We grew up.
We grew into eachother.
I cant tell where I end
and you begin.
We make eachother younger,
braver people.
I look at you and I just
want and want and want.
I want things I dont know how to ask for.
It sticks in my head like bubblegum
on the bottom of my shoe.
Everything feels so incredibly vast.
How do you let go of something
thats already a part of you?
I say your name just to feel it in my mouth again.
All I can see is that October rain
dancing down the lines of your hair
and the gentle ***** of your nose.
Its the kind of thing that makes me want to take deep breaths.
I am storm soaked
and full up in love.
How fine and rare and beautiful it is
to simply exist.

I am all want.
Every inch of my skin is covered in fire ants,
I'm sure of it.
You've got a voice like a gunshot
and a tangerine mouth.
I am completely sunblind.
All I see is carnal yellow.
I could live in it.
I could love in it.
I would use a time machine to go back and meet you sooner.
You turn my spine into magma;
writhing and fusing
to whatever dares come this close.
The heat of it makes me smile younger and care harder.
I love you with the windows thrown open.
I tell you like you tore it out of me.
The air is an inferno but we keep breathing in;
I take a long look at your hands.

I think about religion.

Its in the splitting,
Its in the calamity and coming back again.
This is the part where we say yes,
even with all the breaking.
It is hard to look at you.
That sun soaked body.
Standing somewhere in between
where we were
and where we are going.
I would never ask you to leave that place
the way you asked me to stay in it.
I leave my yesterdays behind,
when I can.
Yes, I was smaller then.
I used to fit there.
But I have changed
and nothing else has followed.
I have outgrown it,
I have outloved it.
If you're asking,
Yes I was angry.
Yes, I still love you.
You are the only bones I ever kneeled before.

Both time and I are frozen
in between your hands.
A pair of green eyes--
halfstop.
I am coming unstuck in time.
I grow young again,
I go back and fix the yesterdays.
We go back to March 15th,
and this time you say
Yes, I love you.
Yes, I'm happy.
Yes,
Yes,
Yes.
We make it simple this time around.
A hand grazes breezily up my spine--
halfstop.
We stand in front of each other again.
We are laughing like wind chimes in a dust devil.
Back,
and back,
and back.
I open my eyes
and find myself facing a
slightly younger version of you.
"You're here"
you say.
I pause--
halfstop.
Sixteen year old you is in love with me.
Fifteen year old you doesn't know it yet.
I wonder what age I have found you in.
I place the scab on your wrist,
I know it on sight.
I remember tumbling over the handlebars
of your red Schwinn bike
and taking you with me.
Fifteen.
I smile.
This you is old enough to at least know when I am going.
"Take me with you,"
you say.
Love,
I've been trying.

I do not know how to turn this into poetry,
so I say it in the dark,
while we cover our eyes.
And it isn't fair,
really.
I don't see you for years,
and I'm still not over you?
You used to say that running away from things
doesn't make them go away.
Well, good,
then.
Even after all this time.
It was always hard to watch you give up on everything.
I never wanted to be a part of that list.
For the record,
I think I'm in love with you.
You smile the same way you did
when we were 16;
artless and unbinding,
like it is pivotal that everything stays this way
for just one more moment.
We grew up,
but we are still the same.
That boundless love of living--
the joy of it.
This
and this,
and this,
I say.
I look at you like I never learned to do anything else.

I have nothing to my name
and I let you take it from me,
over
and over.
If I could be only one thing,
I would be your chaotic, chosen mistake.
I will be that mistake in any existence,
in any town,
in any life.
We are living in that moment
between jumping off the swing
and hitting the ground.
That kind of gravity
turns people senseless.
I will deal with the sunburn,
because neither of us are getting out of this ocean.
We are all elbows and spines and knees.
In our defense;
freedom.
Summer.
I love you right down to the bone.
Satellites crash red and splintered into us.

Nobody tries to make us good again.

We were green and chaotic,
then.
Everything was foolish and heartful and marvelous,
the anarchic knot of your shoelaces,
the weedy attempt to stifle your wild laugh.
I would learn you again
and again.
I smile and it is crooked and joyful,
and you will never be able to unknow it.
Today we are older
and every bit as reckless.
Eld could drink our blood and grow young again.
We keep saying yes.
There are some things
we say only in the dark.
And it’s not about nervousness,
good god,
its for the thrill of it.
It seems impossible to exist in only this space.
I don’t know who I am when I am not looking at you.
I don’t know how to be that person again.
I will always love a wild thing.

I know what I'm capable of.

I wasn’t sure if it was
the pounding of my heart,
the gentle autumn touch,
or your smile I call art
but it happened all too fast
Under the radiant moon
it happened like a dream
a dream too good to be true

The sky gathers itself
and sighs a long,
clement sigh.
We are present tense
because you’re here
and I love you,
golden and mollifying
when the welkin ruptures behind your ribs.
Everything lingers.
Today I am overcome with the burden of burning.
We singe sedately in the yellow light of morning.
You probably don't understand right now,
But I'm in love with you.
Please, help me take the curtains down.
God, don't make me say it.
I love you. I'm in love with you.
I turn to you like heaven on hell.
The situation is grave;
the way we look at eachother,
the way we devour everything,
like time,
like fire,
like gravity.
In us everything melted.
Give me a word for the unbearable sun.
You ruin me grandly,
and I let you.
I dont care what holds the universe up,
anymore.
It has us pinned against time.
Who do you love?
"It’s still you.
Its always you."
It is foolish and young,
but I have been waiting so long
to hear you say my name.
Just the timbre of it.
You kiss me in burning houses
and I don't bother looking back.
I sink for you,
like honey into hands.

Your rapture is infectious,
genuine,
and unconditional.
You are endearing in a way that is physically painful to me.
I adore you like a wildfire.
Your eyes have been shaped like a laugh since noon.
Everything is viscid with the scent
of your youth;
sycamore,
marjoram,
tattered baseball gloves,
and a whisper of burning wood.
I’m a little in love with all of it.
Summer digs its way into my veins.
You dissolve into a splendid and fearless laugh.
Its dripping with a sort of ferocious, tranquil charm.
One of my hands is a promise,
the other is a secret,
and darling,
they are identical;
I have been missing you
as long as I have known you.