you stranger,

you becoming stranger,

your voice the

heart-beat spindle’s threadbare pull,

pulsating in green-light chorus,

washing me in and out of the shore

of an intangible reality

that i think you not only live in,

but that you’ve created for yourself,

cloth of blood and crystalline light

and layer

upon layer

of memory

that may or may not have happened.



i dream of having my own palace in the

inverted sky;

i’d be the taste that

you try to swallow away,

the flickering guilt of

the candle you forgot to blow

out when you left the room—

you left me in the light.



i’d coax that tendril of

half-thought half-baked

slightly-worn

feeling,

weaving it

through the syllables of my fingertips.

the drumming of my hands

across impatient countertops would

keep the time,

and you’d grow in rhythm.



i’d smile,

the smug, gap-toothed knowledge

that comes from molding the inarticulate

summation of

yourself,

you, who i have never met.

our eyes would meet across the infinite

cliff of a space between words,

and that would be enough.



i’d like to be able to leave

the sound of my voice in the

crook of your elbow,

jarring your step as

you try to look past the horizon,

and only see my

tower of

words—

i want to be your babel, baby.