i want to roam the halls of museums
with you
and float through history
as we make
our own

see, I'm kissing you
but I'm keeping distance
because loving me means
sharing my soul
and tasting the sadness
in my
tongue

I stopped believing my father when I was eight,
when he threw away his cigarettes and told me,
no more.
I stopped believing him when he got the last beer
out of the fridge and told me,
never again.

Sometimes I see you looking out the window
and I know you still wait for her.
Sometimes I hear you humming, very softly, almost a whisper,
the song she always sang to you when you're about to sleep.
Sometimes I catch you touching the place behind your ears
where she always kissed you.
Sometimes you stop in your tracks when you smell her perfume.
And sometimes I can feel your hands loosening its grip when you hold mine—a fraction, an inch, barely noticeable.
And sometimes you laugh at my jokes but the glitter never reaches your eyes.
And sometimes you kiss me but it feels like a question.
And I know we're both haunted by a girl still alive,
her phantom hand pushing me
away from you.

They told you to fear forest fires.
They told you how dangerous it was.
How destructive.
But they didn't tell you how
it's the earth's way of renewing itself,
of ridding itself of the grit,
so it can rise anew.

I want a forest fire to take over my heart,
to let it burn the walls,
to purge the sorrow,
to take away the mud seeping through the cracks.
It will not be a pretty sight.
Flowers will be set ablaze.
It will destroy
but it will bear.

You will see me standing
in the middle of the trees reborn—
the one who set the forest ablaze,
the one who rose up in smoke.
Changed.
Radiating.
The wind at my command.

Build a rocketship,
fly out of the atmosphere,
live among the stars.

isn't little butterflies on my stomach,
falling for you
isn't an oasis on a barren desert,
falling for you
isn't like knowing how to breathe,
falling for you
is subjecting myself to a million drops
from a million towers,
falling for you
is letting the ocean drown me,
falling for you
is standing in the middle of a hurricane.

And that's okay.

Because,
love,
I was made for rain.