An imprint on your face and my mind,
Your dimples curved like gentle commas
demanding I pause to trace those lines
Between kisses of every genre

Peel me mangos
And the pain goes and mixes with the fruit’s sweet flesh,
Dripping fresh and bitter-sweet

You still come to me when I’m asleep
to whisper pretty nothings in my ear
until my brow sears each passing thought with your image
I imagine you as timid as at our first meeting, as bold as at our last, your laughter repeating on and on and on

on our last day you kissed me sweetly, the taste of mango on your lips

i’m a flytrap in Saran Wrap
Definition clingy
shouldn’t be satisfied to be qualified
as the gum that’s stuck to your shoe

This anxiety could be all from nowhere
It might not be real
But honestly and actually
it’s just how i feel

Her breath was halcyon
We were my axiom;
I was her peace

Piecing pictures out of nothing
Pretty words, I caught her bluffing
Then the release

I loved you fully; I was young
I wanted to be understood
And in my mind you still live on
You were my childhood

Her gaze got the best of me
Burning bright and mahogany
Conversation-soliloquy
I framed my fervor in filigree

hollow gestures, a pantomime
She just wanted to pass the time
Nearly twenty, too juvenile
To be anything more than tactile

A crowded room, a compact tableau
I still look for her where I go
A stubborn habit, it’s hard to quell
Maybe too callous, but I meant well

A little less than fortuitous
Resolution eluded us
Two strings, discordant synchronies
My pride, my wounded dignity

A vivid evocation
A memory of form
A mutual ovation
The calm and then the storm

Already buckled in the backseat
I’d want to come to the grocery
And while you’d push the basket
I followed after so closely

We dug up weeds and planted poppies
Gold and vermillion
And I remember I felt my heart drop
When you said you can’t be friends with your children

I remember thinking
If you can’t accept me then how will I accept myself
you taught me everything
If you can’t accept me how will I accept myself?

And I’m not gonna get my confirmation
But I really want to make you proud
I know it’s not what you expected
It’s harder to say some things out loud

I didn’t get the chance to tell you
She told you before I could say a word
And then I didn’t want to talk about it
I ran away, I lost my nerve

You gave me all the space I wanted
That was four years ago
until it seemed like you’d forgotten
Until I moved to Chicago

And I was thinking
If you can’t accept me then how will I accept myself
You taught me everything  
If you can’t accept me how will I accept myself?

And I just want to feel accepted
But I really want to make you proud
I know I’m not what you expected
It’s harder to say some things out loud

Come under the mango tree
In its shade she is waiting
Singing songs of the past

Bitter, bitter poetry
As the sun goes on blazing
As her eyes turn to glass

Glowing buttons and lights above
as we sat there in the dark
Her hand in mine, I came undone
I bear her watermark

I can't seem to count them very well...
It's embarrassing, I know
but do you recall pinning my lapel
all those years ago?

i pull away
i don't know what to say,
it's too familiar
my apprehension
at simple questions,
at gentle whispers

we'd spend our evenings
chasing feelings
we'd try to capture
hypnotized
by those lattice lies
we manufactured

but i can't talk
i missed so many calls
and i can't think
i just can't get involved

i'm on a break, i just can't take this,
i'm suspending consciousness
my reality
has lost all consonance

but, oh,
there's nothing much i miss
and, oh,
i just wanna stay like this

We drove along the water
and sat under the sun
You were a good man's daughter
and I, my mother's son

I ran from you as fast as I could
Bitter wormwood on my tongue
Like a violin unstrung
What is my purpose
Was it on purpose?

To think that we could stay the same
My burning cheeks, my hidden shame
I still am wordless

blue light emergency
try to rewrite my circuitry
try to tell me not to run

so heartily and heartless
their burgundy catharsis
they get em when they're young

They were a living poem
Writ of secret, sacred words
Eyes locked with hers below him
The past and future blurred

Your fingers move like lightning
my skin, my mind is bare
and our time is ripening
a wedding fills the air

All I do is think of you
it's true, it's all I am
everything is over, still,
I want to hold your hand

a deterministic acidity
encircling, dizzily,
with futile steps and fruitless glances
I took my chances
and still I managed to glue on a smile,
at least, until the train

i was born yesterday
everything was new
i’d never heard my grandma cry
yet her face was fresh with dew

someone held me yesterday
i was an infant in her arms
her voice was milk and honey
as she whispered to be calm

i was born yesterday
the day another passed
his wife just couldn’t wake him
when she got home from mass

my mother's father is not yet buried
and yet he breathes no more
another boulder to be carried
up the hill forevermore

Your laugh is sweet like mandarins,
locking fingers, eyes the same,
Your breath, a hundred violins
gasping as you came

Her love tastes like a candy
Sweet sugar on your tongue
But the more you try to savor
The sooner she is gone

Vermouth turns to vinegar
Her sweet youth imprisons her,
A reverie soured with age

Our fingers danced together
And bodies intertwined
Our breath a gentle zephyr
But you were never mine

i am drowning in a sea of strangers
and stranger still, i cannot speak
but to say i will not blame her,
that justice is oblique

I want to see you again
But that would be a mistake
Still, I never loved you more than then
The day you left me in your wake

Evanescent with a firmness
oh how you ran from me
I had never been more earnest
you had never been more free

I don't want to remember
This is our epithet
When I reflect, I tremor
But I can't forget