we are two anarchists beckoning each other
with alluring eyes full of longing, so sticky-sweet.
caught in the trance of each other’s honeyed promises,
we embrace with the elegance of clashing armies.

come closer, let my wandering fingertips find
            a home       in stretches of taut skin, valleys    
            and crevices,
                                     coy smiles, igneous eyes; can i entice
                                     you to dance?

but where there was skin she finds only armor plates,
       where there was vulnerability, only hardened resolve.
       where our thorned bodies join crimson blossoms bloom:
flowers of anarchy flourishing in the eye      of the hurricane,
the peculiar beauty of us.

we make the portrait of orderly discord.

like how the Sun hides from the Moon
so that he doesn’t burn her radiance
always leaving too soon --
the ever-tantalizing romance

like how the Sky kisses the Sea
only through heavy rain
separated by Time, never free
forever driving them insane

like how Life and Death
chase each other for eternities
away you take my breath
despite incompatible personalities

the voices, they become
white noise. white smoke,
           my wide eyes are
wandering again
in search of you

behind foggy windows and
along the lines where walls meet
ceilings. your shoulders,
they are too silent today--
I lose your blue-rimmed

certainty in the current.
do you hear me calling?
you begin to turn--
          dark hair, sharp edges
but the voices become

miles

           and we are lost.

lately i've been having these good days
i don't have sad wet cigarette saxophone nights anymore
i watched the sun wake up six times last week
i found a blue bucket of tulips &
gave them to a bald-headed krishna girl when
she sang to me on the sidewalk

i hired a boy to hide in the foyer
& peel a fiddle if i rouse from sleep during the night
or whistle through a harmonica
if i'm wet-eyed during breakfast
i finally got rid of all the pictures you stuck
to your side of the dusty bathroom mirror
except the blissed-out polaroid of us
perched on an old oak tree limb
like a couple of soft doves versus the turreted sunset

i deleted your number because you don't call me back anyway
i stopped mailing letters to your father's house
i haven't listened to the Plantasia record
you bought me since you left
i never feel the gray heat from your
staticky hand warming my shoulder
i forgave you for the blood in my kidneys
& old smog in my mildewed vinyl lungs

i sleep under the running green vapor light
of the moon & stars instead of the frothiest pillows
rippling on an ocean of sheets & project quilts
i finally scoured the lipstick stain from my collarbone
after what seemed like two years
i forgot how your armpits smelled
i sewed all your sundresses into a shower curtain
& i never see your delicate ribcage
peaking through the streams of hot water



i hardly ever notice the noose
you left hanging in our apartment

her glossy lips
a poisoned chalice
and her eyes
a flaming brand
to sear the heart
she shot toxin
into his slain ego
and he groaned
a dirge folorn
till its shreds
fled in the wind
and the swirl in her subsided
but she saved the best for last
you don't get it, do you?
in the country of my heart
you're dead and buried
she said
ground to dust under my heel
you don't get it, do you?
he felt a great darkness creeping in
and knew his day was done
as was hers, her ire being spent
with a hypnotic smile
and a darting red tongue
she gave him the kiss of death
and eased him into oblivion
without so much as a qualm