Two strangers stand looking at a painting
He thinks it looks like a tree;
She thinks it looks like the ocean;
They both see rain and miss the sun.

Simultaneously they touch glass and gasp
Because the mirror squeaks like their brains
and they only just realized they weren't listening.

Cracking shaking breaking taking
fingers touching grasping slipping
eyes connect, bodies gripping
whispers gasping particles clasping
worlds colliding, and skin
The world is skin and sin
and redemption
Love is art and finding connection
when vulnerability becomes protection
Shed material
Find your spiritual
Be your physical

Trust: unweights your heartbeats: Must.
Two become one.

things that are the same here:
glass and silence
nails and chalk
comfort and ***
smoke and color.

how do you feel about the women called mother,
and the children that call to her and grab at her legs?
her legs: so smooth that their hands slide down them in the summer.
her hands: cold and soft and everything you need when you're crying.

I love you, darling, and I want to hold your hands all the time,
both of them, and please press your forehead against
mine because my third eye can feel your trying to see inside
but we need to break through the skin that hides them away.
I want to teach you how to share dreams so that we don't have to
set alarms any more, or drink caffeine anymore, even if it is tea instead
of coffee. or if your favorite is the same as his and it only bothers me
because I want to stop thinking about how warm, or thick, his fur is.
I can lose my hands

inside                                                           ­        the outside
                                                         ­   
of his beautiful mass.

He can knock down trees with a whistle,
or a flick of his tail, and he can make phone calls
with one long stretch and a yawn.

you get mad at me often
because we don't speak the same language
or because as much as i listen to your
boy-hood fantasies
i still only here the voice of someone
scared
to just be a woman.
It's difficult for someone
who just wants to be a man.

you call me a hypocrite.
walking around with a mirror for a face
while I scream at everything else for having
the same face
or closed-mouth laugh
or the tongue in between her teeth.

you get mad at me because
i tell you to be direct
but i can't never seem to tell you what i mean
by "I love you"
or "I don't know".

As I breathe
the music on my shoulder is  kicking it's legs
and sighing
with bells on its shoes
and freezing cold finger tips

As I listen
the breathe in my head is speaking
in the lowest tones
of the brightest colors
and I keep reminding myself for some reason
that they're just words.

aren't they?

I don't know.

I love you.

there are too many pockets of air in between the fabric
of all my ***** clothes and
we can't leave our thoughts in
open spaces

like this

anymore.

it's like looking at his smile and seeing what he's trying to hide,
those things are much too personal to be slurred from one bathroom stall
to another,
you always forget about all the people who don't wash their hands until it happens right in front of you.

I keep comparing you to:
all the people from my past.
She keeps comparing you to:
all the people from your past.
I don't want to miss you:
like all of those people from her past.

She looks at you like a vacuum would
but she feels like blue skies and tastes
like creamer or hot chocolate, thick
as she is you notice how thin she is
and point it out, try and make her eat
some of what you have to say although
you really don't know what it is she
needs to hear.

"that's why they call it confusion, honey,"
I had never seen you turn to stone before,
topaz and diamonds, "but crystals have souls."
and you have no idea what I'm talking about.

Our tongues know each other like old friends
And so do our eyes.
And they speak the same language.

Our heads seem to gravitate
to the same pocket of air and thoughts
and sadnesses and madnesses

You see me in every way I
wanted to be seen
but couldn't see myself
Light feels so good after being blind!

That night when the flame consumed me
and you held me and shared my burns
I looked up and the fire danced between our eyes
and you didn't look down
and you listened to my spitting rage
and told me with your eyes
"You are beautiful."

And I wasn't clenching my jaw because I
wanted
to hurt my teeth
even though I thought so, once

And I wasn't letting you anywhere
near close
enough
even though I thought so, once

It doesn't matter how or why
it only matters that it REALLY matters

I'm happy to be a child again
because a child knows how to learn
(feelings and things that hurt)

And I'm happy to be a child again
because a child knows what it wants
(without a reason)
and I want you.

Writing turns me into words
Painting makes me color
And I have no voice to be heard
When there's one without the other

Music makes matches of my ears
Striking on sandpaper notes
Voices turn me into tears
Pieces of me thrown from throats

Self-expression is some sort of healing
For the things that we think we're feeling
and when the paint begins its peeling
and your words begin their reeling
that's when you'll know how is why

"I can't imagine more than I can imagine."

I'm going to start telling you exactly how I feel
to avoid all the others (feelings) that follow
when I keep secrets and try to make everyone as happy as
I want myself to be.

"I always think like this."

You're my reason(s).
you're the warm that I bathe in
and the chill that I hide from,
but at least we can talk serious
with our hands, and have fun with
our lips, and our tongues.
I can hear exactly how you feel
in the direction your eyes open to mine.

"You keep forgetting how to breathe."

We can't touch each other without pulling away,
we can't look, either, it's never close enough.

"****** tension?"

Interrupting thoughts:
legs.
yours. mine.
lips. *******.
hands. knees.
orange.
blue ink.
black ink.
everything about you.
that is me.
that I can't:
control.
myself.

"I can't express myself with words in this place."