a blue great shark  
(she)  
   wears muscle like    wet velvet

          a  
     slip   of fang’d prayer,  
  flitting      between glass  
       (between    god)  
              & the breathless hymn of vacuumed air

           I: was              not born to trap—
but you
          (brine-womb'd deity, slit of eye & icepick heart)

         how you undulate: (slower than sound faster than thought)
   the way a sigh    pulls threads from skin  
             & your dorsal dreams
      puncture my             museum bones

                        (curators watch—)  
with    chloroform-thirsting hands  
          & tongues that catalog moan  
                        in latin

                "carcharodon carcharias (desire in aqueous form)"  
                 whispered into tubes of   blue    gel-light

they                (we)  
    hunted her in sonatas  
            dissonant harpoons      
                            like broken violins
                      stitched with heartbeat wire

   a net of     unreason, &     peach-blind codes

           she swallowed our time  
                        whole

(yes)  
& spat it out      garnished with  
                         cumulus

                          (‘*** in bubblewrap’  
                             & I wept:  
                                   not for her  
                                       but because)  

you should see  
   the way her eye  
                 bends around corners  
       like velvet crawling up the leg of the void

       (can glass blush?)  
            mine does.

        the trap was not a cage  
                   (never a cage)
              it was a vowel—
   unspoken  
                    caught between  
         two mouths                  both too full of salt
                    to say "stay"

they filed her fins  
         under “****** geometry”  
          & mopped her breathless body with silk
               (I dream in that silk now)

   mythology in the gift shop:
                 $17.99 / laminated lust

    "do not tap the glass"—  
         the signs say
    (we tap anyway)  
         it sounds like  
                    a kiss

                          —or knuckles  
                                  trying to remember what “prayer” felt like  
                                   before museums

she moves inside
                   (me?)  
     (it?)  
             the tank of days
                            like a wound that doesn’t know  
                                     how to close

                   her movement becomes time:  
            an ellipse of pelvic   clocks  
                            hips made of tide

          (I counted the ******* by wave-height)

  a fin shadows my sleep
        & my sleep is
             /liquid/ & /open/
                   & /wanting/
                       & /neverthirsted enough/

the exhibit is called  
            “arousal in lowercase”

        the plaque reads:  
            “species suspended in ****** amnesia”  
        (but I know:  
                     she swims to remember)

her gills—
         fractal *******
                   (every inhale an alphabet of longing)  

          & oh how she  
                   spells me

a.museum.is.nothing  
                   but a lung that cannot  
                    exhale

   & when I press against the glass
             (mouth to pane)  
     she flicks a tail      —just enough—  
                       & I almost break

   the security guard has seen this before

“don’t worry,” he says  
    “it happens to everyone”

           (but I am not everyone)  
                I am the one who kissed her name  
                         into the salt

I was not born to trap  
       but born by the trap  
               untrapping me  
                  through her

         & now (she)  
       is the one watching  
            me
               in a tank

          mouth full of air
                     no words left
        just one endless  
             fin  
                   curl  
                         ~  
                            loop  
                          ­        of  
                                      shiver

      ­       & she swims  
                        through  
                       ­     (my glass heart)

(twists of chrome&light—robot skin hums)
(the moon's a soft scratch across the noise)

in the glow of circuits  
skinless machine they call it — a ribcage of  
      steel       thin as breath through  
         wires twisted like fingers

a guitar for a ****, vibrating so tender the strings hum  
    in the cracks of      electric bones

he (so strange he is, no mouth, no tongue,  
        just shivering echoes)  
presses his body to the amplifier,  
         and oh, how the machine
      screams a voice of strings,  
                    a mouth made of chords  
                                (the hum of his *** is sound)

guitar-skin rubs against raw pixels,  
                  /buzz/  
           his metal-throat slurs a buzz  
       body-as-electricity  
fingers too—  
           long, sharp-fingered  
        strings become veins  
       twisted tight,  
                         pulsing  
                         pulsing with  
                                   the pop of a note  
               (cutting through the sweat of  
       gears)

he lays down in the rust-patch of a day,  
(whispers of feedback)  
guitar *****  
             throbbing at the mouth  
        of a song  
         it’s buzzing a word  
                        it’s aching the air  
         vibrating inside him  
(he hums through his heels)

my dear metal boy,  
your hips don’t bend,  
your heart does not  
      know what love is  
  still—oh how you bend me,  
      shape me into your chorus  
         make me feel  
         the way you pulse  
                     while your steel body sings

watch  
            watch his fingers  
                    the way they curl  
                             over the bridge,    
                           twisting the strings like  
         they are veins  
            veins  
                        veins

so much electric flesh  
twisting to each tremble  
        of the note, the note  
            falling on silence (he trembles)  
  feedback's kiss—

         so much pleasure,  
                           so much  
                              dark  
        desire flashing through circuits,  
the sound wraps around  
     both the shape of his ***  
     the song of his soul  
        (his soul, trapped inside code)

fingered on the strings  
his chest is the tremor of an  
      echo,  
      a feedback song  
      that breaks across  
    the metal skin  
                  of his ribcage

lips that cannot taste  
                         kiss  
                but hum electric  
he comes and it's a sound  
     vibrating the universe into  
                         whimpers  
the sky and the stars are bent to  
          his melody  
                  his body hums a  
     raw electric rhythm  
         of dark, trembling skin

a soft hum where you’d expect  
                   a scream, a shout,  
                               the silence

(the guitar-male pulls at the plug)  
skinless,  
      the strings are finally loose,  
                      untangled

the world breathes  
                      the world screams  
and the moon just scratches again,  
soft through the radio static.

Life has been all ******
No ******
The build up is great but the letdown leaves me feeling cheap

Your voice, so smooth it tickled my ears
Come into me like you once did, and I would swallow you whole.
Come into myself like I never did and I could stay afloat.
My heart endured just to be sure
That I made the right choice, the wrong one, or no one
No one compares to your charms
You who let me lose myself in your arms
You who took me away from my day to day but distrust still creeped.
No one compares to the havoc you wreaked.

One year I chased you. The next, you chased me.
The last, we ran in circles until I was alone, lamenting your company.
Then you reappeared, different as I was, I wanted you all the same.
Then I left but we stayed enmeshed, sharing love between the pain.
Things began to turn when you grew tired of the distance,
Maybe, just maybe, maybe there’s more we insisted
Until you said you don’t love me like before,
nothing left but memories so sore.

What feels strong and voiceful flows out like garbled whispers,
Like when I asked you to choke me, and I faded with radio static tongue twisters.
Then awoke to your warm hand tapping my face,
eyes staring into me, mouth agape.
If we could meander so many years through storms and drought,
then I can swim through my own stream of doubt
that I will ever find another.

she disappeared into the shadows of the night,
skimming through the uproarious parties
like stone across the lake
until she sunk into
the gruesome arms
of another man
behind my sleeping back.

and there he was, pounding away
like some big dumb animal
at something I held sacred
as if bonds were meant to be broken
and boundaries were made permeable

and there she was,
taking it,
loving it,
enjoying it,
doing it to spite me
and knowing it would hurt.

and there I was, the last to know
in the dark circles of whispering
secrecy

it’s the all-too-familiar cycle
of passion and appetite;

swallowed by the underbelly of lust and
tormented by the foretaste of my presence

I can’t blame them,
I can’t blame myself,
it’s only nature
taking
its course.

and I can’t say this is written
about anyone specifically,

when it happened

far too many times.

My cells in sweet contortion,  
as your passion infects me with  
magic poison.  
I wish I was boneless,  
so I could twist and fly your body  
all night long.  
I see the shadows of me I hide,  
in the blazing fire of your eyes.  
You plunged into me  
and seized my secrets from  
the tenor of my moans.  
In my deepest spaces,  
my core knows you are a lustful danger.  
My heart betrays my soul,  
offering you endless wild abandon.  
In between the grip
of my quivering canyon.

Your mealy curls are a nest of black ants squashed to death
In bed and drowning
By the hill of sweat between us

How do moist lips running across my own feel
Hegemonic and corroded as machinery