poems

Plea Before the World Ends
i slipped my hand into yours
and you smiled wide, so why
can't people live like this
all of the time?

dear old writing habit
where have you been?
you got deep within
my muscle memory
but it isn't enough
and i miss you,
let's catch up
soon.






by the light of the harvest moon
i'll lead you back to that 
secluded beach halfway between
an island and a landfill and we'll
sit on a rock that we don't really
fit on and we'll be falling and catching
each other all of the time
we'll let our feet dangle the foam-flecked
waves will lick our toes tickling and then
we'll feed ourselves to the sea 
in bits
and
pieces
first our skin peeling off like a lemon rind
stinging from the inside out and then 
our organs the liver the intestines the
brain and the hearts pounding wild jolting
and then comes the hard part we'll release
all pre and mis conceptions doubts and fear
details
our souls will float like jellyfish or
stingrays and we'll watch ourselves drift
salty and dissolved illuminated red 
we'll wish on the moon fat and huge
for no more than what we need 
and in that place where i knew
i would love you
we'll put each other back together
because 
i know
and
you know
we're already everything 
each other will ever need

reconstructing the universe

my body is a bursting
supernova wrapped in
the galaxy of freckles
on your arms, our love
a bottomless black hole
endlessly sucking us
deeper and deeper
into infinity.

poems (too busy to write more, lately)

the things we mean the most are always the hardest to say

(or, i love you).

it hovers. it grows larger with every scratch

i claw into the skin of your back. it stretches

out our lungs, like a pocket of unspoken air. it aches.

it coagulates in the membranes like sticky mucus,

like promises we hope we’ll somehow keep.

it teases our tastebuds. we roll it like a pebble

under our tongues. we try to stop it with moans

and whispers. with mouths to skin. with fear.

but finally it bursts.

and it surges, like a river behind a rising floodgate.

or a storm. it rumbles up our throats and washes

out of our pores. we touch each other in the most

intimate of places, the soles of our feet, the earlobe

and the hip bone. our sweat-slick bodies shiver.

our molecules tremble. we become parts of each other.

finally, we are most fully ourselves.

central park after dusk

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the street lamps shone like fat full moons but we picked

the darkest path to follow its winding course led us past

boys playing basketball without a hoop and a small dog

that scurried out from under a bench i almost screamed but

i knew you’d protect me if it came too close and so i just

gulped down my fear and clenched it deep inside my knuckles

we sat on a hill that was more rocks and twigs than grass

and you crouched down and i wanted to say come here

but i didn’t we squinted in the dim moonlight to read poetry

we had written and we both knew that it was really about you

and it was really about me it was just one of those things

we could feel aching and sloshing around in our blisters

we lay in the dirt and felt prickly bug legs skittering over

our backs and under the hems of our jeans we let our shoulders

tilt into each other like it didn’t matter but we both tasted

the fire on our tongues from words we wanted to say i can write

a hundred poems abut you but they can’t spark the burn

under our ribcages the way those words would if we let them go.

Dear Little Bird On a Branch

you are a thing with feathers

grey blue with a golden sheen

and i’m watching your beak

the way it stretches so wide, gaping

like a wave. about to crash to shore.

a mouth hungry for particles.

and i’m listening to your song

and i’m hoping it’s about me

even though i am not a bird

and i cannot fly.

you see,

i am thing with skin, stretchy and pockmarked

and not very glamorous.

my lifespan is long enough for regrets.

my babies are not born in an egg;

i won’t feed them any worms

and i can't sing. 
at least, not very well.

but if you give me a chance

i can climb up there next to you

slowly. and I might slip. more than once,

but I’ll do it for you, if you chirp for me.

and we can watch the world

from our perch

and let the sun paint us golden red

as its rising rays make us squint

and look away. it’s only in the peripherals

that we can ever really see each other;

when we can’t distinguish the details

that make us different, we can transform

into anything we want.