i should have known
when you told me
that i was a celestial body
and you favour the sun

i should have known
when you said my name
the same way you said moon

i should have known
when you marveled at supernovas
the same way you marveled at me

i should have known
when you told me
that space ***** you up
and i made you undone

you proclaim that every day has me :
engraved into the darkness of your eyelids,
pressing against the inside of your skull ;
that you can’t ever, not even for a second, forget
and i wonder if you are lying
because if that’s true,
then that means your weeks of silence
are made of intentional ignorance,
knowing that i have burning imprints of you :
trapped in my lungs,
making a staircase of my rib cage,
just out of place like a cool sweat in a heat wave.
my fingers are still cold and hands still shake at the idea
that you left the refrigerator open on purpose
because you had no intention of keeping me warm.

well here i am again, sleepless.
it’s 1:42 in the morning.
at this rate i will have shivered myself into a cold
before the sun comes up
but instead of putting on a sweater,
i am drinking watered down grape juice wishing it was wine
and wondering where the hell you’ve been that another week of silence has gone by
and if you’ll ever stop doing this to me
or if i’ll ever stop letting you.

It was one of those nights.

A night like just ripe strawberries
with a sprinkle of unneeded sugar melting over the top;
the knowledge that eating these berries would taste as sweet as kissing the person they’re shared with.
Maybe even sweeter.

A night just the side of warm
where a glimmer-sheen of sweat hangs onto the places between elbows and knees;
shirt backs stick to lower ones - but it smells so good outside, like summer
even though it was only May.

A night that held two years ago against two years from now
and came up without wanting;
past was memory, future was possibility,
everything in the middle was one of those nights.

Beautiful between midnight
and lonely again by four in the morning.

across the atlantic,
under cliffs by the water in the rain,
southern eyes meet arctic blues and ask:
do you ever think about the oceans -
how there are unknowable creatures living under the surface of each one:
some of them beautiful
some of them hideous
some of them terrifying
some of them kind
some of them deadly
some of them lost
some of them found
some of them hiding
most of them undiscovered;
more than mostly unexplored,
miles deeper than the tall of the sky, much less the shore
i’m asking because i can’t understand why —
when i have always been afraid of heights —
do i look at you and know that all these same some things are living behind your eyes, the way i know they must exist under all of the oceans and i am left wanting all the unknowables:
some beautiful
some hideous
some terrifying
some kind
some deadly
some lost
some found
some hiding
most undiscovered;
more than mostly unexplored,
deeper than the tall of the sky, much less the shore
and i am left wanting to fall instead of fly.

the moment i looked up i saw your face
a screaming alarm and barely awake, early morning
dulled by your illuminated gaze
( dark eyes sparked so bright, the stars complain at night,
ironically you’ve been calling me starshine )
it’s supposed to storm today
my bones can already feel the rain, every pulse point an ache
we will weather the weather anyway
sunrise bleeds peach pinks through baby blue
i’m taking pictures of you
( without you here )
an everywhere, nowhere
both a part of this far apart from this
slow it down, closer to me
i wake only to talk to a dream
my hands offered ( cold ) to a hot chocolate lover
and we’re both burning but only inside
and we don’t make the obvious promises
but one day, some day, on that day
honesty, you’ll be right there beside
a tipped chair and two tangled sets of five
trust in truth debts we never truly need - please believe,
i won’t forget how you’re astonishingly real
despite combined hestitaion to feel,
high pressure pumping blood into ghosts
hearts in hands other than their hosts’
our ribs built separate houses for our traded homes
you could have anything you wanted from me
you don’t ask
but i’ll play every simple song i know
and when that’s not enough i’ll just hum notes
we have time
we have time
we have time

do you ever sit beside someone
and the rest of the world goes quiet
or maybe that’s not quite the truth
the rest of the world falls into to chaos;
stir crazy,
violent storms of
should have and would never
and can’t now and won’t ever
and could possibly, probably can, maybe —
but your head goes quiet
and you wish you could just pretend for a second
that you are someone different and it wouldn’t mean as much
from your hands and your lips and your eyes or your mouth
and maybe someday the right words will come out
and all that fades into nothingness with swing back around
and mornings won’t feel gray until the sun comes out
and running won’t be away forever
but to some place in between then and now

do you ever just sit beside someone
and not know what to do with your hands
but wish they belonged to someone braver;
that you were a self-made man
and do you understand —
that you gave up too much of yourself to survive the hands of a lesser man
but the press of this one’s shoulder is more than you told her you wanted
but you wanted it