there was once
a genocide
in my heart,
outbreaks of riots
at my fingertips,
loose chaos
in my bones.

days to weeks,
weeks to months
months to years,
the wars raged
onward,
never falling back -
only charging on.

however,
the genocide
and riots
and chaos
have relinquished.

i survived
the apocalypse
that was
my own self.

the fading bruise
on my third knuckle
happens to be
the same hue
as your lips.

it looks
almost as if
you pressed your mouth
against it
once again.

god, i wish
that were the case.

i think my pillows
sigh with relief
when i finally get off them
for the day

i think my pillows
(neck-deep in tears)
ask my blankets
for inflatable floaties

i wonder if while i’m gone
my pillows talk
to my books and posters
about how tired and frail
my body has become

because on the day you left
i think my broken heart
took the key to my happiness
and threw it in the open ocean
for only the fish to find

i sure as hell
can’t find it these days

a hummingbird’s wings can move
up to 200 times in one second

in every desert and beach in the world,
there are seven quintillion, five hundred quadrillion grains of sand

our universe is likely to contain
more than 100 billion galaxies,
each of those galaxies is likely to contain
more than 100 billion stars

now, i’m not religious,
but i think the utter grandeur of these figures
were plucked from the universe
by a hand so clearly divine
and then dropped somewhere between
the curve of your lip
and the small of your back

i think this higher power
somehow garnered anything that would leave
the rest of us awestruck
and embedded them in your being,
carefully lacing your dna
strand by strand

now, i’m not religious,
but ******* do i really stop
and wonder why i’m not
when i look at you

you were as sweet as a nectarine. i remember my first bite.

2. take me off your shelf; i want to be your favorite read.

3. i spoke you into the sunflowers growing out back in mason jars.

4. you were bourbon in a coffee cup. i was last sunday’s paper.

5. we spent one night in a park - our first waterfront vacation home.

6. your neck smelled like fresh dew on summer grass the last morning.

7. i wonder if i ’ll look at someone the way i looked at you.

8. you stopped touching me. i tiptoed around the eggshells from our
breakfasts.

9. 48.5867°n, 2.3508°e. you said we could run away here. je t’aime beaucoup.

10. we are cheap candles with quick-burning wicks. you hate yankee candle.

11. you blew me out into the ocean breeze with your american spirits.

12. "we were never in love, but, oh god, we could have been."

your eloquent whispers
and intoxicating hymns
are just as beautiful
and are just as delicious
to both of my ears
as your breathy syllables
and slurred phrases

**** the rhetoric
in your words and voice

besides
engrossing myself
in every
curve,
crevice,
angle
of your being,
i was
determined,
no,
steadfast
on learning
the miles
and miles
of ridges and lines
covering your
fingertips
and palms
as if
i already knew
it would not be
too long before
those same fingertips
would be
out
of my
grasp

you are fresh air
in the thick fog
i feel like i am living
in san francisco

you are every star
in the expanding universe
you are more
than my milk way

you are my new grass
you are my moving oceans
you are all the things
that are beautiful

“she said,
‘almond colored sheets
are the best
for dreaming.’”

well, my sheets aren’t almond
but i did tend to dream
when you were lying
right next to me