• ii. listening to my old life on a broken cassette player

    I revisit our dream,
    The space we built, the murky color
    Of our eyes swirled together
    Blotting out the light from the hall.
    Exalted in the ease of a word,
    A mouth in the sky
    Floating and maybe drowning,
    Gasping for air, for some room
    In the suffocation of needing someone,
    We were looking at each other
    From the inside
    At times, I thought you
    Were really dying,
    As you kissed my face
    And licked my wounds.
    It was a bright summer
    Unforgiving in its burn
    But it wasn’t a myth
    While we were living it, shivering in it
    Did you know it would be like this now?
    Could I have known?
    I don’t think there’s much of a difference
    Between hurting, being hurt,
    Being lost. Everything is sort of
    The same, at least sometimes
    It feels that way.

  • i. mostly water

    (a series in four-ish parts)

    It’s funny
    The way you do that,
    How you close your eyes
    And seem to disappear when I look
    Even now, even here
    The most beautiful thing I did
    Was with you
    Throwing my head out of every window
    Screaming for the world
    Softening into a girl
    I couldn’t look away
    For I found you more interesting
    Than the sun for so long
    We see ourselves in the planets
    Stories of drama, explosion, pity
    A striking loneliness
    The suspension of two bodies
    In wilderness
    I don’t want to hurt you, ever
    Not even when sleep comes
    And we twist
    Into storms
    Remembering what we want
    To build a map for blue eyes
    Sometimes green in your light
    I think we’re the same
    My body told me, so it must be true
    Is there another way
    To decipher what I’m made of?

  • new york

    i climb to the 49th floor
    to write about a made-up place
    where the sun exists only through glass
    and lingers like a body

    it’s all world-ending truths
    and moon-sized ego

    my favorite place to hide
    is this bar right here,
    where hands, greased with stories,
    tell of nights that ruined me
    nights i was euphoric
    screaming down bowery
    queen of the night

    myth-busting paradoxical city
    contagious freak city

    always crushing on this place
    contracting colds
    swaying on my toes
    under the loom of the bridge
    where the seaport floats above the sea,
    last glimmer of magic
    dissolving into what i share
    with every other city rat

    the promise of morning,
    an illusion,
    nothing at all