a fever trembles through me soft madness, river of joy to see you, half-asleep like origami all folded up and delicate, beautiful bones in sharp lines my paper-cut heart of the sun.
i’ve seen the shapes and lines of your fear mismatched animal in a glass jar the world rattles you but you don’t wail; your wide moon eyes paint more than this: you are so much, you are everything.
the nest of your arms thaws me; you crack my air wide open when you speak rearrange the needles in my chest, cotton voice lined in mirror shards --
‘survival comes in many forms.’
show me, then allow me to know your lonely, thicket-veiled garden the orchard you fed your blood and hid your hunger in, until you picked me.
you gnawed at the peaches but spat out the pits like they were a secret you couldn’t keep. explain to me, how you kept that slow shivering spring all to yourself; that graceful richness that gentle strength they couldn’t carve right out of you.
less than these things all clotted me but you still freely flow jagged child, true heart of mine -- unto yourself endlessly. you’re not peaceful but you are kind. your kind is my kind and i am yours.
(my lungs want your lungs like my lips want your nape like my ribs need your ribs like my hands need your face. your wrists and tongue and sorrow find their twins in mine.
you drench my body in swollen love -- your body, swollen, drenched -- you grant me the seas of your skin blushing sweetness, teeth-baring grin spilling clouds of wit against my neck when you move --
i am offering you my bare forever.)
sink into me, remarkable prince of starlight -- for when you fight or when you rust my cup is full.