your lips were bleeding ichor

i thought of you:

  i. head underwater, they watch you
with cassiopeia eyes as you
seep into her star-stricken skin

   ii. we carved our names in hearts
on the flesh of dryads, arms
branched out, head full of sky
ever-expanding, infinity between
our fingertips, but falling leaves
indicate that the tree is dying

  iii. you're like a flower in the winter,
storm tucked behind your ears, and
oblivion in the corners of your lips
the summer heat is getting to your head

fall-ing for you-is the season of change
(but have i not changed enough for you?)

  iv. i think of you spilling out the lyrics
to a heartsong, a blurry crescendo,
with the drip-drip-dripping melody
of the november rains and the honey
sunsets that fill up your cheeks that
you'll never realize you're singing all the
             w r o n g w o r d s

  vi. your icarus heart melts in the light
and wings are all but wax (burn,
baby, burn) and you don't know what
you've got until it's gone

       vii. your lips are bleeding ichor,
                   but *gods don't bleed...

i. my little sailor boy,
you are clockwise and fumbling
your fragile wrists struggle around
the edges of your wanderlust's atlas

open your star spangled eyes
and get your head out of the clouds

    you're going in circles
(don't make the same mistake
columbus did)

       ii. the tide has pushed you away
your eyes are inkshot in the candlelight
your hands intwined and overrun around
billowing sails and chipped wood

  my little sailor boy,
the seas grow cold and the skies darken
the farther you stray from your
treasure-locked heart

    don't put the anchor down
(you've gone too far, now)

       iii. swim the seas of stardust
and venture through supernovae
the moon shall see your true phase<

these seas are hungry and cruel
if you are ever to sucCEDE
you will leave word-hungry and heavy-hearted

     (leave mundane, fool)

       iv. my little sailor boy,



                                                 i miss you

         v. the tempest calls elsewhere

i. when i was a little girl,
i wanted to die on the countryside
my lighthouse eyes straight ahead
and my head laid against the cornfields
to breathe in the daylight and breathe out the mo(u)rn

my mama said that would be
a very long time from now

(i'm sorry to disappoint you, mama)

        ii. my house was whisked away to oz
when i fell asleep beneath the cherry-red poppies
i ran and fell down the rabbit hole on the way back

my hair entangled with the willow trees
autumn leaves stuck to my rain boots
as my jacket stuck to close to my skin
and i felt human for the first time in ages

(i'm not a child anymore)

       iii. asleep during midsummer
i am sunbright and innocent

(someday, my sweetheart)

       iv. little miss sunshine,
i miss your bird sing-song voice
and your bottle-it-up laughter

your macaroni hair and
your sweet acorn eyes
that cheshire cat smile

but most of all, i miss your reminiscence
and the memories we never had together

(now you're sleeping' six feet under)

       v. the sun set in your eyes
for the very first time.


i think of you among the sunflowers.

i. to the old fisherman i once loved,
you are prehistoric and bleeding
salt water and broken fish bones
like the red sea's flowing from your fingertips
where i left you for another dawn's desire

i love your sea-spangled melancholia
but for what it's worth, i'm not
your little fisher girl

(you reeled me in and spit me out)

       ii. you look beautiful, babe, when
your coral-reef bones whistle and crack
like seven years of bad luck wasn't good enough
for you to sail with me holding on to your ship hull

i am dew dressed and sun bathing in your eyes
that wayward fish tailed woman's the one, you said

i'm a little girl's fairytale,
empty-hearted and bruise-battered, i fight
the current that keeps us apart

i story-tell what people want to hear
(my moon-rippled eyes are just reflections, baby)

       iii. you're suffering from dehydration, hon
'cause you're missing me in your ocean-trench heart

there's moss growing from your fingertips and pearls in your eyes
i'll sing you your funeral song down by the bay with my
sunken-ship insomnia under the circumstances that
i've hit rock bottom and that this will be the last time
i'll ever hurt again

(you linger on the brink of reality)

             iv. to the fisherman i once loved, *i never stopped