you fed into your insecurities
and starved her of potential
but tables tend to turn
quite quickly on this earth
now that her presence
is no longer on your plate
how bitter does it taste
to eat your heart out?

you give
a lot more
likes on my selfie

than you
give to my
attentive words.

i get
a bit more
sense of my self-fee--

thank you--
now i know
what you preferred

that's why i am trying to adopt the good
and an endeavor should be treated with dedication

dear love i need you
fill my soul
you feel me...

"thank you for today"
i told him because he loved on me

he flooded my day with his sunshine
rare and raw and radiant

so i reflected his beams and thanked him
and the whole world basked in our glow

i thanked him for loving my present moment, and we shared the luminous gift

As our city breathes its crowded air, a little boy tries to stifle a heaving sob so that his *****-furious father won’t hear his lack of 11-year-old testosterone and teach him another hard lesson about being a man; six miles northeast of the boy, an undergraduate studying to be a teacher breathes deeply with self-satisfaction because eight months ago to the day he made the decision to stop inhaling and exhaling the skunk-smelling substance that dulled his own mind and hurt his chances of sharpening minds younger than his.

The two of them don’t know yet, but each stifled or satisfied breath brings them closer together, and they’ve needed each other for months—after the young man earns a diploma and the young boy earns his first locker: both will teach each other to feel proud; both will motivate each other to grow stronger; both will, unknowingly, lead each other to a resolute vitality without fear or shame or guilt because

both
will
breathe

and feel whole
and feel empowered
and feel strong  
and feel ready

to breathe wonderfully deep again and again and again.

i think
the beds in heaven
will be the same
shade of tender pink
as the peonies
you surprised
my restlessly happy heart
with tonight.

and when i lie down  
in the beds of heaven,
i think
my restfully blissful heart
will crave
my sweeter,
softer,
earthly gift.

we finally went swimming today,
(our first time
in two years)
and the whole time just felt
like a metaphor of
us—

you flipped me,
dunked me,
grabbed me underwater,
told me to clutch
“that cute little nose”
and hold my breath—

so that i could be
brave enough to try
something exciting
that i was afraid of.

you do this every day;
today,
in the water,

it was much more clear.

i thought i loved to be alone.
by myself was where i stood steadfastly

but that changed
when we first nervously
drove to a bookstore
together
to browse
and talk
and finally feel
better about ourselves

i had no idea how much
i’d grow
or how much
i’d grow you

i thought i preferred to be alone
but now
i’m wilted without you near