too bright —
too light —
the hospital walls
offer no place to cry.
too flawless —
too white,
and i am the spot in the middle,
the blemish,
the stains,
the discoloration
to a scrutinizing gaze.

i can feel them shying away
from these black candles i lit —
burning away like a sacrifice —
the melting filth of wax
that dared defile
something so holy as a savior's robes,

i can feel them flinch
upon the touch of these hands
and yet i am a woman unhealed,

upon the sight of these tears —
a baptism,
a renaming ceremony

in honor of the graveyards
i dug in secret,
in honor of the coffins
lowered in my chest,
in honor of the soil filling in the depths
all too careful,
all too slow
until i am reborn as Mourning
and until mourning fades into specks of dust.

and the hospital walls still look spotless.
and the hospital walls still look too pure.

nothing good happens after 2 am.

and yet here we are —
a rather curious pair of star-litten messed ups;
they say that liquid mercury and bare skin
are never a good combination
but kiss me nonetheless;
hold me nonetheless,
burn me nonetheless —

after all,
temples get burned down for the idols they host.

nothing good happens after 2 am,
but then again,
this is no place for sunsets and poems and sunday dates;
this is the apocalypse —
trapped for centuries inside our skin.
so go on,
break me — crack me open and lick the wounds,
and then maybe we'll know why persephone keeps going back to the underworld.
and then maybe we can call it love.
so go on,
kiss me until running breathless
becomes our way of breathing;
this may not be something we survive.

after all,
the daylight is an estranged lover and we are this house's walls trying to forget.

nothing good happens after 2 am,
but you will be the reason for every word, darling.
you will be the nightfall-colored eyes,
the nails all painted black
from when you dug for the dirt in my chest.
you will be the forgotten histories,
the impenetrable groves,
the coffee shop clichés,
the storms that never pass,
the nights that never last,
the secret places and warzones
and cotton dresses and fallen peonies,
and a threefold heartbreak
personified —

after all,
heartbreaks feel better when they come from you.

nothing good happens after 2 am
but t h i s already is a cautionary tale, anyway,
even without the 2 am
and tonight will be us,
crying wolf and coming undone.
tonight will be us,
tiptoeing through a minefield of mistakes,
mistakes,
and mistakes.
tell me, what's the harm in another one?

tonight will be our mayhem
and our foreboding
and our free-fall —
fatal. irreversible. majestic.
tonight will be us —
foreign lands mapping each other,
baptizing each other, darling.

and tomorrow will be ours to regret.

we're two storms colliding;
and my lips lie here, in safety and stillness
where yours meet mine;

kisses rush like ether,
like saltwater filling the lungs
and yet, curiously,
i breathe

right here in the eye.

maybe this is helen of troy crossing the aegean sea,
knowing all too well the risks.
maybe this is the start of the trojan war.
maybe this is a greek epic —
untold,
unwritten,
and dissolving in the shores.

and maybe i know all too well the risks.

but some time between
last night's first kiss and
the honesty and the silence of the early mornings

i have become the ocean before the storm
and you, the ocean after it.

and darling, would it be so bad to stay here for a while

in this fleeting safety in your arms,
in this fleeting safety of the calm?

Once upon a time,
in a town by the eastern sea,
there stood an abandoned lighthouse
as big as an old oak tree.

Locals knew not to disturb
what haunted that crumbling tower
while frightened tourists shared new
stories of “accidents” almost every hour.
In this lighthouse lived the lonely spirit of
a child whose name resembled a flower.

Each sunrise, Rose played on the broken stairs
of that lighthouse humming her favorite tune.
She looked to the clouds and prayed
for friends each lonesome afternoon.
At night, she whispered lullabies to herself
as she counted centuries of passing moons.

Young Rose found the bittersweet answer
to her prayers early one summer morning
when a little blond boy raced up her broken steps
clutching his green balloon while exploring.
She pet his hair softly and devilishly grinned
before shoving the boy with no forewarning.

The locals heard a blood curdling scream
and tragedy fell upon the town by the eastern sea.
But as that green balloon ascended to the Heavens,
little Rose was, all of a sudden, a lot less lonely.