i hope the poem that rests on your tongue,
vibrant and lovely, speaks your truth.
and that this truth is all your own and knows
your love in its wholeness; anxiety, fright,
happiness included.

that the object of your desire, human
and beautiful, meets you where you rest,
and loves you with the same heat
and kindness that you deserve.

and that you grow from the experience
of wanting beyond your selfish heart,
into something that only wants the best
for another, for no reason
other than their happiness with
or without you.

what is the benchmark or minimum
for telling someone, "i love you,"?
how many i miss yous
and i wish you were heres are enough,
even minutes after parting?

whatever the number is, **** it.
because my heart remembers to beat
and even attempts to soar with you
to heights new, unfound, unseen.

where the chittering of nearby birds
is both foreign and kind comfort
in our hands;
where oranges and strawberries grow
in tandem, vine over vine, root over root,
and fall into us, sweet and kind and lovely.

if i were to say it too soon, i'm afraid
i'd lose you, your wit, your smile,
dumb jokes and blazing blue eyes.
and by withholding, i risk combustion,
and an end to it all the same.

i love you.

Lighthouse cloaked in wavelike fog
which drifts like a silver procession
through the ferns and evergreens.

Spectral rivers of autumn leaves
spiral across the rocks.

Phantoms of white, smoky halos
tremble through a willow
dancing in holy midnight.

Lindworm draped by blackened seas
brewing thunder and hurricanes
to batter the haggard land.

Her home is between
a dream and consciousness;
old specter of dark quartz.
Cradling her spells in skin-bound volumes,
old weaver of animosity,
the priestess of remorse.

In the amber fens, she's painting ripples
with turquoise glow.
Dancing with her puppets in a hellish glade
with skeletal hands
reaching from the mud and snow.

Sat beside the creaking wheel,
she draws phantoms on her loom.
Stirring murky potions
and studying the architects of doom.

Oft gazes her eyes of jeweled fire
upon the black smoke of a spectral pyre.
Watch her scribbling our forsaken fates.

I chase the light for so long; but then I realized I never knew what light looked like; whatever light I had in me was just a lighter shade of darkness

It was curious
that the horror stories
were not false

Believe it
or not
The pairs of glassy eyes
the horrific shadows
the blazing ignes fatui
the strange cold
the ghostly celebration

Termites, spiders, ants
and bats are alive
the rest are dead

The spectres and the skeletons
roam the island
they were **** sapiens

They exist betwixt
the cryptic hallucination
and the paradoxical illusion
**** sapiens is afraid

Winter had arrived
overnight, and

we had slept soundly through it, the
snow smothering

any sounds that dared
try to escape.

The morning arrived clear and sunny
and cold.

I was washing the dishes in that
old kitchen sink of ours when I noticed them—

footprints through the snow in our backyard—I couldn’t
say how many sets there were—

starting at the back fence and
proceeding directly

to our kitchen window. You
told me that you were going to head outside

to shovel the walk, but I told you
that I would take care of it, and I put on

my boots but no jacket, and I walked
out the back door, shovel held tightly

in hand. The tracks traced
the full perimeter of our house—

they appeared to be searching
for something—and they stopped

right outside of her
bedroom window—I couldn’t say

how many sets there were, or how long
they’d stood there while she slept.

I don’t know what
compelled me, but I turned the shovel

over, hurriedly using its edge to scrape
away the footprints there beneath the

window, the grass beneath them still
green and struggling to breathe.

And when I came back inside
you asked me

what I was up to out there, and I told you
that it was too cold

to shovel, that we should put on
another *** of coffee,

that we should stay inside
and not face the day,

and let the children
keep sleeping.

Come hither, Dear Hallows Eve
and covet these sickly sweets  
till porcelain heaves
poor uvula cleaved,
by Sir Grim Reaper’s teeth—

till eyes do burst
like pop rocks cursed
upon the ghost’s white sheets.


Come hither, Dear Hallows Eve.


Come forth, This Villain’s Night,
fair ghouls, you need not hide
and spectres: don’t be shy!
deliver your joyous frights
the witches do abide—

unearth your tombs;
prepare the brooms

and sweep across the sky


on this Villain’s Night.


Come now, Halloween!
hear October’s screams;
the heart’s curdled beat
against my haunted dreams
from which the darkness seeps.

You call me sick
you cry out “trick”

but still I stick to treat—

Yes!

Come now, Halloween!

It's a Saturday night in fall
and I'm the only boy at the slumber party.

Our festivities begin outside,
the cool wind keeping our knees together
as we sit by the pool
and discuss how cool we'll be.

Inside, her parents eye me,
like the Terminator
scanning a potential threat.

We play charades
and twister
and paranoia,
and we laugh and judge and scream.

At 10 p.m. we're told to sleep,
and I sneak up stairs to meet the stirring girls
who giggle in anticipation.

They get to work.
They paint my nails,
They make me up,
and at some point of reflection I see
that
I can no longer see me for me.
We fall asleep.

When I awake,
White pillow caked with
black and fleshy pink,
my friends put me back how they found me -
The only boy at the slumber party.

Forsaken shrine,
Nights align,
In a spotted chalice,
Like onyx wine.
Out rings a bell,
A raven knell,
The wicked cry,
And doleful spell--
     --Of witching's time.

A wayward soul,
On blinded stroll,
As through the dark,
They must patrol.
The traveled path,
A harsh lambast,
And so return,
The hour's bath.

Fore a shape,
A phantom escape,
Awaiting idol,
Past a molten scape.
River quelled,
Fusion's shell,
Lest a shade and shadow weld,
Beware the spell--
     --Of witching's time.