i was riding in the passenger seat
down a meandering stretch of back road
where the mountains look
like watercolors
when i realized that
your arms feel safer
than my own mother’s

(i am afraid of what that means)

i still fall asleep
in your old heather grey t-shirt
still think of you
every time i pull a sundress
over my head

(i am afraid of what that means)

the braids in my hair
the buzzing in my chest
the left side of the bed
the small, persistent voice inside
telling me to keep going

are somehow
in some measure
still yours

(i am
in some measure
still yours)

/There is no fellow in the firmament.
              but only fire can cast down raging blood,
running through the city, flagrant
         smoke on a collonade of scepters, raised
— line by line: note the conspirator in the masses
                 Doth not Brutus brotherless kneel?/
traitorous hands, leaking red
                 /Speak hands, for me!
— from a dagger plunged deep through the heart of eruption it
                                          spills chaotical, arterial, sinful
                                      down and down ribbons of life
        crown in rotation: halted
on tumbling tyrrant, passes guiltless largesse from hand sought to
hands yet seeking, searching
[whisperings]
         "but on what grounds is usurpation justified?"/
         "what cavity yet persists in the dawn of these reds rising?"
kneeling king, sodden with loss
          bend for me —
                       Et tu, Bruté?/
screamitbloodymurdersingitholydivination
                      ­                 Then fall, Caesar.

i want to tell a story about the colors in the trees.

i want to tell you about the quaking in my hands.

i want you to know where the rain falls,
how the crashing voices
sound like waves in the night time,
tugged tides tied to the moon
like a leash to a dog.

i want to give you something to regret.

i want you to recall how i, in all of my
innocence and passion
fell over you
(in concentrated lust
but also romance)
on that day in late may,
how you held
my bare body against yours
how in that moment
i remembered nothing but skin and skin
and
skin, nothing
but firsts,
but blessings
but

i want you to wonder how the holy swallow their love.
(i have confirmed, they do it like one would pomegranate seeds- with their eyes shut, but you wouldn't know)

i want you to believe you lost a good thing.
there's love grown in my belly the way
i was told watermelon patches would when
i was young and didn't
know any better.

i want to say that i didn't know you would destroy me.
that the rips under my skin were a shock
the ice-pick to my heart was unexpected.

i want to say something
but all that comes out is
i'm sorry
not knowing what i'm sorry for.

the rain has stopped
and the birds are lining
the sidewalks, shaking
their feathers dry.
today will be slow
and i’m okay with that.
i’ll cook and clean
and sit on the balcony
and breathe in the mild air.
i am happy and lucky
to be here.
it makes my heart heavy
to know that i must
remind myself of that
so often.

if destiny were a thermal lens inside of a telescope that shows where people are really meant to be then i am completely certain that you and i would appear as two red dots right next to each other but i can't allow anyone to touch me again for the rest of my life so i throw up a wall and despite its fearsome might the string between us found a way under a way through a way over the toxicity high above the venom like a spiderweb weak in appearance strong in durability we will always be connected it may sometimes feel like a nagging splinter that you must yank out of your flesh sometimes i am that way to you sometimes you are that way to me and separation seems ideal but we are really a strand of silk weaving in to and around the other creating a complex knot impossible to undo we are the product of so many things of pain of beauty of mania of gloom of numbness and if tangible it would all manifest into a piece of floral embroidery spelling both of our names and i often feel like you are the architect of my ruins you absorbed the dust and cracks and built me back up to a place of glory a place of greatness i wish i could do the same for you i mean youve said countless times i made an almost revolutionary impact on you but im a bad seed i decompose and pick you apart along with me when i cant get my way or when im jealous or when i feel insignificant i had a nightmare recently in which we met at a party in the city of angels or rather fallen angels because everything was frightening and loud and not once did you look me in the eye i begged to talk to you but you were consumed by frivolous tropes everything i have at times hated about you in reality all came together and i was left standing there lonely as **** watching you indulge i wanted to grab your attention with any bit of eloquence i could muster but i failed and stuttered and failed while you slipped away into a world im not worthy of and this is my fatal flaw i cant love without loathing we will never be pure this will never be wholesome but sometimes we feel a trace of it sometimes we see a glimpse of that ethereal plane we want to reside inside and im not sure if it really exists if it can be achieved if its just another distant dream but for now as long as you and i are pulled by the same gravity to the same core of the same planet then that alone is magnetic and nothing can take it away from us besides death although as we know im stuck inside a vicious mental cycle and eventually start to feel as if i really am dead as if im not really here as if i dont truly exist and i admittedly have always taken comfort in any indication that you feel the same way because i **** at loving and the chance to feel less ugly takes over renders me incapable of showing empathy and understanding and gentleness instead i relish in a wicked pleasure knowing we are both not okay this is me this is what im like and so purity cant be ours it rests in an abyss while corruption thrives right here in my mind in every single thing that i love you for is a deep resentment that i cant pinpoint the origins of perhaps it has something to do with the belief that i must not have fingerprints because touching people never leaves the mark i want it to and despite our distance i have dedicated the past five years to touching you emotionally spiritually i can only do that with art i cant do it with me why be me when i can be the artist and move you tremendously the problem is i expect you to be the artist too i expect you to create out of nothing i expect you to be nothing and perhaps i am nothing i have been nothing i will always be nothing until unless you decide to instill worth into me sacrifice parts of you save me a place of residence in this fourth wall you have built teach me to speak all things you have spoken teach me to see things like you have seen them teach me to create things like you have envisioned teach me to feel like you have felt more so endured i remember the first time you decided to be vulnerable with me and i was happy because you had only ever been gilded whilst i am six feet under i can only ever see you when i crane my neck and is that sick that more than ever i wanted i want you to choose me over everything you had just woken up from a nightmare you wrote to me about your fears though i was doe eyed though all i had to offer was a strained rub on the back though i was still her back then i was

you should see the way they look at each other
as if the universe exists in the specks of their eyes
as if the sun and stars
were brought to their knees at the parting of his lips
both depraved of soft looks, soft lips, soft fingertips
they think their eyelash flutters go unnoticed
but you could practically feel
how the air softens around them
the earth herself couldn’t help but smile
and when they sneak glances at each other,
each when the other isn’t looking
there is an obvious moment of genuine awe
and i can see them fall head over heels again,
as if from the beginning
the moments and memories slow,
as a halo hovers above him,
galaxies gather to admire the angel and his lover

anything is possible when they’re together
death cannot grasp them,
disease and dissatisfaction try in vain
but the warmth they feel towards each other
fuels them for lifetimes to come
the red that bumps in his heart seeps through his smile
and for once,
the cold evenings that once were filled with eternal darkness
no longer feel so lonely
they don’t say it, but i see it
i see the way their pinkies brush when they walk together
and the way they admire the sunrise together

earth stopped rotating to give the lovers
a moment of silence
as the waves, foaming at the lips slowed,
and hover over the sand,
completely still in anticipation of impact
he stared at him then, and slowly took in the boy’s face
he focused on how his eyes glazed over when he was admiring the seagulls,
their wings outstretched in the pink purple sky
and he knew then
however many lifetimes he had to sacrifice
he would do so without hesitating
for the boy with smile lines that gathered at the corner of his eyes
for the boy who could make his heart speed and stop altogether
for the boy who, while so unaware, was so beautiful
in both their chests, they knew it was love,
and from both their eyes, they professed it

it's just us in this hazy bedroom. me & you, your mouth & my neck. i know that these bruises are the kind only love leaves. your teeth, they sink into my skin like i am a fruit forbidden from your tongue, like i am a fruit you needed to taste even if it meant succumbing to the shame of sin.

but there is no shame here, & i'm only allowed to glow, i'm only allowed to sing (to bleed) when you leave me little stab wounds onto my bare skin with the sharp edge of your canines. with your animalistic passion. & when god turns the other way, my nails scrape your skin, digging through your flesh to search for the paradise that lies underneath. you ask if i have ever felt so holy, & i can only respond with this hot spring of tears down my cheeks & eyes that beg you to devour me.

you stab your way into my fallen kingdom. you wash over my collapsed temples. you bite into my fruit. you cry amen & my choir follows suit.