Submerged

The decisiveness I lack I make up in dreaming
the ability of my off-sync heart to unscrew your hinges.
I see you better than you see yourself
and I always see me the same: a little abstract
like a pointillist painting from a distance;
the colors are all bleeding together,
into something that could be beautiful if it tried.
I’ve never been known to try
too hard.

I can’t tell you where I’ll be in five years
or five months or five minutes, but I know my heart is nothing
if not potential
like I am waiting to be sprung kinetic
like I am waiting for you to realize I am 75% water; you can drown in me.

Too Soon or Too Late

That night “we” were a nameless entity. Friends? Too simplistic for our complexities. Lovers? The connotation too tangled without tangled sheets. Abbreviated story: I already have a girlfriend; or rather until recently I had one. She is waiting alone in our apartment, for me; mind spinning wildly with imaginary scenarios of what we’re doing. The truth? We are watching TV innocently; she is chewing supermarket sushi, I too nervous to eat, keep thwacking her with her own pillows. I am a five-year-old boy, this is how I say: “I like you” “Do you like me?” “Check yes, please…this story I’m living hurts too much for me to finish it.” Saying, “Maybe you could resuscitate me…”

She turns knowing eyes my way, startling in their ability to pick me apart. “It’s time to go back…” She whispers, we both have finals in the morning; this is a moment of fantasy, it cannot last.

Idling her borrowed Honda outside my lit apartment we are motionless with what could be, but I’m too afraid of what already is to move forward. What is waiting for me behind these red brick walls? What is waiting for me in the weighted silence of this car? A smile that reaches her eyes…A kiss that comes too late? Another fist pressed lovingly against my throat?

Relax?? (Untitled Poem)

"Relax..." She husks lighting soft fingertips down my arm. She uncoils my springloaded fingers, tries to get them to lay flat. Doesn't realize that a fist is natural to me.

As much as I claim non-violence, the preparation for violence
is natural to me.

Fantasy, she is unknown to violence. A variable belonging to closed eyes and kept secrets.

She, inhabitant of a parallel universe is a citizen of my dreams.
I am a citizen of reality.

This means I am a citizen of fists

My hands don't believe in relax.

The Space in Between

This is the space where you breathe, a hitched breath
I should say something prophetic:
I love you? Definitely not.
And my mouth is too tired to begin this lie again,
so we lay here awkwardly, not touching…
after touching so intimately moments ago.

Boundaries

A Land Without Boundaries…



There is a stretch of Interstate 85 that reeks of dog food
the concrete slab factory interrupting the skeletal black of the trees.

I beat the sun to dawn; savor the twilight, the openness
rain-slicken road invites me to keep moving forward

I don’t need the invitation, never have. I am wired:
antsy; muscles coiling and uncoiling, waiting for movement—to pounce
waiting for the space to run.

Untitled...

She wakes me with teeth dancing my collarbone
mouths 'good morning' against my breasts
blinded by daybreak my fingers read her curves like braille
she interprets a moan to mean 'more'.

Fingers Crossed and Prayers to God

I have been absolved
left every heartbeat as unopened prayers to God
save me forgive me save me forgive me save me
allow me to wash away my sins
cross and re-cross myself: head chakra root chakra
a daggered line pierces my heart chakra
it bleeds light
my eyes bleed tears, head bowed
in submission. I am higher than myself
vertigo visions warp my outlook
—I’m okay—
salvation for those who ask
and I begged; finally resolved to save myself one breath at a time.

Stardust

We stumbled home drunk on honeysuckle blossoms. Our feet paced constellations with familiarity. Above us owls retreat telescopic eyes away from waiting dawn. Only the sun could wake us from our diversions; the moon isn’t as abrasive, nothing to prove. We have undressed our skins to prove our existence to each other. Our veins are translucent or our eyes are x-rays or we are made of a million stars. I like to believe that you alone are composed of seven galaxies; heavenly. I always knew you were extraterrestrial. An extrasensory perception, I dreamt you to life: Flesh of my flesh, blood of my blood…My hand tenses to draw you across the sky, drawing me into the darkest recesses of a black hole. Your breath brings me back from my midnight musings to your thinly muscled arm linked in mine, the unbroken mass of our shadows, the soft petals of honeysuckles caressing our ears; us dreaming a better us to life in the morning when we stumble from an unmade bed.

Wish You Were…

For S.W.


Imagine you had the guts to be me
your heartbeat as deep as your breath
be a woman, unsexed
sexualized to nonexistence
tarred angel wings, tilted halo
devour green apples

share the pieces with your lover
like the rib she was accidentally made from
swim through her hair
call her by name

brand yourself
allow others to brand you
limp through it, pass the pain, until the swelling goes down

the virus will never go away

wake up every morning knowing
and choose to live anyways.

~

The power of a wave is measured in its crest. The way it beats the shore like a middle school bully, is just a cry for attention, no skill involved.