the words i wished
would come out
of my mouth
tumbled out like
luna moths
and died the
morning after

the roses you got me
on valentines day
at the bottom of
my wastebin
in ashes

i can trace the space
where you were
once hugging me

on a chilly saturday
evening, on a
walk i caught the
whiff of a lonely
cigarette

i can’t help to
be reminded
of you

now i gather your
sweaters in
a laundry basket
your cologne permeates
tears

so when i wash them
i am left wondering

where did your scent go?

A series of numbers in which each is the sum of the two proceeding numbers. This is different than Pascal’s triangle.
The formula is as follows: Fn = Fn-1 + Fn-2, where n >1. It is used to generate a term of the sequence by adding its previous two terms.
Solve the following examples.

1. flowers
    little people in dresses
    dancing in the ballroom
    the world is on fire;
    we bend faster
    when the wind howls
2. hurricanes
    the ocean is quite
    warm
    i let myself
    sink
    the sky rips
    apart
3. pinecones
    in the bed underneath
    a mother
    her children gather
    snow for breakfast
    breakfast in bed
4. spiral galaxies
    the naked eye
    beholds the beauty
    of hands we no longer see
    blinded;
    we are drowning in light

the drive was
one hour
& ten minutes
not including traffic
& accidents along the way

the drive
went through a giant hill,
larger than
a hundred houses
stacked on top of one another

the freeway
lined the jungle
like a strip of lace
on a trim of velvet
only it wasn’t as lacy,
just as pretty as that

& the jungle
looked beautiful
and really took
my breath away:

all the green
and all the trees
lazily looping
about the
whole thing

emerging and then
we were creeping
toward the shore
which was a straight
jagged cut
to the ocean
like where the hairline
& my mother’s forehead
meet

and we cruised
right along the water
just a little
slow at first,
because my mom
is horrible with driving
anything not an suv

and i watched
the great blue
turn to green
against the
great brown
of the rocks
and the terracotta houses

sat right on
the shore
like children
too scared to
go in but like
dipping their
toes

“they’re all
in risk of
a tsunami hazard”,
my mom said
and i simply thought
that maybe they
chose it
for that reason
because the risk
offers a reward
so let them exist

that being said
— i’ve only ever known
land
but i was on the edge
& i wanted
nothing more
than to
leap in.

doors & how they swing so far wide
like the gaping shadow
of a pair of lips waiting...

i wonder if you realized i felt the grace
of your arrow -- brushing so lovingly through
the flesh of my *****
& i couldn’t help but to smile

take it away from me, the flutter in my chest, the
residuals of your golden essence
sitting on the rim of modelos
& passenger seat of my monte carlo

when i watch the neutral tones of grainy film
seep into your oily features
i wish you would smile just a bit more

two lovers draped over this canvas
cast their passionate shadows over bedsheets,
pleasurable touches & a recipe for a sickly afterglow,
burning like the delicate backs of fireflies
bursting like a pearlescent bubble
chased by bitter aftertaste of longing

how i wish you knew
how much you made me feel
how my paints drip like honey
& form the lines that become you

when i breathe again the essence has vanished
like paint thinner on acrylic. honey replaced
with a spoonful of sugar
& i cross the street to meet you

suddenly the memory leaves no trace behind
& i can’t help but to trace the spot
where you once stood

this summer, i witnessed my first thunderstorm.
a flicker of flight or fight and a soft flutter upon the frames
on your skin, i share this moment with the sky.

drinking this can of coca-cola, i am reminded of you
only briefly, as brief as the bubbles fizzle to the
surface, and catch a glimpse of a life beyond their own

”do we ever catch a glimpse beyond what we know?”
like taking in the first smell
of freshly washed laundry. breathe it in with me.

i know it lasts as long as we know it. eating away
until it becomes a void in a carcass; i begin
missing a piece of myself in someone else.

if only you had told me what you’d been thinking,
what had been missing in yourself.
we are nowhere as close to what we miss in one another.

except when i see you again, the shadows in your eyes
are replaced by the sound of your heart, pounding with gasoline.
i watch you drift away in the sea of bodies, finger on the trigger.

yet i can’t take that away from you so my own greed
fills the place of my heart, reckoning without reason.
we held the world in our palms, infinite and true.

was it because of your fins,
much too brittle for this ocean,
became too soft for me to notice?

please;
let me tell you, dear friend,

i wish you
would have been
more selfish

those shadows under your weary eyes
that change with every passing night;
line them like dreary curtains, hiding your many plights.
your head still plays that one tune;
and your shadows are like the dark side of the moon.

never the same, as if it were night in a field of rye --
accompanied by the pearly lights of the midnight sky.
the inky blackness of your conscious hemorrhage,
drenched in freezing waters, against the depths of your memory begin to effleurage.

which at once creates a hazy fog in your great ocean,
too still and opaque to make a single motion;
and those dark, glimmering eyes open with the golden sunrise;
warm and blooming, syrupy and glaze

swirling with auburn and chocolate haze.
i can never forget, and i will never regret.
you speak, you ramble; you and your cares;
and you breathe, breathing a mist into the cold air.

you wake, from your slumber in that freezing past,
stuck behind that window pane of shattered glass.
i love both of you; you and your other half --
the reason i break out in a severe laugh.
the dark side of your moon --

the sliver of light that breaking through.
your heavy-lidded awkwardness, a
shy smile, as you grip your coffee -
this winter chill in your bones, your meek and quiet authority.

the rose blooms in your face, when you quicken your pace.
the other is teeming with vigor. he is filled with a profound rigor;
eventually he will intrude,

forced to pay for his life through servitude.
he wakes in the dead of night to do what he believes is right;
he wraps himself in white armor, becoming the knight.
with crimson on his hands and
plum bruises on his knuckles, he retreats,

and so the hectic process repeats.
his trauma heals and dawn arrives,
and the other wakes up, believing the muddled disguise.
you lose track of your sleep, the days, the time;
your pain, the month, your mind.

your insomnia grows at your windowpane,
like a flowering *** of healthy nightshade.
and your crinkled, dusty flat,
along with your wrinkled kitchen mat;
is perfect for a lazy evening chat.

and though you may undergo many changes,
i will still love you and your many phases.

vhs flickers, tv static, i blink once
and my whole world has disappeared.
i lean into the feel of your hands that call
my body “home”, but they do not feel me:
tell me what you want.

i watch the men mingle with women; touch
sandwiched between skin and the slick and
for once i cannot breathe because
it suffocates me.

what is it like?
to be given so much that you must take?

like oil on canvas, a vivid depiction of a love
we shared in my fantasy; i’m chasing after
a passionate night
still haunted by a graphite shadow.

gray winter light & umbrella for the rain;
i sit in my disappointment because this coat is
much too thin, so i begin to wish
that it is warmer for me in someone else’s arms

so much to give yet no one to share with.
it’s a tragedy, i know— i know love is born in the flesh,
yet swallowed through our bodies intertwined,
sweat & the afterglow of our parting lips
long after we’ve kissed

when i hover, heat of yours melds to mine;
skin warm, replaced by the gentle grasp of
wishing i had been— then your irises are raking
through ink of a book. breaths bated, arms
brushing because finally you do not see me

i step out into the rain bare,
breathing in satisfaction,
touched only by the purity of rain.
i can’t help but to smile as i let
the gloom kiss my skin