your heart unmasks
to a dagger, already deep into my atriums,
until my muse is replaced
with the bleeding, and each stanza
is your shadow

in shackles. a poem is just a poem
until you perceive it
out of paper—in the silence,
scratching against your skull—until

it begins to burn, your body
bright-blue beneath, your secrets
streaming out like incense—until
it is a grave, with you
more alive in it.

a poem is just a poem until it bites,
until it howls, until it makes
our memory its metaphor
for midnight.

The sun must have reached low to prepare
our paths, as we walked those grandeur
streets, how it simmered the wind mild
and warm, to embrace the moment as its child;

how it forged halos around your cheeks
as you smiled, painting heaven on those peaks
& august bloomed in the lake, where my hand
kissed your fluttering feet—I felt it expand

till it was too leaden for my palms, and it drained
away into a moment in time, but you remained,
steeped in memories & my deliquesced heart
whose tides would fail to let you sail apart.

december is the dust dripping from the body
of a closed book, dry and dreamy
like an opening—like the dent
on your doughnut dimple, our lips,
loose from loving, luminous
from our icy irices
igniting;

it is what spills after the storm—
a sweet slice of sky, its silhouette
soft and soothing
like silence.

now, the moon is mounted as a mistletoe
on the tender twig of midnight, now,
our dreams, draped in december dew,
are cold kisses of eternity.

see as december drags the dead
back to breath—our bodies,
bruiseless and born

out of the broken,
wiping afresh in the white,
wet wool of winter.

There’s a holocaust
sweeping through my body
but i call it
love,

strap myself to its stake
as a sacrifice, relish
how its fire

dignifies me,
how the tongue-like torso  
of my scent
rolls out to taste
God.

You, with the hot air
for hair, you
with the sparking skin,
feed my flames,
you

hearteater, the mouths
on your cheeks
open wide
& I enter, as if to join
the rest of me; see

how all that is left
circulating in my veins
is your voice; my body,
now inanimate,

an instrument for your
heartsong—hear
its cinders sing like
cicadas—here

is the sequel to your stones
thrice striked.

The furniture here: a space
aching to wear your texture

once again. By night
it is my grief—an ambush

of ghosts. What grace
shall I turn to? Behind

every sacred canvas
on this wall I have traced

out your face. The
webbing of these cracks

I keep neglecting
so I can gather a living

symbol of what spiraled
between my wants

& your wading away from me.
There is nowhere to move onto.

I have sealed the door
to the stairwell of my spine;

my body a basement
brimming with aloneness.

There is only this ribbed
window through which I stare

at a larger window stained  
with the moving trace of you.

I am ready
to ring your rib

around my wrist
in triumph—

the faintest of relics    
enliven me. My lips

still layered
as in the night you lost them.

I hope to hammer  
your heart

& stuff its soil
in the sutures

of your skull;
I want to call that

the shadow to
kintsugi;

I want our memories never
to seep; to set

them up for decryption.
Unloving is a study—

consider an archaeologist’s
tentative hands

demystifying an artifact
once treasured for its secret

& leaving no spots
behind.

I await the calm, the bleach
of night, that chapter

when my ribs
unbreak, crawl back

around my cageless heart. eyelids
weigh like lead in this cruel gravity--

they swell faster than tears. tears
that fail to surge me out of this flooded

shell; they close
like every marble door

that stands straight between my dreams
and I,

           and you-- I await
you, draped in downpours & monsoon

tempests; maybe, this time, our wildest
winds would fade out in their collision.

if I were a god, I’d—

be solved, frame finished, insides intact
like those of an engine running smoothly, carry
this heart as heaven, with legions of love
imbuing beloveds at the flutter
of my belly butter-

flies; these
dreams as dynasties,
ever-flourishing; these creatures titled
thoughts, staying steadfast and faithful
to the tenets of my temple,
unfolding their fortunes

—be all that I am suited for

but I am stifled spells locked within flesh,
rickety humanity,
an ocean tucked into a jar—roaring
and rising, with no moon to
chase, no clouds
to visit;

and so with sharpened dreams,
with the longing for an escape, I cut strings
from my vessel,
but end up with a severed self
and a reality in ruins

and so with a turgid heart,
with a heart that keeps swelling and
searching and spreading
into too many chests, I shatter
in seasons.

oh, but even a god would be jealous
of how I keep splitting
and bleeding with so much love
left to live for, with so many dreams
destined to die for—

much more godly it
is to triumph like a god
in human body.

sky, a sea;
the sun is a ship sinking
slowly
into slumber  

& i’m a seed
sleeping
on soiled sheets,

sproutless, seeking the solace

of silence,
the nascence
of night—
the delight

in drawing dreams from dust
to dusk into day
into divinity;
in withdrawing

to the wild and wondrous
womb of waking.

submerged in a cascade of
cacophony, my pieces wade
like fish, into semptember's silvery net
so its plundering pull would heave them
                                                          ­       out
from their misery, grant them purpose
in the mouths of fortunes, that gobble them
as delicacies;  they wither, till my egg-fragile
                                                          heart
unravels itself, savors the warmth
of the virgo sun, and hatches
immaculately, into me.

the soul likes
when I dress him up like this:
few vowels,
more consonants,

syllables, and all the rest
that float
on the white clouds
of dreaming

on the red waters
of the heart.
he could hide, of course,
but would rather

show off scars and slashes.
naked, colorless being,
he needs
the glitter of language,

rhyme and rhythm,
similar, succeeding sounds;
he needs poetry’s depth,
beauty

and immortality
and the lucid glare of eyes,
substance
and stimuli,

to exist
to be more than a song
that plays
in silent frequencies—

so he flows—
from the deep of feeling
washes out burdens
like a mighty stream;

and unto paper
blooms up the slick and scented
petals of pain
like rain.

To peel off your soft skin, mold it
into armor, let the blood gush out
until it fills your cup, and you gulp it in
as medicine; to pluck out your silenced
tongue, watch it slither across blank
pages, as it paints them scarlet-sweet
like your heart; to **** the trauma, bury it
under words, but make it immortal
on the same paper.

body blazing, he roams
with flames for feet, drags earth
behind his back, as in magma
melting mountains, as in moon
pulling, seas shifting; skull swinging
open
        like windows
                             at dawn—

all gloaming, sun slept on the satin sheets
of his mind; make merry the morning
melody till it awakes, it wakes—

he weeps, tears trickling like candle-wax
dripping from its flicker. he flares
& firmanents fall through the fumes,

bruised, blinded
—burning bush for his
banquet.

ash and cinder know not
his swelter. he bore the heat now
he becomes the fire.

⠀⠀1
snow spills
like stars shredding onto soil.
suddenly I’m sinking,
& the world weighs like a wound
wrapped in the white, wet wool of winter;

      2
autumn appears in amber, already
pulling out my pieces—
again, it aches;

      3
death dawns in darkness
& I dance, drenched of the desire
to dream—breathing and breaking
bonded before, now they birth
a boundless burden;

     4
night
nests its nails into my neck;
& I’m bone-broken, body-bloodied,
sprawling scarlet across my skin;

     5
eclipsing with you,
I lose my light, looking for love,
& all of my colors cease to conceive;

     6
sun sits
on the saffron spine of summer
but the melancholy doesn’t melt away,
dreams do;

     7
skies spout
my sorrow in spring—
garnished with green grounds, I grieve.

show me how to wear diamond
dreams without trembling
beneath their weight.

I am a pebble, peeled off
from a peak, fraying and falling,
faltering at its feet. end up

locked between the lips of
married mountains; eyes
hinged to the sky, feet sinking

into earth, chest caving into
a coffin where my heart hides
its head. as despair crawls
in to devour the decay, I linger

between the decomposition, dead
to dust to soil—waiting
to bloom again.

Surely, that sunset is only
his lemon heart falling down

the globe. Love, how you draw the red
from his aorta, smear it

over his center. Surely, this slow sneaking
darkness is only ink spilling to grieve

his beloved—see how metaphors rip that fluff
to constellations; their twinkle would trace

her torso; her treasures; her tales.
& earth would shut its mouth

to listen to his star-studded silence,
would stare as color fades

to soul. Surely the sky is not
so different from me.

here, time is a truck
with waxed wheels. but it
keeps pacing, keeps paving the path
to destruction; in dreams, I pluck

myself from its sheath, let it sweep
over me like a tide; on the
ground, I gather my garments,
as stones and seashells, slip

into their ethers, where eternity
waits. here, pyramids don’t converge
as they taper; they tunnel
like a lair that has lost its lucidity

& I’m wandering within their walls,
clueless, clouded—a captive child
eager to escape into enlightenment,
or another dream, where bliss befalls.

this is a paper-dream gobbling
reality—down to its
bone, bruised bare & bleeding.

falling is the color
of a naked heart, dipped
in cobalt dreams & violet
yearnings; bruises blooming

in amber, coagulating red roses;
marrow fueled & exposed, as it rises
—golden-yellow like the waking sun
with olive desires & an indigo passion;

it is in the merging of pigments into bright
light, brutal and blinding, but full of delight.

the pillow hearts me redder than you do,
      crowns my dreams regal over murky lands,
from somber realms to the wake of blue;

into her clasp, my wingless wishes skew,
      as her cuddle bids two ears to my demands,
oh, the pillow hearts me redder than you do;

she seethes my mind, till dreams vapor thru’
          the sky, bodies pitching, wings for hands,
from somber realms to the wake of blue;

they gnaw unto the moon, shave its bare into
     mirrors, reflecting the truth, so I understand
that the pillow hearts me redder than you do;

in her cradle, dismal storms I can't subdue
      so she showers the sorrow out of my glands
from somber realms to the wake of blue;

and when my barrels empty, floods issue
   upon her, but she stems peace from her sands
for the pillow hearts me redder than you do,
from somber realms to the wake of blue.

you are the hand
hauling back
my cries. my mother’s
mother hardened
from dust.
you are almost
my eyes.

you are not sky
or frozen air.
i suspect  
you have no skin.

love is my left
wing smacked
on your pane
that i mistook
for an open door.

i let the nights
do their undoing
of my feathers into light.
maybe this way
you would welcome me.

Still, you are a muted morning
cradled like a mango—yet

to yellow—in the basket
of my ribcage. May your tongue

have no take from
these tomorrows that taste

of teeth. Dawn where the red ash
stings, fetch your face

from the flames;
if you are fleshed with mine,

flay it off—slowly
you would bleed your own

light. If the night
strips itself of its black dress

and hangs it on your heart,
do not be afraid

to wear it. & When
the weight of your warmth

brings the dust *******  
your knees, kiss

me back, & heal,
rise still.

I never meant to fall

but sunrise greased your chassis.
The crest and fall of your jaw—

the blade and bend of it,
mudslide contouring of it—

dropped me ribless at your feet.

O promising land, crisp field  
of flesh, whose fireflies

steered my eyes in the darkness—
your land, where my eyes had strayed—

scaled over eolian caves, the slick
basins of your clavicle, onto
the hexa hillocks clustered
like honeycomb chambers
on your abdomen.

I never meant to fall,

but the cursive lines of you,
I might have trod with loose eyes—

even now, there is a voice
drawing them to strike
at the aquifer beneath your waistline,

voice of vined thirst,
of torso and tug—
with them, I struck and drowned

when you trickled, the past pulled from my eyes,
hung like (f)lashes from my eyelids—still
growing with my face, still
oscillating old images

of mama’s smile, sunken
in dimples, deep as her love for me
as a promising oasis—how
she’d ooze her only moisture
to quench my thirst,

of my little legs leaping
up the stairs, after weeks separated from home,
hoping to find mother, healed,
grabbing me into a hearty hug,

but rather finding
dad, direly drained by grief,
a grand gathering of greasy eyes,
silence, sobbing, and the sweaty sequel of
i’m sorry, we—

it was the day of her funeral,

& i was a five-year-old, already wondering
what it means to be a child without
a mother, what it means
to live to die

i let you drip into her grave, wishing
i could go along with you,
with her

but look, i’m rather
going along her prudent path,
stretching it to all the painful, all the pleasant
places,
striving to complete it

& though it’s tough
to walk this wicked world,
i’ll pass the peak,
wearing mother’s wounds
as wings.

press your ears to the green
of your eden. listen
to hell, its realness. it is the feeling  

that I write from. a distant burn
that blinks in the blackened
pages of his chest

as a star—only a piece
of the map that has led his heart
to yours, only a sliver to be scrapped  

by sunrise. I could speak of this:
his garden, the teeth around its margins,
or the way I waded near its grin,

with both eyes unbuttoned & my soft
heart worn inside-out. but your flesh
is ivory, & where it tapers, a key

to his own. but your throat is flute
enough to tread through his walls. listen.
I will speak of the wild heart

holding you. I have touched it
with my shadows, the deep
rays of my dreams. I have been

to its shrubs that whirl about
like wicks, the ponds full of laughter,
& the caves with leaping  

tongues. they are mystery
& aplenty. I could not quench them,
but you will, you will. if one

day, as you lay in his fields,
I stumble over his sky like a word
on fire. remember,

love, to make of me,
a better wish.

what else but to scrape soil, trail your thumb, etch a vision onto dust;

what else but to close eyes, dive down dizzying depths, drag limbs back ashore;

what else but to friend the fire, hug the heat, sing the storm to sleep;

what else but to hold your hand, hear your heartbeat, taste the tip of your tongue;

what else but to wipe wounds, shed skin, build nests from broken bones;

what else but to keep breathing.

as autumn plants her feet,
cities burst into smoke, shades
and silence, until I can only sit
& grieve as a ruby-dream fades

into the mist; tell me this is earth
breaking feasts to mark the birth
of our bond, tell me this remains
the season where hearts rain

like leaves as they, as we, fall
in love beneath golden trees
& we'll only need to loosen our all
to cling tighter than we please;

tell me that when the perils flee,
you'll return, arms open-- tell me.

Done, ends stitched in a seam—set
to be worn over yourself.
A stain so bright, you sparkle.
Too far forward to flip. The sipper,
the straw, the soda. Bleeding ink
every blink, but still brimming.
Ripped apart like a rainbow.
A love letter to life still
in the works.

So dead you’re divine.
Only visible in the love-light.
Weird as a plant that bites
the bully, as a phlox
sprouting through sand.
Wingless like wind, fin-less
like a fluid. Lost but
listening to your own heart.
Found.