They say love is the trigger
For a thousand chemical reactions,
The spark that ignites our bodies
With the force of nuclear bombs.

They say it is an explosion of
Electricity jolting life into
Our nerves.

But, there is nothing chemical
About us, love—
Not in the way our bodies
Are pulled into each other,
Or in the way our hands
Melt into each other’s skin.  

Our love is pure physics, and
It’s as if we were meant to
Break every law of the universe.

Physicists call ‘electromagnetism’
The attraction of masses, bodies—
But, that word does not even begin to
Describe how badly I want
To get under your skin,
To become a part of your very being.  

It’s not enough to explain that force of yours,
The way it seduces me
And reels me into you;
Into your soul.

You are the sun,
And I am every star,
Every moon and planet and comet,
All of me gravitating around you.
I am space-time bending for you,
I am every speck of dust slowly
Floating toward you.

And my love,
You have no idea how my hands
Long to burn with the touch of your skin,
With the heat of a thousand suns.

And when they finally do—
When my fingers can at last trace
The constellations in your collarbone,
Brush through the galaxies woven into your hair—
Only then will I allow the atoms of my being to dissolve
And become one with yours.
For it is only inside of you
That I can live.

I am here now, waiting
With a head full of unwritten words,
Eyes glazed with blankets of stars
And a heart drunk with life.

You are the poetry
That keeps me awake at night,
The lines that whisper at me
Beneath the moonlight,
Begging to be written.

Slim waist.
Skinny arms.
Thigh-gap legs.

“Perfect bodies,” we call them.
“Beautiful” and
“Real.”
But there is nothing real in plasticity,
Nothing beautiful in being ashamed
Of stretchmarks
And imperfections.

Self-hate is not beautiful.

Self-hate is a bunch of weeds,
Growing on the outskirts of our minds,
Slowly inching their way
Into the flowerbeds of our lives,
Killing everything in their path
And leaving a trail of burnt nothingness.

Self-hate is the wandered gone astray,
The lost hiker desperate for a path
To lead him back.
It is panic and despair;
The road for self-destruction.

Self-hate is an ignored cry for help,
A stumble into a dead-end street.
It is staring into a dark void—
Only to be stared back by your own tormented eyes.

Self-hate is not beautiful.
It is your soul begging to be saved
By your own self.

My soul a shattered mirror,
The shards piercing into your skin—
Almost willingly.

The glass kissing your neck like
A cold whisper,
Tracing a map over your collarbone
With trails of hot sweat and skin.

Your mouth a broken replica of mine,
The pieces scattered across our kitchen floor,
The tiles shining with the remains of our smiles.  

Your warm breath fogging up
Against your mirrored image,
Whispering words of love
To my broken self.

And as you gather my remnants,
I realize that it will always be your hands
That will piece me back together,
And it will always be your love
That heals my soul.

You are the debris
Rooted in me skin-deep;
The remains of my explosion
Against you.

My soul contains all;
It knows darkness and light,
The bitter taste of heartbreak
And the euphoric thrill of love.

My soul…
A black void of nothingness
And an infinite ocean of life—
An eternal contradiction,
The ultimate paradox to be unraveled.  

My soul is
Ethereal and everlasting—
A mountain of darkness to get lost in
And the path of light to find yourself.

It is everything—
And nothing at all.