there is a version of me who is covered in ash.
that girl would rather jump into the fire than put it out.
there is a version of me who is scared to be
the fallout, scared to be the end of the
sentence and the last touch.
i want to hold that girl in both hands.
i want to touch that girl gently.
that girl never listened.
i want to tell her in a language she will understand:
you have been wandering through the smoke for
so long, you can't see that this is just a room. this is
just four walls of a house, with a boy and a bed drenched in gasoline.
this is just a boy, this is not a home, this is just smoke and mirrors.
there is a version of me who wanted to save him from the flames.
i want to brush the dirt from that girls forehead and hold
onto her shoulders until she stops shaking. i want to tell her in
a language she will understand:
it will always feel like this. it will always feel like gasping for
air, you never know when its safe to be yourself or when its safer to be a version he wants. it will always feel like planning an escape route you never use. why wont he open the window? why wont he let you breathe?
there is a version of me who needs someone, and i wish to God that i could cover her eyes with both hands until the pain dissipates and it is just a room once again. until it stops burning.
that girl is so brave.
that girl tried to leave so many times.
when she puts one hand on the doorknob, i want to stand behind her.
this is just an empty room with scorched walls. there is nothing
more than the nothing that is left.
when she asks. "where will i go?"
i want to whisper, "you will come home to your heart."

i let the dark in.
                    i keep the window open and i stare into the trees.
i think about holding onto the edge of anything, i think about
my fingers and if they desire anything enough to
   keep their grip.
when i was younger i always thought that when
bad things happened
there would be witnesses.

who is watching my ache?
                   where are all of the eyes when i need them?
bad things happen quietly.
i keep looking for a beginning,
looking for an end,
                i can't find either. it's over.
in silence, i let all of the dark in.
                  i don't think i'll ever know how to let go.
                  i don't think i'll ever know what i'm holding onto.
bad things happen softly,
there is violence in
everything gentle and
poison in everything kind.

when i was younger i thought that everyone
died in a comfortable bed, surrounded by
their families.
i thought that when bad things happened,
there would be witnesses.

                    so where is everyone?
is it just me staring into this dark?
                       i witness my own tragedy.
      i do nothing but look at flesh and bone.
every animal is greedy, every
           body wants to get away with something.
ive spent too much time on my hands and knees.
if there is blood i don't know where it begins and
            where it ends.
i don't know if i can keep watching this grief.
    i just can't find a place to put it down.

it is about you.
no lovesickness to rock your empty body.
no guilt to beat like a drum in your chest.
no anger, no hurt,
it is about your skin.
about the light that you drink with morning coffee.
how it reflects off of your curves.
about the corners of your mouth.
about your cold feet,
your gentle hands.
it is about the grass in your toes.
the air around you, above you, below you.
the water that you drink from.
the earth will take care of your wild roots,
your wild hair,
your wild smile. the earth will take
care of your lovesickness,
all of your pain.
all of your guilt.
you touch the world with your gentle hands and
it always touches you back.
you are composed of what touches you back,
what you can sit still and listen to.
what buzzes inside of you,
what you contain and
what you allow to escape.
it is about you,
it has always been about you. not
your hurt, not what callouses your palms or
haunts your clasped prayers.
it is just about your body,
every part of your body,
from the bottoms of your feet
to your fingertips, your
nose, the ends of your hair,
it is about listening when the
earth tells you, this body is
okay. this body is enough. it is
about how everything you touch
always touches back.

and if we happen to
explode like a star that has
held it's breath for just a bit
too long, an exhale of
the memories we press into each other,
i will acknowledge it as less of a cheap shot to
my stomach and more like a tender tide
between the skin and the bed.
i have come this far on the back of
every single mistake,
i had caved into your mouth the second
it collided against mine and
i have let all of this love leak from the
cracks in my skin.
if our feverish and hungry hands
soften into gentle fingertips and
quiet, distracted touches, i will
lull into the way it still feels like you are
coming home every time. when we
get old and we collapse into the safety
of our own walls after one of the long days that
never end, i will take the silence as less of a bitter
absolution and more like a shift into the refuge of
each evening. i have spent my time
wanting, i have spent my time craving and
devouring all of the you that i could get my hands
on. if we kiss each other until our deprived shoulders
slump into acceptance, i will kiss you again and
we can carry each
other through phases like the moon. if we happen to
love each other so much that we do little else, i will
cherish every second that we spend doing nothing.

IT IS A TESTAMENT TO THE OBEDIENCE OF YOUR HISTORY.
YOU ARE BORN. YOU WILL LOVE SOMETHING NATURAL
UNTIL IT ROTS
AND YOU WILL DIE WHEN IT WITHERS
LIKE YOU HAVE NEVER KNOWN THE SPRINGTIME.
IT IS WHAT YOU DO.
A TRIBUTE TO YOUR ****** HEART,
YOU TAKE WHAT IS BEAUTIFUL
YOU WILL EAT IT UNTIL IT IS JUST THE BONES OF
SOMETHING RAW–
YOU WILL ACHE WITH SOLITUDE
AND SHATTER EMPTY DINNER PLATES.
A EULOGY TO ALL
THE GIRLS THAT BLOOMED FOR YOU
IN THE WINTER,
IT IS NOTHING MORE THAN AN ECHO OF THE BITTERNESS YOU KNOW TOO WELL.
TEACH A MAN TO FEED AND HE WILL
DEVOUR WHAT IS IN SIGHT.
TEACH A MAN TO LOVE AND HE WILL
BREAK HIS KNUCKLES
DIGGING GRAVES INTO THE DIRT.

take a girl. take
all of her hurt, all of the nails piercing her hands, all
of the dead flowers taped to her skin. take her hair,
tree branches woven through and choppy bangs,
take her chest, how you can practically see her
heartbeat move the rest of her body. take her rib cage,
cracked open and tacked together, held up with fishing line
and guarded with rose bushes. take a girl who has never
been touched tenderly, who prepared for the storm so
vigorously she erased the calm that anticipates the rain.
take a girl with bugs in her brain, who can't help but
look like she's walked through hell barefoot, who
can't help but retrace her steps, who lusts after the heat
and overlooks the blackened char that coats her figure.
take a girl who runs, bolts at the first manifestation of desertion,
who obliterates the promises that lie in front of her just to
watch how easily they erupt. take a girl and call her "chaos"
because it is what she was birthed into and assembled from,
dark dirt packed into the crevices of her smile. take this girl and
give her to a boy. watch
him touch her gently, so gently it feels like he does not touch her
at all. so gently she wants him to ravage her.
give her to a boy that covers her face with his hands, clean hands
that he has scrubbed raw, clean hands that have learned gentle
through trial and error. give her to a boy that has always
done the leaving, he packs his things in the middle of the night
and only takes what he needs. the rest can stay. he is made
up of "look, don't touch," he is stone like marble with cracks running like stitches up his side. he has scars that cover his
clean hands, his arms, his chest, his back. take a girl and give
her to a boy, and watch her trace her fingers over his flesh gently,
so gently it makes him shiver,
so gently she wants to devastate him.
watch them interact like animals in the wild, people who have
grown with their fists up, people who have started from empty
and have learned what it takes to present entirety. watch them
tear each other apart without moving, eyes fixed on their
reserve, begging to know more without flinching.
watch them pull each other apart and fold the pieces around
in their palms, they stick every moment back into it's place,
gently, so gently that they want to rip what each other has
been wrongly taught into shreds, so gently that they want to
scrub what has stained them until it is clean. take a girl and
give her to a boy, let her kiss him so gently that they
want to do something stupid. so gently that they want to make
a mess of each other, so gently that they want to fall in love.

in a different world i am waking up from a nap when you walk down the stairs with your work clothes on. you pull your shirt over your head and lean in to kiss me on the cheek. i am curled up in your blankets and you lay down next to me. you whisper something against my skin and i fall back asleep.
in a different world i don't savor every second i have with you, i let them pass by lazily. there will be more and more and more. more you walking down the stairs and pulling your shirt over your head. more leaning in to kiss me on the cheek. more blankets and more your skin on mine.
in a different world we eat dinner together, we split one meal like we always do. we eat off the same plate like we always do. we fight over the best bits of the dish like we always do. i win, like you always let me, because you like seeing me eat. we do dishes, we take turns. sometimes you cook and sometimes we walk to the store and sometimes we go out and sit in the same booth. your hand is on my leg the entire time. we make fun of the conversations around us, you mess with the waiter and i drop my silverware. when we get outside you wrap your arms around me and kiss my cheek for no reason.
in a different world you wake up from a nightmare, you rarely have them anymore but every once in a while i can feel your chest rise and fall in a mismatched syncopation. you **** up and mumble something, sometimes its my name and sometimes its not. in a different world i sit up with you and put my hand right by your collarbone. we sit in the darkness for a while. we fall back asleep and your grip is tighter on the space between my hips and my ribcage.
in a different world you read your book and i sit next to you and draw. you start speaking aloud, a passage i've heard a hundred times before. i listen anyway. in a different world i underline excerpts of poetry and read them to you while you fall asleep. i read you what i write. i show you what i draw. in a different world you watch my eyes fill with passion and you nod along to my nonsensical fits of expression. when i'm done, you smile.
in a different world there is a house. there is a ring. there is a dog, a cat, a garden. there is a garden. we give each other everything we promised. there is a garden that we can sit in, there is a mess in the kitchen from a girl trying to make strawberry jam. there is a house, a ring, a dog, a cat, a garden, a girl, a boy, a life.
in a different world there is a life waiting to be built. in a different world it works, we sleep and wake up and think of each other all day and we love each other so much that it almost kills us. in a different world that love is enough.

longing
1. noun; a yearning desire
- i never used to be uncomfortable in my own bed. i knew your name before my rib cage started to sing it in my sleep. every night that has passed crosses itself off of a pocket-calendar that is stuck in the drawers of my chest. you move your favorite things into the empty spaces, you hang your worst fears up like clothes that are waiting to dry, you scratch how you love into the bedpost and put your handprints all over the walls. i can't take a deep breath without
hearing your voice in the refrain of my lungs.

yearnining
2. noun; a feeling of strong want or need
- the first time i heard your voice, it sounded exactly like what
your voice should sound like. soft, barely above a whisper, low
and confident and eager. when you spoke, i wanted
to cancel the outside noise of my breathing to listen to you. i wanted
to close my eyes and imagine that voice next to my ear, barely
above a whisper, low and confident and eager and right there
with both of our breathing suspended by its echo.

desire
3. noun; a strong feeling of wanting to have something or wishing for something to happen.
- every day it is something different. your eyes and how they
almost close when you smile. how your whole family has brown
eyes but you have bright blue ones that turn to gray as the
seasons wear on. your hands and how they look like you
should play an instrument, im saying put those hands to
good use and find something to strum. and we laugh because
you know what i mean. your laugh. it sounds like an answer
to a question i've been asking the silence.
give me someone to love like that. give me someone to love like that. give me-
like a call back from the
darkness. like, here he is in all of his glory and you
still can't have him.