ring me out

scratch my back, you said,
and i’ll scratch yours.
but i could never reach the spot
that you needed
touched.
maybe it was my too small hands,
or short arms,
but the distance of your skin remained 
too far to feel. 
and now i turn myself
inside out, like a winter coat,
and ask myself why
i cannot keep warm. 

kaleidoscopic pressure

let every part of you drop;
let each joint sink back
down through the soil of which you grew from. 
put what beats you on ice,
and freeze it,
and remember what warmed you.
that heat, which clouded 
your body, and burned through the half moons
under your eyes.
you once thought,
that your chest
could no longer hold all of the fingerprints which
you’d laid upon it;
but you had only just begun.
and now every groove 
of skin is just another corner
where two ends have met, 
if only to move
farther than the tides.

sour lips

how do you keep cherry blossom cheeks,
and remain poised with a bloom that i have yet to know?
what keeps you in tact
when wrinkles seep through your skin,
through the depth of you,
and your heart is no longer young?
you became so good at tying knots,
my girl scout.
you weaved words and tightened feelings,
and you swallowed each knot
as though they were cherry pits in the summertime;
but now you’re tangled.

tristesse

i’ve felt myself slip out,
through an ivory cage,
i’ve watched it escape,
going so far away.
my mind never rests,
it just spins, dizzy
like the organs of heavy machinery.
my body deflates,
mimicking forest green vacation mattresses,
where you let all your effort
go.
and i’ll just let all of me
go.
what keeps my head heavy,
rides on my back,
and weighs down my chest,
and waits for me
to let it win.
but it knows,
i’ve already let it win.

untitled

it can feel
like breaking plates,
like screeching car tires;
the sound of shuffling metal chairs
against stone-colored
linoleum floors.
as though your breath,
can hang so heavily,
as it lingers,
and waits for a sign,
any sign,
that it can relax.
like footsteps that trail
behind you,
stomping loudly, and boldly,
and your eyes just
swim circles,
hoping for it to pass.
pressing your fingertips
into a delicate ocean,
as the temperature
trickles through your skin,
pace yourself.
like gazes locked shut
a vision of love with
such an unthinkable depth,
you’ve such gentle waters.
and when we have lost
our mouths,
with no words to be held,
it will mail all of my letters
to you.

i forgot how to write

i've burned a hole through myself;
like the sun, how it scalds
the fair skinned
at a quarter past three.
the way a cigarette releases
a translucent dance
of ghosts, of shapes,
until it has withered itself
away.
how my eyes can work their way
through walls,
and faces,
and no stare can appear as hollow
as i can.

avec l'amour

perfume breath,
breathe deep for me,
crushed velvet eyes,
you keep for me,
spider web words,
weave around me,
rise, and fall,
and breathe deep for me.

such heavy lids
like a fixed shutter speed
they lay low, stay low,
half mast, with love.
they glide so gently
like your body.
your silk wrapped bones,
draped over, and around my own.

with telescope limbs,
i extend for you,
i look for you,
in everything.
stone tablets
weigh down my chest,
engraved with the summer wind of letters,
of affection,
you string through cherry lips.

candour hands;
puzzle piece fingers,
magnetic palms,
i am yours,
breathe in for me.