corinth picked up the ball and tossed it up into the air as high as he possibly could. the energy it took for him to do so left him gasping and his muscles stung a little, but to watch the ball arc high above the sky, black against blue, was worth it. when the ball started to sink back down, he ran after it, bumping past athens who had been watching mere inches away.

the enclosure was a backyard to a white building surrounded by concrete walls that cut open hands when rubbed too hard or when scuffles turned sour. in the corner, there was a patch of green grass. the rest was stained yellow from lack of water or from too much sun.

sparta sat in the dust, his hands red with dirt and blood. the stains wrapped around his fingers and wrists and spiraled up to his elbows. he rubbed the pads of his fingers along the dirt, picking up small twigs and stones along the way, as he drew circles around the bird. the bird was dead, long dead, but its brown and grey feathers still stayed in its skin most of the time and the blood was drying so sparta’s hands wouldn’t be red for too much longer. the cracks of flaking blood opened like wounds on small boy's hands: palms big for holding bigger hands and fingers short to keep everything close. sparrow feathers and tears smeared comets into the dust while he cried for his mama even though his mama never came.

corinth ran after the ball, his breath short and his face glowing pink from exertion. as he ran, his hand running along the concrete wall, he started coughing. catching up with the ball started the initial coughing fit that turned into a rattler. he held his hand against the wall, clinging to it with white knuckles, as he hunched over to cough and cough so hard he could feel his throat start to stretch ragged, could feel lunch starting to come up. athens kicked corinth's foot gently before backing away a few feet while corinth continued to cough. when corinth's lungs and throat settled, he stood up straight, grabbed the ball, and threw it up again, this time out of anger rather than play. the ball went sailing backward and athens ran in order to try and get to the ball first, having had a head start. corinth was still faster and managed to shove athens away with a rogue elbow to the ribs in order to claim the ball again. athens didn't argue against the bone.

play continued until the sirens sounded. sparta stopped crying, corinth dropped the ball, and athens picked it up. all three of them hurried quickly and clumsily inside the bunker, shutting the door behind them. as they crawled down the narrow passageway, sparta started to hiccup, a leftover symptom of crying. corinth stopped and glared, and sparta murmured an apology before wiping his sniffles away with the sleeve of his shirt. corinth led the way until the three boys dropped inside the hollowed out room. it was round and the walls were mixtures of concrete, dirt, and chalk drawings. they each had to hunch, especially athens, as the ceiling

they sat in a practiced circle around the center of the room. after a few moments of quiet, hushed breathing, athens began the processions.

“we all here?”

the other two boys raised their hands. sparta’s fingers trembled while corinth raised his arm as high as it could possibly go. his ******* scraped against the ceiling in his earnestness. the three then began the tradition discussion of their names. sparta, forgetting conduct, almost gave away corinth's name, but corinth shut him up quickly. sparta apologized quickly and shoved his fingers in his mouth to keep from saying anything more. dirt and blood mixed with saliva in his mouth, and as he swallowed he ended up choking and gagging on the combination. he coughed and coughed, and corinth slapped him on the back. it didn't help, and the more sparta tried to stop coughing, the harder it lasted. eventually, he had to turn and face away from the other boys as hot bile slid up his throat and onto the floor with a small splat. athens grimaced and edged away.

"alright… show your lungs. everyone."

all three boys began the process of reaching under their shirts and pressing the smooth button under their ribs that unlocked the hatch. the hatch was a small door that ran from the bottom of their ribs up to their collar bone. when they found the smooth button, no bigger than the pad of their thumb, then a small click allowed them to open up their skin. underneath their torsos was a small plastic box that kept everything inside. it helped protect their bones, their heart, and, especially, their lungs. their lungs were frequent targets for doctors; they needed to be accessed quickly. fewer and fewer doctors came by to see the boys recently. corinth wiggled his shirt until he could shove most of it into his mouth, opening his body up and showing gray and green lungs that expanded and collapsed with every breath. his lungs were swollen behind his rib cage, and he experimentally reached in to poke in between his third and fourth ribs. the muscle that was there had been replaced by plastic, and had come loose when he'd pressed the button. his lung shuddered underneath his touch, but he felt the odd relief of pain swoop over him. two blue shirts tumbled to the floor as sparta and athens decided to take off their clothing and help each other find the buttons to unlock their hatches. the boys clung to the small moments of touch when the effects of their touh felt so alien, even after all those years after the surgery.

athens’ lungs were pink and perfect. he coughed and corinth couldn’t help but watch the way his diaphragm moved as he did so, and he felt jealousy pang in his stomach. sparta’s lungs were purple and blue, bruised and small, and they merely fluttered.

“lungs in order,” athens said quietly after a quick inspection of everyone’s insides. sparta immediately closed his hatch, flinching when his finger got caught initially between his inside and his outside, and started to put his shirt back on. corinth stole athens' shirt and slipped it on over the one he currently wore, his other hand slamming shut his lung hatch. athens blinked but let corinth stare at him greedily as he quietly shut his own hatch.

as they waited for the background noise of wailing sirens to disappear, corinth hugged his knees and athens started to draw people in the dirt with his forefinger.

aristotle and plato were convinced that the circle was the heavenliest shape in all of creation. it was eternal. but, see, the ellipse is that much better. the oval is the imperfect circle, the imperfect shape that instead of having one heart has two, the sound of an open mouth as you gasp, the shape of fingerprint bruises.

the earth moves in an ellipse. all of the planets do. as we spin around the sun, you and i are planets. no wonder when i see you from afar, i can't breathe; we're just in space.

you are neptune. you are deep blue and stormy sea clouds that look like sweat and work, but you are mysterious and beautiful and so far away. when you are neptune, i am uranus, being pulled by the way you move.

sometimes i am saturn. i am swollen with the dust and dirt that make up my outsides. when i am saturn, you are jupiter: a friend who is bigger than i am.

we're space stations and metal, too cold to touch until we get hot from the movement of each other. we're satellites and moons and space-time fabric.

aristotle and plato were convinced that the circle was the heavenliest shape in all of creation. i think that they're so wrong. the shape of your hips, your words, your kindness, your taste, your mouth, your body, your creativity, your sweetness all end up tasting like eternity and heaven.

my heart beats in circles sometimes. but, when i look at you, my heart beats like you and i and ovals.

i'm not a freak a' nature, i'm a force a' nature.
i'm gonna ******* up and i'm gonna ******* down
and maybe ******* sideways if i've got time
and i got all the time in the world.
but i maybe ain't got time for you,
you who thinks that 'cause i got my missing tooth,
my balding head, my hairy chest, my bigger left breast,
and my genitals which don't have names that you'd ever give
ain't things to love but are reason to hate.
… yeah, i ain't got time for you. i got bigger things to do
like change the weather, write the future, have ***,
make art, discover a new world, or become a tornado
and spin away
leaving you with nothing to stand on.

you've got a real good seesaw heart, darlin'
the kind that makes my stomach go up and down all day long
like it's fallin' and fallin', or
like it's been shot, or
like you've been shot.
i build things to see you protect them,
just like i build walls 'round my heart to protect
me. but you find a way to crash through 'em
(and i most certainly mean crash, 'cause i don't think
you know where you're going sometimes
but when you smile at me and let me see those hidden eyes
i can feel them walls
come fallin' down
one by one
by one).
you've got the good kinda heart, my friend. it's the kinda heart
that little kids come clamberin' to play on
like you got your arms wide open,
so that even though you may squeak 'cause you need an oilin'
or squawk 'cause somebody's not doing sommat right,
even then
they all know you love 'em
and me.

when you and i dance it is electric shock
and you are water and i am ice.
you conduct and share, spread like
wildfire heat and burn and
so don’t think i am nervous when you touch me
it is me
not you, never you
it is me who is too old and too frozen
to allow the free current to rumble through my skin.
it is a surprise,
a present,
when you let the warmth flash into my bones
but please remember that it is hard for me to hold
this gift
without dropping it.
humans have their half-hearts and
yours are so full
it’s been so long to remember heat
that sometimes i let the ice taste like
metal, like wood
like stolen promises and betrayed kisses
and then when you touch me
it is a surprise present
but one that i will take all too gladly
because i am selfish
and you have so much to give.
you are your mother and your father
and you are your own traveler
so let me come into your home
and make a mess of things
with my poor conductor heart.
i may never tell you i love you
but just know that it is not words that fail me
you would know i was lying if i said
i was anything other than a storyteller,
a wordsmith, a forger of weapons from syllables
and tongue against teeth and vocal chords,
but it is the surprise of electricity
that keeps my mouth fumbling.
let me marry you in forever ago
and now
because you are a surprise, a present,
and i have come to need you
in a way that i haven’t needed
and i cannot keep you in the box
of people i love
because they always come out broken
and i demand your circuitry, your
flow over me.
you must never break
again
because you torture yourself with
your own shock, your own pulse
and i cannot choose your fate;
that is yours to do with what you will,
but i can choose how to feel.
so maybe when the day comes
and the towers sing and i cry
i will cry not from the sadness of your leaving
but cry at the happiness of your staying
and the knowing that you and i
are the choosing ones
that have chosen electric-shock-pain
in the logic of you and i in union.

gray skies are like when we danced to that cello piece on that thursday night. the thursday night where you talked and i talked and neither of us listened because our feet were moving in fast-forward time and in perfect pitch. gray skies are like grey skies but when i say grey it looks sadder and it wasn't a sad moment when we last touched hands.

it was just different.

the closet has our *** noises on wire hangers
not because of the four babies we lost
but because we can never have them
we can never bear pretty pictures
even with all the efforts of our puzzle-making
love-making, puzzle shuffling
because sometimes we get to put the wire hangers on and wear them around like beetle's wings
we are magic
with our four lost babies
and our questionable marriage license
because we still have each other

we are all drop-dead wire hanger children
who still cling to mama’s skirt when she tells us to go free
because we have lost the wings that kept us grounded;
on gray skies and blue-black, bruised blood we flew
before the flood came down and washed away the meat
leaving only metal skeletons of our universal selves, our
heartbeats pressed inside paper envelopes, stored away
in moth-eaten coats.

tonight is a wrench night, where i spend the dozing hours
tossing and turning
and trying to fix the fact that you're not here.
i build replacements out of pillows and blankets,
but they are not warm enough.
they do not have your hips,
they do not have your smile,
and it breaks my heart.
so i curl up with my wrench
and tell it stories
because you are a world away
building replacements for me.
together, we use the wrenches to plug the holes in our hearts
and we wait out the wrench night.

the door to the basement is locked, but you don't remember where the key is. you know it's somewhere hidden, under the floorboards, under the mattress, over the door frame. it's somewhere. as the burning of your heart ignites your desire to go into the basement, you hear a creak coming from the stair. you don't want to feel it there, but you do. you spin and find that you're bleeding. the scars on your hand tell you you've been through this before.

suddenly, you're in the basement. the key is in your stomach and your heart still burns with passion. inside, your nightmares are all sat in concentric circles round and round the devil himself as he dances for you. you wonder about bible quotes and floods and how they got down here, but then they all stare at you with lidless eyes.

you blink first.

when you wake up, you're in bed and you're warm but the key is lodged in your throat and you're watching your parents make love, and you reach out to touch them.

they are no longer making love; they are consuming each other. their mouths close over each other's flesh and lovingly rip. the rips leave holes in skin that fill with blood and the smell is sweet-rotten, but soon they are nothing but lust and love and bones. even the bones have handprints.

so then you're upstairs again and you can't remember the basement but all you know is that the key's gotta be around here somewhere and you must have been crying because what is that lump in your throat?

i want to live in a warm place, in a place like the desert, but with water. so that it's warm at sometimes, and when it's warm, it's very warm. when it's cold, it's freezing. like our bones will freeze to our souls if we don't move them. like the beach in canada, or something. i want to live in a place that's small, in a place that sort of doesn't require much upkeep. like a one-room apartment with a large bed and a desk. i want it to be high up, so that when i smoke i can look out at the water. i want to smoke and drink and be naked and cold and go skinny-dipping so i'm all covered in goose-bumps. i'd write all day, and spend all evening tearing apart every last word that i wrote before. the days would be spent swimming and smoking and drinking. we'd be wild and free and not care about anything at all. then when kids came along, we'd get a small house, and raise really exploratory, artistic children. we'd smoke in the night time, when the kids were asleep, and we'd all have sorta artistic-y type jobs that meant we didn't have to stay put, but could travel whenever we wanted by train. the most striking image to me is wearing something small, but being mostly naked and being cold and smoking and looking out over the water. i want to be able to speak russian, german, italian, and english. i want to wear glasses that fog up in the rain, and i want my skin to taste like smoke and dust and salt and tea. i want to have ***** *** in the summer and sweet *** in the winter. we'd collect coins and scars and burns and kisses. we'd learn how to sail and we'd eat pears whole as we play chess, getting juice on each of the pieces. we'll play video games in the cold with trembling hands.

he will force-feed
his horses on sugar and *******.
he will sing at the door
and beg to be let in

he shall sit on the throne and take command
just as his kingdom slides inside a styrofoam cup
and burns

because he is the minstrel-born-king
and the world stops and stares
when he starts to sing
on false lungs
and artificial hearts
and strings.

when i think of you, i think about tracing scars and telling stories of the time when we swallowed fireworks, just to see if we'll both laugh or both cry or both kiss and lick at the wounds that are still there inside our mouths.

when i think of you, i think of stealing moments in the dark when i'll wake up and you will be there and i won't panic any more.

when i think of you, i realize that i'm a sap, and that i wouldn't want to have it any other way because i started as a love poet and i will always be a love poet, and i want to make poetry out of you and i.

when i think of you, i remember waiting and waiting and miles and miles where each one feels like shrapnel in my heart. i'm afraid that when i hand it over to you, to let it sit in your hands, you'll see just how small it is, just how weak. you'll wonder how it even beat, how it even raced at all. i see you taking my heart and kissing it, and it'll take all my strength to keep it beating in your hands. there will be holes where blood leaks, and it'll be messy. but please hold onto it. i want my heart in your hands, and i want you to keep it there. i don't know what i'd do if you thought to give it back.

when i think of you, i think of counting down days.

when i think of you, i think of driving down roads at night, accelerating too fast and feeling like i can't possibly stop giggling or else i'll just disappear. i think of wind and air that bites at my skin and warms my stomach because i wouldn't want to be anywhere else.

when i think of you, i think of the written list of all the places i want to take you, all the things that i want to do with you. in the end, we'll probably do some of those things, but not all at once. we can't do them immediately, because then we won't have a list. we'll have to keep adding, keep writing new things to do, and then we'll both have to keep secret lists, ones that i won't tell you and you won't tell me, and when we do them, we won't tell. for excitement. for more. we'll just keep it all locked up, so we can consult these lists while the other is asleep, or in the shower, or just not right there right then. little lists to keep everything okay.

a lot of the time, thinking about you hurts. because you're far away. because i can't see you, or kiss you, i can only say things over webcam or text or skype but then i think about not. about just… not. and then that hurts even more so i try not to think about that.

**** the distance. **** the time. i'll be seeing you soon. and that's a fact that makes everything better.

he watched my hands move over his skin
and he asked when i stopped playing the piano.
“second grade,” i told him, playing clair de lune on his ribs.

he smiled and leaned back to sing an operetta that was cut short
by the tapping on the door inside his heart. he looked at me
i looked at him

and together we opened the door.

i am purple-dark wine stuff
the kind of marks that get flash-frozen over white skin
because i am yours and when you drink me in
i get drunk and dizzy and spinny
and stupid as i fall over myself
drooling and grabbing
at the one girl in the room who i have
but i can't have enough of

you are built into my skin,
but my love for you is not chemical, it is not
godly, divine
for we are godly, divine enough for love
if we so choose
and we so choose.
so come back into my arms and we will
dance a million dances
and watch as we come apart in each other’s arms
like hurricanes uncurling and leaving only rain.
you and i are storms with no eyes
so when we touch we are lightning-alive and flash-thunder
boom
i can feel the humming of barometers in my bones
and you can feel the pressure rising in our hearts
but our love is not chemical
it is heat-seeking, face-flushing, dancing
like oven bricks leaving dust like stars
across a sky of skin
because we so choose.

my belly's swollen
from holding the reluctant prophets
inside.

why do the poems about feeling razors cut deep into skin
get reactions
while the poems about beauty and love
get none?
is it because we know what to say when we feel the other hurting hands
hurting at skin that fits too tight and chokes?
or is it because we envy the happy
and secretly wish they weren't happy at all?

soon we will hold each other in our hands
and we will fret not of losing touch,
but of not remembering how you feel
in my hands, against my skin
and when that worry comes, we know
that we will never forget