you point out jupiter
in the sky, and i try not to
think about how cold i am.
my ears ring, it's just
angels singing,
i get drunk and act a fool.
i hope you don't know
that you've got me trapped
in your orbit. i hope
i never let you know.
maybe there's life,
but maybe it's just ice
all the way down.
i am simply one of
your many satellites,
caught in a storm's eye
and just trying to keep
my head on straight.
i think if i stood up
i would fall through the floor,
nothing but empty air
and the loyal orbit
of an inhospitable moon.
either way, the sun
is rather far but i know
you'd rather feel
its warmth than anything
anyone would find on europa.

It's the pilot light in the stove,
                                    the fireplace.  It’s the
night light in the bathroom,
                        the living room.  The
reflection in the mirror,
                  in the glass of my windshield.  The
      hum of electricity,
the sigh of the furnace.  

What do you mean I’m supposed to go looking for something that is constant?

The conjoined twin does not go looking for its sibling.
                 The brain does not search for the heart.  
The shadow always finds the body.  Gravity invariably
                                                    pulls the moon into orbit.  

The smoldering ache of loss
                  —hot like bubbling magma, bright like a solar flare—
                                                   is always there.  
Lurking beneath the skin.  The face behind the mask.  
                 Gnarled roots beneath the forest.

What do you mean I’m supposed to look for something that is a part of me?
Assimilated to my sense of normalcy.  Integrated into my DNA.
I can only do so much introspection before I go insane.

the asteroid hit the earth so long ago that
                                                             i do not remember a time before.  
(the bones of dinosaurs do not remember a time before they were
petrified into brittle and fragile memories; the moon does not recall
who she was before she got stuck in the earth’s orbit; uranus knows
nothing of how he came to spin on his side.)

you could stick your hand through
any of the gas giants and find
                                                          your whole body
                                                           slidi­ng through.  
this same theory can be applied to my skin.  i have very little gravity,
or at least it feels that way most days.

maybe it depends on how you look at it:
one way is perfect, and the other all wrong.  the woman in the casket could either be sleeping or dead.  she could either be a stranger or my mother.  the head or the tail.  the light or the dark.  the two sides of the moon.  the comet striking through the night sky.  the interdimensional toll could refuse to let you through.  the cult could accept or deny your entry request.  there is one and there is the other.  the upside down.  the rightside up.  the parallel universe.  the evil twin.  it’s fresh and then it’s rotten.  this could either hurt a lot or a little.  it depends on how much you let in: how willing you are to bend to the emotional blow.

science says that the human body tends to
                                                            forget physical pain as a survival tactic.
but science says jack **** about emotional pain.

so am i living?  or am i just existing?
     the difference is six feet deep.

saffron frontier of bewildering junipers
aquamarine formed leave me breathless and scorned
rip up my heart tie is down to a steel slate
and watch it delaminate
peel piece by layer
ungluing spindle stuck fibers tear
hesitate
sweetheart's credit expiry date
intiate your soft precious acid lounge lips
perspicacious lad when you sway your hips
hips that make me trip upon your sunkisssed garden
you blue my mind like saffron
im ***** as a juniper
you are my love and my moon
and i long for Uranus.

There was a star
Far in the sky
Calling for a fly

i.
i had a dream there were polaroids of us.
developing sunken and strewn across,
my pink comforter; a soft cosmos.


i saw how happy we were,
you tall and in your glasses,
arms around me and hunched
to envelope your frame around mine.
behold; my real smile.


not where my controlled lips cover my gum line,
to feign the sort of *elationship i experienced
only when we would speak.
would speak.

ii.
shut the curtains.
i don’t even want the sun
to filter in through the fabric
and change the tone of my pale skin.


i want to stay the same,
i want to be exactly as i was
the day you reached across,
felt me, and i touched you.


iii.

i want to hold our whole world
and hand it to you in my palm,
even if mine crumbles.
Atlas bent and crippled from the pressure
i am devoted
to holding you up.
i will not shrug.
(oh, i must move on)

iv.
no. cleanse my home w. white sage
and string along my bedpost
bewitched apples cored. cored.
finally biting into you was like biting



into an apple that hid a star.


and *omitted, how i adore stars.
i lose sleep surrounded by them,
counting them,
staring into mirror telescopes until
my eyes burn and my vision blurs.


i will hold you in my mind’s eye forever.
i will dedicate and devote every motion onward
toward the path which leads back to you.
even if it feels eerily, like eights.


infinity. behold infinity
within the iris of your
half-moon eyes smiling
back in a b e a m.

v.
i’ll race time to the future,
at the far end of our solar system.
first steps cracking untouched crust
of Pluto’s nitrogen snow,
at the center of her heart shaped crater.
look back into time
as the glim of Earth is licked
and flickers the moment



of our first kiss.


like these memories, no more
than a spectacle, a twinkle, in
the otherwise steady shine of Earth
bathed in our Sun’s overcast light.
filtered and shrunk by distance and
gravity as a star I had never gleaned before.


how fortune smiles upon all
who behold you, *omitted.

-six pm | *apples, mirrors, snow

As I look up I watch the sky and the stars like a hawk
Seeing each one twin call each one form a pattern
Equally as beautiful as the next
I wonder what wonder is like beyond the stars and the moon
It is some thing big and something greater than myself
To heck with the emotions and the bad stress
Well the universe and the stars are much bigger
Than my bullstuffing.

The moon…
With its phrases and different shapes
Sure is it’s OK to be going through different phrases and emotions
The sun with rising and sets
Means it’s OK to have your ups and downs
Your emotions will not last at least not the  negative ones
It’s OK to be human the night and Day sky shows that this is what we are supposed to be like going up and down and having different phases and emotions
It’s OK not to be OK

As the bats fly out of the barn
During the sun sad night falls and wonders
Come alive and so beauty
There can only be seen at night
Star patterns
The moon and the planets
We are at the hinterlands of daylight my friends
So look up words to the sky and see the Big Dipper
And what’s your problems disappear as they are smaller than the universe