from
their stems like petal-coated candies; the apex of
nature, zenith of earth’s creatures. a thousand
years wax and wane; beyond the limits of time,
you are one with sky, all the sweet seconds in
history condensed. you pop a blackberry
into your mouth, delicate ink-skin bursting.