these candy-painted lips

this gum drop smile

kneaded out of thoughts through the nights

left by the indents of lingering fingertips

###

I gazed at her

as she slowly, surely, unconsciously,

peeled the batter off my face

leaving nothing but

her vanilla touch

the more you ask me if I’m okay,

the more I will think I’m not.


and the more inclined

I will be to smile

and say

*‘yes’.

today
I went to the beach in search of epiphany.

I was hoping to find her among the clouds,
witnessing her morph into an ivory shape that would
probe my unconscious into fashioning
some big epiphany
out of her silver linings,
relentless against the beating winds.

or perhaps

unearth him beneath the patterns of cracks in rocks; and
he would weave a veiny trial to
lead my psyche into navigating
the big epiphany
after testing his infallible focus,
relentless against the beating waves.

instead
I felt the sea spray tease my toes
the maritime breeze whip my face
the scraggly sand stab my heels
the roaring waves crash against the jagged cliff

I did not find epiphany.

all I found
was that again

**I felt small.

with you

light is a feeling
laughter a colour
a kiss both a question mark and an answer

as you wrap around me
our fingers entertwined
bodies shackled in a tangle no fate can unwind

the world is a bubble
your scent my sight
your eyes the stars that have never shone more bright

your lips my elixir
your cheeks my sprite

with you
nothing else can seem more right

you're so perfect

she said as she
breathed in
my skin

like air.

step 1 of 1:*

write your simple thoughts
in loathing disregard of
poetic sticky sweetness

breathing underwater has become a learned activity

those that you know but you never grasp fully

and if you do not hold it properly

it will

s
      l
              i  
                 p

from your grasp,

t
                                u
            m
             ­            b
l
                                             i
                   n
g

back to the arid land

that is my chest.


*

everyday I relearn the art

of breathing underwater

some days are more successful than others

others I drown in my relentless tears

others still, I succumb to the numbness in my leaded limbs

following blindly the static in my vision