I'd rather drown.

I've never been one for fire,
but
I'll let you light me up
my guard is down
but
my blinds are shut
I'm starting to realize

I don't know what I want
I need a new outlet
because
I'm hurting
I'm spinning
like the heat waves trickling across
so black
tar
like
burning
I'm
Flames
and
Ashes
Bits of dust across a beaten path that has seen
Better days
see
I'm starving to
decay
I'm starting to
burn,
bones
brittle
O'

Well,
I don't play your waiting
Games
but you can bet that
I'll play
You.
You'll be the first card
out of my hand
of
Five.
Yeah,
you'll be my first
Exhale
in my morning
Ride
With my stereo blasting
and my soul in
Drive
you'll be the first song
I play
just to put you
Aside.
Yeah,
you may discard me
like a Joker
but my dear
I'll beat your hand
in Poker,
Yeah-
You'll be the first card
out of my hand
of
Five.

The boats are
like constellations from up here
and all
I can think about
is being on one
sailing south
to Love
to you
back where I came from
the stork in the sky
back where I came from
a love keeping me so
high
and down here, I want to
tell him how the smoked salmon
on the grill mixes with
the fog of the ocean
and how it tastes dipped
in pine.
I want to show him the smiles
of happy old lovers and their wine,
having the time
of their
lives.
I want to stare into those
matching eyes
of sea grass
paired like
a pie-in-the-sky
I want to tell him everything
and nothing
but show him
everything stung by Love
Show him the ways my eyes flutter
with thin ocean stained glass
waiting for
a light house
a seagull
a message in a
card, bottled with his Love
humid warmth sticky like
melting popsicles and kids in the
summertime with
sticky eyelids wanting to open only to
the trace of his skin I want him
to peel
like onions the layers
away
reveal
everything I am and spin me on the deck
of this dock
like a top.
I want him to taste
my Love
in my sweet tomato basil alfredo pasta
or my midnight cinnamon toast
or my
sea salted lips
I want him
to feel this
sweet sea **** entangled
in my heart
I want him
to know this
everytime I come Home
to him,
I've come back to where
I came from.
All things rewound-
among this sea
I am
Lover Bound.

i dont see
i dont feel
i dont taste anymore.

my eyes once untainted are
now swollen scabbed
by the cataracts
of love.

where once a delicate fawn
or a heart
lie,
there is nothing

but the spiders
and snakes beneath
earths life.
beneath the burning
forest fires and waterfall
valleys of love-
there-
there, i lie.

immune to everything
because i
can not
feel.

my finger tips once
danced the samba
of laughter and
ballet of courtship
among my lovers finest piece-
now numb to
it all by the callouses grown
by passion.

"i do not sense like before, skin"
what once was so nimble and fiery
now hums
and sighs-
sighs and settles

my tongue does not taste the savory
delicacies it once
knew,

my teeth do not sink into the fruit
and splatter the juice
licked up by my tongue.

no,
no i do not taste with this
desert sandpaper trap,
dull of flavor in my mouth
callouses of passion on my finger tips

cataracts of love in my eyes.

These pieces of skin
I wear
Oh, how fragile,
fragile and rare
that a love like yours could
blanket my chest
and put every nightmare
I've stumbled through
to rest

Oh what a day it is to know
your body fits mine
like a glove
you'll keep my spirit warm through
winter and expand
my capacity
for Love

I raise my arms,
palms up, to you-
My love.
I raise my voice,
diaphragm diffused,
igniting above.
And these hips?
They swirl magic beneath
their bones,
they know every crease and
fold in your body,
they play-dohed the shape
of your
rosetta stone

They contemplated what words
could be stained with your
spirit,
what phrase could sum up
your every speck of soot
and grit

So I ask my heart
and she answers with the
sweetest of whispers
a  swirl of the tongue
of her
spine
and lets herself
slink inside of that
rock
lets herself fill every air molecule
and she lets herself transform

I've become the voice in his throat
the lungs in his breast
I am his fingerprint stamped
forever on his canvas

I have become alive and I
have awakened
but how will it be when
my carrier follows his journey-
away.
Hows it going to be when
my voice has been discarded and tossed
into the wind of the desert
hows it going to be when my
lungs collapse
and shrink
in.
how's it going to be when my fingerprints
become a maze I've never
seen,
the paint stamped on his canvas
washed away
and unearthed to
bleed

What am I to do with the thinned
course of my heart,
each artery gasping
pumping  erratically
to
start
?

And Alexis,
she sings
back to me: "It will break you in every way. But you have time to steel yourself to it. To lace your blood with iron and lead, to armor your skin. You have time to fletch your arrows, and time to carve your bow. When it comes I will be there with you. I have walked this road,  and I will walk it again, with you."

******* the frayed edges of this
worn down heart
from hope
and yet fed by the taste
of you
Honey dew tangerines
take shape of leaves
falling
from the sky the way
you took my hand
and took a dive
with me
I'd stay under and wait for you
like the pine trees waiting for
the others
to wake
after winter
I'd hold my breath for you and count to 365
3 times- unless there was a leap year
but I'd still count that day
It'd be the one where I saw you
The one where you held my hand
and watched time travel faster than
my anxious heart waiting for your
return so I could
nestle you in my straw sheets
Stiff, from not enough love
sweet, because no man has
been here,
except for you when my
eyelids fall victim to the weights
of emptiness
that feign them of your presence
Fall victim to my mind's imagination
protruding from my scalp
my iceberg
and carved thicker than any
of the mastered tattoos
that stain your bones
Carved like you are, all crisp
and folded neatly into squares
where you're slipped under my
left breast
buried here in the nook
of my rib cage
and mimick the parakeet
of my heart
calling to the only bird who sings my song
Calling to all lovers oceans apart but
woven so intimately inside
one another, a basket
of every item you could ever need-
Empty
but built through
frayed edges of worn down hearts
that inhale each catty-cornered breath
to survive
Singed ends
proof that your match
has lit my birch for it's last time
Proof that this is frozen like the permafrost
embedded within my rib
Proof that you'll stay with me through the thicket
of ice and
fury and
frost
before slipping away and leaving me with
the lilies of Spring
risen from the warm rain
you'll toss here from
the salt stained sea
renewed and refreshed as our hearts
choke and
gasp
and shriek
but
our bodies calm
as they perform their miracles
and heal
and mend
all of the sutures
that love has stung
us with
I'll heal from the frostbite you poisoned me with
but not without the deepest of scars
from your high velocity crime
on my soul and the ink bleeding
through my skin
But, she'll keep quiet
for you and
she'll wear her battle scars over
her left breast and wear
them with dignity
Have you loved like this?
Tell me, have you taken a dive
and held your breath?
Have you run down your heart
until all that
is left is
frayed edges of this worn down heart-
a parakeet chained to the cage
of my ribs
singing a song waiting to be sung
singing
to a lost Lover
of the lilies of Spring.

You said, "I know I used to be smart"
I said,
"I know,
I used to be
in love."

I used to be
Venus.
Now
Andromeda,
with my Pegasus,
waiting for
your bones
to fill this empty skin
I
am sunk
in.

Hush now,
Our bodies know this
know each others,
yet become
another,

One soul of lovers-
we have become,
one
soul,
my lover.

You.
You've undone,
me.
Each
thread
snipped.
carefully and thoroughly-
not to miss a single
one.

They don't make them
like this,
anymore.
They patch with glue,
and nothing really combines-
really meshes-
anymore.
They squeeze tightly
to what they hold
but
they hold
nothing
compared to these old threads
bound
stitch by stitch
through canvassed paper.

Etched into my heart
woven
into my hips,
they don't make them
like
this
anymore-

they patch with glue and print
on thin
flimsy
sheets
of shredded tress immune
to routine they know so well-

Slice
Shred
Print.

In my days,
it was woven,
it was thick canvas paper that
paint couldn't bleed through.

It was woven into the spine,
threads of teeth
stitch by stitch-

Behold,
somehow-
you managed so easily
to
un
do
me.

Unbound
and with each
breath
another thread
slithers
loose
and
inhales, then hums
and settles.

I'll sing you
the sweetest of songs
a bittersweet
Psalm
it's origin from the
crease of my
Palm

I'll write you
the holiest of prayers
a symphonic
affair
it's place, the
sweeping valley of my
hips
a token
most rare

i'll hand you
the Bible of my heart
sewn authentic
from the needles of
my teeth
and the string of
my veins anxious
beneath

Wait
for me
baby.
I keep asking
Are we there yet?
Are we to that place
of warm honey
and
watermelon smiles.
Wait
for me
baby-
we love
this style.
and with You,
I feel the warmth
of a thousand
sweet kisses
rushing over me
pouring into me
Expanding
my capacity
for this,
for you,
For L-
-
are we there yet?
when our lips
share secrets
and our Mouths
all heated and
anxious
at
every
touch
when our skin
gets that
Electric Twist
I have to pause a second,
Are we there yet?
and we fit the pieces together
So
Nicely
and
Precisely
but I have to ask-
Are we there yet, my dear?
and stumbling
into each others lives
at such
the ideal Time
and
thisisalltoomuchforme
Are we there yet?
to the place in my heart.
That
One
Special
Place
my Dear,
Are we there yet?

when you're
alone
and
the monsters pry
at your tips
or your brain
and fingers
I'll be there.

fighting them away
i'll give you everything
just
to
see
that golden
smile.

that young boy
who's known nothing
but love
literature
and life
the 3 L's
that drive us
strive us
strive
you
to be more.

To a,
who you want to be
and though
I'll ache,
I'll ache
happily.
and weep
those happy tears
the ones that save you
from
your nightmares
(the ones where you feel alone)
but
close your eyes,
and hold on
to me.
hold on to all
that I'm giving you.

Hold onto it,
and embrace it.
and know-
that someone in this world sees
all the passion your
mother instilled
in
you.

all the dignity,
your father
handed
to
you.
(not easily)
but, out of
love (for you).
His most fantastical creation- (you)

'Cause,
only you
get
me.

(only you).

I'm just dizzy.
Spinning like a ferris wheel at roller coaster speed I'm spinning faster faster faster and there you are and there you aren't I need you but you aren't here anymore you won't be you never will be were you ever? Swirling tornado shake me up a little more and maybe I'll spin right out of this mess and roll out like a red carpet affair and be ready for you. Be ready like laced shoes at your doorframe or my pillow bed of feathers and love and our scent but no. my load isn't done washing and don't try to set me out to dry because the soap in my pockets of skin will only leave my skin dry to snap crackle pop and blister in these dangerous days of blazing candles over head and new and old lovers hiding in every shaded nestled spot where the wax is still hot but the candle fire doesn't quite reach just like you haven't quite reached me where I'm up here climbing so high limb by branch by twig by peg by hole in the wall that gets me higher and higher but stop spinning me in this silo so I can get down and put my feet on the ground I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry I didn't want to fly yet I told you I did but I wasn't finished as a caterpillar down here but then everything seemed so catatonic no shoes by the doorframe no air or candles or paths just swirls and spins and tossing our places we shared and turning our intimate moments paired and twirling it like a ball on my finger tip to show off my talent of controling a situation that not so secretly is controling me puppet your way over here my dear the strings attached and so easily they enjoy the shame and the selfish beast at feeding time where it doesn't matter anything but territory and well you crosed mine so I clawed and bit at yours thrashing like an animal sickly enjoying everything I used to fear and becoming a monster slowly inside. Brewing and boiling up from these candles and spinning too abrupt stop mixing the concoction before it's done don't let me be done don't let my fumes out they're toxic and yet you lock yourself inside the garage of myself and rather suffocate you take me in with each inhale and each exhale I'm no longer. I come in and transfer to dissipate and find nothing but small particles of myself foggy in air too small to do anything like the ant in the treed army of grasslettes. You just don't get it but I don't either. I don't know if I ever will.

Never,
could I Ever,
repay the way
you once
lay
your skin,
nestled and
buried
within,
my limbs.

Never,
could I Ever,
replace your scent,
it lingers.
and I dreamt,
of the days
when the grass was blue,
and the sky was green,
and everything we ever held,
was everything inbetween

Never,
could I Ever,
turn you around-
you say you're
Inside Out,
I say I'm
Upside Down,
but you're choking me dear
when you cut me out

you've left me behind
up and left
with that same old
one
track
mind,
it may
sound funny
but from time to time
I close my eyes,
and yes-
it's you,
that I find

draining me
of
every
piece
of
courage
you planted in my seed
and make sturdy the branches,
of our growing
timeless tree.

and I know it's for the better,
dear
really you haven't got a thing to worry about,
here

but
Never,
could I Ever,
love like
the notes that your voice would flow,
or
the handwriting with me that you wrote,
or
the skin with
which
you know,
me.

Never.

could I Ever?

They told me to listen to what my heart says and my fingers will translate from there.

I went back
to him
To 6th grade
back to 8 years
of anticipation

to his dimples
his hazel green eyes and
and I was going to stay on the couch but
when his hands
melted to my skin
they felt like home.

There we were
my clothes
falling off
my bones
and the goosebumps
dancing
on our skin

the moonlight pouring
through the blinds
spilling onto us
like milk.

I told him I wasn't ready
but he said
8 years
and I've never looked better
for anyone

Our eyes
they wrote books
to one another
and told our story
wrote
our story
and slowly
turned
the pages

as our
bodies distributed the ink.

Dipping
and carefully writing
history onto each
others bones,
into each
others bodies

I am stained forever
with your ink.