my heart walks the fine, grey line
that hovers between platonic and romantic
feelings for her
or him
probably her

you are so so very incredible
and i continue to trip and fall as i attempt
to balance myself on the fine, grey line

i am so so very confused
as you are my everything
and i feel like nothing when i am not with you

what line is there?

She finds that even backyard leaves contain
a blazing history inside their veins.
She reads the legends etched in crinkled skin,
her ardent, housebound blood boiling within.

At dusk, she likes to listen to the creek–
its reverent, animated tales of meek
young girls who grew into grand bronze statues–
and long for metal legs that’d let her choose

to dare, and burn, instead of fear, and waste.
But still, at night, her body likes to chase
the hours stargazing at ceilings. And
the myth-less, coarse white stucco slowly sands

away each spot of sprouting luster on
her atrophying frame. With nerve all gone
and adult blood inert as viscous tar,
she cannot even dream of ceiling stars.

I used to be happy
Ignore the heavy things.
Tread and tread and pretend that nothing was below me.

But there are things that lurk.
Monsters and darkness.
While I sank, I sung out about how well I could swim.

And then she was sinking
And I learned how to swim
But I never taught her.

Just keep swimming
I tell her.
soon enough the mermaids will scare them away
I hope she believes me.
I hope she is strong enough to withstand the wretched currents.
I love you. I hope that is enough.

our most intimate moment in my imagination
is painting poetry onto your moonlight-drenched chest,
hot and writhing underneath me,
mirroring each stroke by tensing the muscles in your abdomen–
your vessel of a body,
becoming frayed and singed at the seams as you
burst.

I never cared much for my words.
when I write them onto my own starved skin,
I find, disappointed, that the greyed valleys are always
a poor substitute for the scorchmarks your fingers
track behind them when we
touch.

but I imagine that
covering your skin in my ink would create a
constructive interference, that
engraving into you my
scarlet-tinged idolatry would cause

our cores like stars inside of us to magnetize –
solar flares erupting, surging through every ****** crevice –
to collide in a kaleidoscopic supernova,
tearing flesh to confetti
in a glorious funeral that reeks of
destiny.