if you dig deep enough
into the sand
i promise you will find yourself
uncovering
cosmos, beneath
half-formed palaces of earth
and ocean, lost for centuries
or perhaps
seconds
(who’s to say, really)

you will find, scattered
among the burning grains of
“i was a crystal
in another life”, a glittering
dust - remainders not of
life denatured, but
stars whose deaths
cannot yet be mourned

ours is a universe
that cannot be defined
(it’s no matter, of course, for
words
only ever tell
part
of the story)

i wonder what i would see
if i waded until my feet
were as much afloat
as the rest of me
and the sea
swallowed me whole - what
multitudes
are contained under the
surface (blue only to our
lackluster outsider’s
perspective), what
planetary infinite
lies with its arms around salt, grimy
only to those of us
who return to airy shores
at the end of the day
(if there are galaxies
behind your eyes, only
time
will tell)

you told your heart, “listen
to logic.”

you hated the storm clouds
that thundered over your head
and loosed rain
on your dusty windows.

you had it all wrong.

the sun is bright
but it burns - inch your way
out of the atmosphere
and you’re scalded
through and through
the moment you get in its way.

night settles because
it’s only in darkness that
stars get their chance
to shine.

(if) when i
turn to stone, take my
heart and bury it
beneath a garden.
let vines embrace my
frozen form
and a forest grow
above my useless body.

find the grave of the cosmos
that convinced the stars
we were right
and salt the earth.

(eye contact is
inevitable).

put me to rest as my own
grave marker
surrounded by soil
crawling with the things
she’ll never give me. let
it seep into my
pores and manifest
as the dirt
under my fingernails.

(who’s to say
i wasn’t made of stone
to begin with?)

i have a warped vision of love.

my heart is too heavy
to carry
inside my chest
and so i break bits off
as i would pieces of a
sugar cookie to share
with those who might
appreciate it.

i get lost inside myself, the marrow
that twist through my bones, the
vessels that
redden my cheeks.

i’m slick with guilt over
the things i can’t control
and today’s tears
feel like falling back in time
because their explanation is ugly
and therefore doesn’t exist.

(i hope it’s true
that linear time
is just
an illusion.)

feeling whole
was never something
i could keep a grip on.

(i can’t help it.)

the things you look for
cannot be found
in my shadowy lips.
my secrets are not hidden in
the crevices of my
skin.

my breath quakes
as it tries to force itself
down my throat
and i do not have the lung capacity
to whisper platitudes
into your neck.

the link between creativity and
pain
is one that i tried
so fervently to sever.
no one had to tell me
that there would be
no fruition.

(if knowledge were strength
i would have carried
you all
on my back.)

my depth perception varies
day to day
and the idea that
everything extends
endlessly
inwards and out
reminds me that we were
never meant to
understand.

(all things are true
if enough people
believe in them.)

i was never the real thing.

but then
neither were you.

i.
i’m stuffing my ears with cotton
because there will never
be enough pores in my body
to absorb her voice.

too many people talking at once
and i can catch every
other word that she
never meant.

ii.
but her eyes remind me
of the way
freshly ground coffee smells
and she knows
i could never give her a solid

iii.
no.

she feels like the
real thing
but the nerves in my fingertips
have become calloused and senseless
so there’s really
no way to tell.

iv.
(she told me
that my voice
gives her butterflies

and i still can’t
really believe her
despite this dragon
breathing fire into my gut.)

v.
i’ll sit on that brick
as long as it takes
waiting for her to blow that smoke
back in my face and say
“taboo”

vi.
because i was never
the one she dreamed about.

i will not
close my eyes.

i’ve only just begun
to reopen
the doors that keep
my heart tucked away, yet
you rushed forward
with a romance
i didn’t expect.

you took the emptiness
i had forged
from fires of the past
and tossed handfuls of
stardust
into constellations
on its surface.

the nerves in my neck
tingle in anticipation
of the promises we made
to each other.
the salt in our hair
and the sand on our
skin make it real.

(i promise.)

so eagerly
peeling back layers, you
just make sense
the deeper
i sink.

(no matter what.)

i.
i’ve been working on
breaking down the walls
that i spent
so long
building up, hoping
that she might
peek through the holes
and want to join me
in my abyss.

ii.
the others came instead.

i waved them over the mess
hesitantly
and tried to smile as they
surveyed what lay behind.

iii.
it was only as the clouds descended
and laid their tears
across the pavement
that i felt the pain
of letting the old stones
litter the ground.
lightning struck my
exposed chest
and the blocks
fired nerve endings
with every crack
of thunder.

iv.
the urge to line the bricks
and spread the
mortar is undeniable

v.
but i’m still waiting
for her

to come by and tell me
that i don’t need them.

i have lost the ability
to distinguish
between
the physical inability
and my own unwillingness
to stopper the words
that pour
from my lips and
my pen, and my
heart.

i have this thought
(though i know that
it has no real merit)
that if i let them
drip
eventually the ripples will reach you

and you’ll understand.

i.
i want to tell you
that i think

ii.
you’re beautiful

(you are)
(i do)

iii.
but i’m afraid that you’ll
see past
what i really mean
and find the simplicity
of the words
more captivating.

iv.
i want to describe to you
the way in which my heart beats
when i hear the syllables
that form your name

but then you might
smile
with pity in your eyes

v.
because you know
that if i’m able to
say it

vi.
it’s probably already
a lost cause.