clean your teeth
with a pink washcloth
your tongue
with saline water
hands behind my back
gently (or roughly) held
together
pacing back and forth
or sitting on my
uncertainly made
deliberate choices
I wonder if you like
the smell of clementine
on my fingers
stained orange from the
pungent peel
I would stain
my whole body with color
if I could
as if that would
freeze this superficial
line of seconds

sugar sugar pour some water on me
it can be black or green I don't care just
please wash the sugar out of my hair
sugar is bitter
and sickening in
my hair in my nose and ears
my mom tells me to practice my 'violino'
--we lived in Brazil so Portuguese words are still natural at times--
and she smiles so it cripples me a little
I will practice as much as she likes

not quite sad more of an intrinsically motivated obsession with the universe that inspires a certain degree of sadness.  like the first time I kissed his neck and the universe understood this intrinsically motivated obsession and inspired a certain degree of sadness. there is reality and there  is my reality

and mine is unavoidable and thunderstorms in-front of and behind me and graceful rain on my head at all times and so much so so much to think about it and the fruit snack wrapper on the floor is blowing away and the fan is clicking and I have math to do but I don't care what a radian does

I only care that I don't see a god in the millions of dying people and the four year old locked in the basement of her addicted mother's house. Hemingway says that all thinking men are atheists (and women this is 2015 and I am brilliant) and I am pure atheist except when rain comes down and I believe that everything is connected in some way

and I sat on the trampoline with my 13 year old sister and let the rain fall on my face and slide down my shirt and drip into my belly button and I think I reminded myself why we are alive and then the lightening scared me enough to shake my doubt away

we are all okay sometimes.  and my brain is exceptionally faulty--frontal lobe doesn't act normally and she told me that it's like it flies away and I can't find rationality until it settles and comes back to earth and I am rarely on earth.  and I scared him because too much passion can break more than glass and

it's hard to realize that for every second I hate it is only because I love to the point of insanity and I can't hate unless I love unless I am drowning
in hopeless desire for more than human for invincibility and driving with the windows down and music blaring everything else out

then I remember I am someone else's child and it is only fair to care for that girl so I slow down
I put my arms out every time I walk in the wind so maybe it'll take pieces of me with it and turn me into the alive person that i crave that I desire that I fume for much more than

touch

but I can't just be touched to feel love I just watch eyes to remind myself why this planet is here why the oceans are filled with salt why people are dying to live why people are living just to die

I love again each day right after convincing myself I don't and it's not touch I remind myself how to live in those eyes and I broke the glass the glittery strong slippery now shattered glass so the least I can do is let the glass fix itself slowly

but I don't believe in god I believe in love and rain and passion and desire and this is my catharsis

the ***** of your chin is
gentle
nothing will numb you more
than the epitome of nothingness
soft collared shirts and grey-scale jeans
I feel music in you
like water
abounding with reluctance
here I stand
gently begging you to
be deafening.

chanting silently
we are here we were here
HERE WE ARE

with pale long dancing fingers I am
certain that the end is not near
nor will it ever be
for you

she used to laugh and
flip her hair (a little brown and a little black and a little curly)
a little bump in her nose bone
curved eyebrows
shy and nervous sass
but depth and curiosity
in her beautiful innocence

and I’d  follow (hesitantly euphoric)
eager to accept
(acceptance
for the first time)

and now she breaks my heart
and brown eyes
are darker than
mud
and claustrophobic panic
engulfs the idea of
her
as spinning out of control
(a top dancing on the tip of a knife)
is not healthy for you

this is over