somewhere in manhattan,
atlas carries the weight of his heart —
a suitcase of battle scars and cigarettes
that strayed too far from his lips.

each vein, a thread
for all these sorry poems
that cannot write themselves.
each valve,
a compartment for spent lights
and all these fallen dandelion clocks —
all centuries' worth
and his body, it longs to rest
like a mass of dahlias and complexities,
coming undone in the arms
of a funeral song.



i remember someone telling me it's easier to talk about yourself in third person.


and yet, how do you depersonalize and say that
in there,
sadness has lovingly grown its flesh —
like wild grass spreading free in abandoned lawns,
albeit carefully contained,
carefully covered by these patches of skin
so as to not flood —
to not spill at every sigh
and yet, there can never be enough
breaths taken,
breaths given away

to keep it all intact,
to fend off all the
pecking,
the gnawing at the skin from its forgotten corners,
now a feast to a flight of vultures.

i now know why it's easier to talk about yourself in third person.


somewhere in manhattan,
atlas shakes, crumbles, collapses.
the flesh gives in;
the arms cave in under all this mass:
this weight of a heart,
this weight of the skies — they just slip right off your hands
and words don't see the difference.

it's an all too familiar, all too ironic situation —
knowing safety, softness —
lingering tastes off darkness' tongue,
now trailing down our skin.

the dark has taught us that
safezone is having the night skies
perched around us
and the moon rises from every touch, slipping,
from every kiss, ending;

and yet, how can something so dim, so obscure
remind me of the sun and its clarity?
darling, these rendezvous have taught me that
you are the lovechild of the night and the day
and i am likened to a vampire
whose fatal flaw is its
longing for the sun.

oh, to see you,
touch you,
kiss you

in the daylight

without burning.
without hiding.
without fears and pretenses.




and yet, we can only be in this all too familiar, all too ironic situation;
we can only be, in the safety of the nightfall —
we can only be, darling, in safety of the dark.

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?