I prayed wordlessly
with glue on my lips,
a prayer that cracked the roof of my
mouth:
not that I would find love, just
that I could have you.

A couple falling in love, first date,
another falling out, last fight.
Two boys playing chess,
a girl hungry, won't eat,
a reader, a writer,
an ocean full of thoughts,
and the rare listener.

Eugene sits caddy corner
to the girl in the library.
He doodles in the margins of
library books,
and sips quiet rebellion.
Every so often, they make eye contact
for a split second,
and spill a hundred thoughts
across breathless space.
Eugene listens to her music,
loud enough in her little earbuds
to silence her thoughts.
He knows she's left-handed,
smells like coconut and sea salt,
and takes her coffee black,
but doesn't quite know her name.
Today she might be Jolie,
tomorrow Jasmine,
yesterday Genevieve.
They are just lonely enough
to never speak,
to starve on crumbs of
stolen glances and
shared songs.

She does not shout, she’s
the color of mirror
and the shape of song.
She whispers that she loves
herself; she’s clarity
in the absence of reason,
perched on the apex of pain.
She hurts like my stomach on
my birthday,
glaring red beneath my sleepless
eyelids. She was
firstborn from darkness and sprawls
fleshly into light.
Hers is a compass with a
hidden true north,
a tapestry woven of
all love and evil.
She’s poster tack stuck to the wall,
in little shapes like a near-cloudless day.
She is all we can pretend to know,
the only thing we create and
never fully understand.

If you drank burgundy we’d get along better
I think;
I’d like the way it would
stain your white collar
and laugh when you couldn’t get it out.
It would sit angry against your neck and
stare at me, and
I would smile because I'd
know how it feels.
You’d think it was you who
had painted me happy, so you’d
forget it was there and I’d
know how it feels.
I would take a napkin
and wipe the crimson tracks from the
corners of your mouth,
just so I could have some
burgundy of my own.
It would sit folded
neatly in my lap and
long for your spotted collar and
I’d almost cry because I
know how it feels.
It’s too bad, really,
you and your glass of clear.
No stains and no taste
and no idea how I feel.

we seemed the perfect match:
i loved to talk about you
and so did
you.