i wanna kiss your face
take me back to your place
my mother will never know
oh oh oh
i'm afraid i'm gonna like kissing your girlfriend more than you
i'm afraid she's gonna find out that i wanna be used by you too
i'm afraid you'll hate me hanging around
i hate the sound of my own sounds
and i hate how your feelings drown me
and thoughts of you surround me
in the best possible way
i've never been one for fate
but there you are
still standing by me

strawberry dress and clear lip gloss
laying your head on a soft bed of moss
the way you run off
reminds me of ballet
and your smile in the sun
just makes my day

but you're like a nosebleed
you really taste so sweet
i wanna take care of you
but you're no good for me
i've never had a nosebleed
i wish someone would hold me
and sing me soft songs
in their arms as i fall asleep

your scraped knees are so cute
i wanna say that i love you
but by now it's too late
you've got a boyfriend anyways

i spend all my money
on a tissue box
and waste all my time on
the show you watch
hoping that one day soon
i'll get to be the one with you

but you're like a nosebleed
you taste so ******* sweet
but you come with a punch to the face
and you make me wanna leave this place

you're like pulling teeth
it's what i need
but i ******* hate you
you're like a nosebleed
know what i mean
you taste so sweet
but it's painful
and just like me
you want everything to be perfect but you're so unstable
begging to be taken on a table
you're a self inflicted injury
and i've been clean for several weeks

this is love stripped of poetry, so here darling, i might as well just rip out my chest because not loving you is the last act of self-inflicted violence. how i rue the days. i might as well just rip my chest out and give you my heart — burrow your way under my skin, like wood dusts drawn to the wounds in my heels. i will give up poetry to be loved by you in ways not dreamy. in ways raw. sober. aware. unadulterated. lawless. infinite. in intense, longing gazes. in ways that stray from falling apart so beautifully, in such chest-tearing grace. in ways that stain tenderness. in ways that crash and burn.

my love, catch me. watch me tear down the world in the name of your eyes. watch me tear down poetry. i have no need for it.

I daren't (rather, shouldn't) breathe:
I'd built a tower of hearts from cards.
The gaps and breaks are real estate --
I'm nestled in the in-betweens.

                                              (Sapp­**'s spirit sighs.
                                              How human to not move quickly enough,
                                              or to yearn for whatever's inches from reach
                                              - blissfully unhinged by "almost".)

She's marble-carved and still as stone:
if I kissed her, would she spring to life?
I'd offer nought but foolish flesh,
this trembling frame, and bone.

                                                          ­  ("Tell me yes, tell me no;
                                                             either way, you're in the right,
                                                          ­   but for the love of Venus -- speak.")

Hidden giver, sighing life into fields of
Wheat’s ears, rolling tide-like to meet the rusted gate of cracked through orange-ore, resting ajar, guarding the hedge line

Arms out, splaying fingers I divine life here-
God’s flame, burning Barakah, sacred zephyr
warming  fingers, frosted with tired life help them loosen and live bright

Your body
All angles and edges in place of curves
Your neck
Cinnamon, turmeric and salt
Your skin
Wheat-dark like pages of a well-worn book

Your atlas back
Arched like a cello’s waist
Your elegant fingers
Graze the ivory shell of my ear
Your hollow collarbone
Perched like a sycamore branch

Crawling its way up
My pelvis
My sternum
My throat
Until finally hanahaki springs forth
From my welcoming lips.

Meteors are made of three components
Iron, nickel and silicates
You are made of something simpler
Sea salt, angst and
Tenderness

Yet my fingers always fall short
Of reaching you
But if you did ever let me caress the space
Between us
Not just in our lips

You’d come crashing down
Bursting in a kaleidoscope of flames
Orange and silver sparks flying
And I would still hold on
Even if you take me with you.

I could stare at your back all day
Your shoulder blades slice
Like doves diving into rice milk
Am I being saccharine?
Only for you, my sweet rabbit

If I pry into your ribboned cage
Would I find a tanghulu heart
Or a hollow space where I’ve stolen it?
I hope it has found a home in my mouth
Despite the high chance of cavity

At least I have you to fill the empty hole between my lips.

A fox sits in the forest at the foot of my house.
Each morning
she intertwines with the sunrise, materialising through graceful leaps
It leaves me breathless;
all I can do is bathe in awe.

One morning I extend my hand
and she engulfs me, gracefully
I become whole again. We dash through trees
and fields and meadows

She dances, and leads me gently to the tips of the earth
Her breath resounds against hillsides, and as I fall
I catch almost a glimmer of
light-dipped roses, and golden daffodils.