I Bloom for You Only

I know I write about girls being loved in the light but
In that moment
I was bonfire,
Jack o lantern
Harvest moon
Things you can only appreciate in the dark
when the leaves are falling
and the chill is
animated anticipation.

You were “Sunday Morning”
personified:
hands cupping my face
So gentle
So certain
So soft
Unwinding scarf
and searching fingers.

And I am all
puddle in a passenger seat,
morning glory opposite;
hitched breath
and tender touch.

Seeking exhalation—
Still.

Memory in
flickering glow;
unabashed,
but only in shadow.

Melon Ball

You hollowed out my body
without ever entering it.

You are not the first boy
to touch me like this.
You will not be the last.

You owe me nothing,
still.
And it was stupid of me
to think your warmth would last
throughout the night.

Instead,
I got out of bed to redress.
I got out of bed
realizing this will always be less
than what I want

and somewhere
I had accepted this.
Settled
for it.

You
only kiss me after drinks.
You never reach for me.

I need a hand to entwine with,
arms to hold me,
somebody who
will want to touch me
first.

I’m not asking you
to fill a void
you didn’t put there.
I’m not asking you
to act like this something
more than what it is.

I’m just saying
it’s no longer “good enough”;
I’m saying
I don’t want this.

Not Your Summer Girl

The wind scrapes my cheeks
like a memory of your fingers,
pushing hair away from my mouth.
First date if you will;
if you won’t, it’s winter and nothing counts.

Girls like me aren’t meant for cold months.
Blood runs thin all year and the freezing
becomes more coat than camouflage.
I wear it so easily
that you touch me before realizing how much is still left to unbutton.

Because summer’s coming and the wind
will kiss my face in a competition with the sun.
And the waves will erase your name from the tip of my tongue—
Last chance, if you will;
this time, make it count.

When You Confuse His Name with Absolution

Tell me the last time you felt
holy
without his hands on you.

Open your heart like a prayer book
and pull out the rosary beads
one by one;
spill them down the aisle of the church,
make a note of every one that bears his name.

Remember the way your mother
used to remind you
“your body is a temple”
Remember there was no addendum;
no “only when he’s inside of you”.

There is a cross of ash
imbedded in the grey matter of your brain;
it rises to the surface every time
you pray to see him again.

Fat Tuesday laments in shame,
reminds you
it’s a symbol that you have purged yourself of all unclean things.
Instead, light a candle for him.

Tell me the last time you said
“I love you”
without simultaneously asking for forgiveness.

Tell me the last time you felt
holy
without his hands on you.

Quake into Me

And if we were to make something
as sacred as love,
as scarring as touch,
in Bulgaria,
under The Eyes of God,
I would still pray that I shook.

I would beg the rocks to fall down on me
and the moon to make the gold in my skin
gleam like silk
and that everything:
my nails in your back,
your face in my neck,
our limbs twisted and tangled together,
while our backs were arched in worship,
would cry
holy,
holy,
holy.

I would want the cave to break
and bend in a sharp line,
just so I could see God smile down at me.
I would open my eyes 
to meet the blue of the night sky,
feel my lover’s heart beat in time,
know that what’s made will last,
and that his lust has filled me
wholly,
wholly,
wholly.

Why Do I Bother

There’s something to be said in the way
that we all want to feel
like we warrant a response.

That maybe that’s why we don’t ask for the honest.
That maybe we focus on lust than harness
a feeling where it’s more likely to fall than
fly.
I
Think pain comes from getting my hopes too high—
not from the fingers who never even bother to reach.

And you swim in an ideal so long,
that even when goes go as you expected,
something inside of you, dries up, let’s the wind carry it through the waves until it’s sun beaten and beached.

I guess,
there’s nothing to be said of us,
but rather of me;
hurting over something as little as a sad response
and a house that passed through the day,
empty.

Literary Sexts: August 6th – December 26th

xxi.
We tumble together, a ball of limbs.
Mixed together with you, I doubt I’ll ever want to untangle myself again.

(Baby, This is As Close as We’ll Come to Being Gymnasts)
xxii.
He presses his lips to my lips and it is like I have never felt balm before.
If I am breathing wound, he is living salve.

(His Touch is the Best Medicine)

xxiii.
You wake my body like revival;
I come alive gasping,
drenched in our new gospel.

(Dip Me  Our Sins Again)

xxiv. “
We dance in the storm like the raindrops are making a song just for us. I watch our reflection in the puddles and fall into the rhythm of this new lovers’ waltz.

(You Prefer Your Ballrooms Underwater)

xxv.
The thought of you hits me like I am a timpani;
I catch my breath and the bass rumbles through me.
My pulses races with the snare’s quick beat.

(Drumlines Got Nothing on My Heartbeat)

xxvi.
Kiss me like Christmas morning:
unwrap my tongue like it is a present;
string lights in my eyes as if I am evergreen.

(Lover, Let’s Take a Holiday)

xxvii.
You touch me like paper mache; before anyone else can marvel at your creation, you’re kissing the strips away.
This is what I mean when I say he is jealous for me.

(I Want to be Your Give and Take)

xxviii.
You wrap me up like blanket fort.
I scrunch my face at you until my profile is making shadow puppets on the wall.
Let’s stay huddled together, claim we need warmth

(Lover, You are Most Comfortable Fortress)

xxix.
You kiss me in the moonlight just so you can watch the Sun’s sister sigh.
You got her blushing red and I prefer to watch that over any sunrise.

(Our Love Lights Up the Night Sky)

xxx.
I watch you speak in waves,
some sentences strung together like poetry.
I spend my days basking in their rhythm,
letting each word crash over me.

(With You, Lover, I’ll Gladly Be Lost Out at Sea)

xxxi.
Press yourself into me.
I want to feel the print on your tongue;
coat my body in your poetry.

(I Will Be Your Printing Press)

xxxii.
Flood your lips over me in currents. Make my cheeks blush salmon. I can only imagine the effect of our affection if we went ice-fishing.

(Baby, I Crave to Float Your Rough Waters)

xxxiii.
Take my hand into your hurricane and let’s station ourselves like anchors in the eye together.
In the 90 mile per hour gusts, when our faces are plastered into Scream-mask smiles and our knees are buckling so that we may sink like the Titanic into this wind-beaten ground,
know that you, and only you, are the one thing that will forever knock the breath out of me.

(Lover, Do Not Shelter Me from Your Storms)

xxxiv.
He says he has the hands of a carpenter, not soft, like my past lovers.
By this he means: “Not good enough”.
I tell him to carve me;
whittle me with his words until I am nothing
but sawdust kissing the ground and he
is the one sweeping me up.

(He Loves Me with Wood-chippings)

xxxv.
He collects my poems like fireflies;
pokes holes in the lid and says:
“This how I know I’m alive.”

(He Says My Words are like Light)

xxxvi.
Our bodies are tectonic plates;
every time we meet,
California cries again.

(Our Love is Earth Shaking)

xxxvii.
You twist my body like kaleidoscope and I am left seeing our love in technicolor.

(Color Me Desire)

xxxviii.
I want to be your dream weaver; your midnight ballerina:
Let me pirouette through your every fantasy.
May the footprints I leave on your brain, make you smile in your sleep.

(I Dream of Us Waltzing and That Means More than Sex to Me)

xxxix.
You solve me problematic.
Using your black and white way of thinking, you turn our feelings into something logical, while your hands become variables continuously solving for “x”.

(I am Your Favorite Equation)

xl.
He calls himself cartographer. I let him draw my hills, my valleys, my oceans, until all that’s left of me is an island, uncharted;
hidden from his maps on purpose because I am his and his alone.

(Lover, I Am but One Man’s Land)

xli.
You are magician
and I am assistant,
anticipating your next sleight of hand.

(You Saw My Heart in Half)

xlii.
You say my name like a gasp;
like for the first time, syllables have combined to taste sweeter than oxygen.
Breathe all of me in.

(You, Alone, Steal My Breath)

xliii.
We close our eyes only to be blinded by the angels’ light. Choosing to accept their approval, we are left strumming each other’s ribcages like harp strings and scratching hymns into one another’s spines.

(Let This Be Our Preferred Brand of “Hallelujah”)

xliv.
I want your lips like ink on my skin. I want your art etched into every inch.

(You, love, are a Pain I’ll Tolerate)

xlv.
Enter my body like casino;
roll my hips like roulette wheel,
draw cards from my spine.
You’re betting on a good night, and I’m all in.

(I’ll be Your Lady Luck Tonight)

xlvi.
Our hips clash like the fall of Rome.
With your nails in my back, I am an empire on fire; a body begging: “Ruin me! Ruin me!”

(All Roads Lead to You, Love)

xlvii.
Fold me like paper crane. Bend my origami spine until I can fit in the palm of your hand.

(Crease Me Beneath You)

xlviii.
Open my mouth like daybreak.
Watch my cheeks flood with both sunrises and sunsets.|
Drift your hands over me like shadows.
Bask in my glow.
Beg: ‘Lover, let your light shine in’
and never let me go.

(He Says I am Brighter than the Most Beautiful Mornings)

xlix.
I wake up to you and the scent of glue. My arms pasted around your waist and the feeling of someone who sticks.
Be careful, love, I could get used to this.

(I Wouldn’t Mind Being Stuck with You)

l.
My body is your mountain lodge.
Let’s share heat on rugs made from our shed clothes and I will welcome the goose flesh that rises to my skin.
If you are blizzard lover, I wouldn’t mind being snowed in.

(Winter is Coming, Gasping, Begging for More)

li.
Roll me around on your tongue like candy. Stretch my body out like taffy and sprinkle kisses over every inch. Leave pleasurable bruises the color of gumdrops in places no one’s ever seen.
Unwrap me and savor.

(You are both Sweet and Tempting)

lii.
Pull me out of the woodwork.
Smooth my edges with your sandpaper mouth as we rub against the grain.
I am never wooden with you, darling.

(Carve Me into Something Wonderful)

liii.
I make my body electric rod every time you hold me.
Allow your touch to caress me like lightning.
Pray it strikes twice when our lips meet.

(For You, I’m Ever-shocking)

liv.
I want your hands roving over my body of highway at 80mph in the middle of a rainy December.
I want the mist of your kisses spraying up from the asphalt.
I want to be drenched.

(Go Downpour on Me)

lv.
Let me be your “Midsummer Night’s Dream”. No spell cast, no mule’s head,
but a fool for you, nonetheless.

(I Will be Both Lover and Lunatic)

lvi.

You are the sunset in my mouth and my tongue is an ever anxious palette. When I blush in blue, pink, and gold, tell them it’s an outside reflection.

(Let Me Sink in Your Horizon)

lvii.
If you are seeking religious experience, cry out my name.
I will come to you quicker than God.
They will light a candle for your soul not knowing how you only started believing when I licked you like a flame.

(Find Me and We’ll Make Heaven on Earth)

lviii.
I want you to make me the cold that burns. Feel your showerhead cascade against my naked shiver.
I want your heat to bite my frost as we welcome the icy fire.

(Lover, Let’s Mix Temperatures)

lix.
Kiss me until all I can taste are galaxies.
Discover my body like a constellation and only revolve around me.

(Love Me by the Moon and Treat Me Like Your Sun)

lx.
Hold me where our rivers meet the ocean;
let yours begin where mine ends.
I want to go out drowning,
drinking all of you in.

(Wash Over Me Constantly)

Many a Muse

Realize,
love,
that you are not
creator,
but rather contributor,
to this masterpiece.

That I am an not
an artwork untouched,
but rather
formed by many brush strokes,
and molded by many hands.

I am aesthetic aspiration.
Formed by both passion
and lust,
knowing they are not the same thing,
and yet not withering.

I am a communal conception.
I am made fantastic in their imagination.
An ideal,
an offense
and sometimes I don’t know which I prefer
most.

I have a patchwork heart;
a comforter which you may not
want to lay upon,
stitched together from the moments
I have given away bits of it
to those who only use needles to
prick.

But
if you can accept this,
I’ll start mixing the paint.

I remain quiet,
an unhung work,
and wait for your stylistic addition.

Just because something
was started by someone,
doesn’t mean you
can’t be the one to finish it.

Hot Box

I am coming to you
like you are a
panic room.

Like I’m hiding myself
from the reality
of a situation that started
based off lust,
on both our parts.

And I don’t want to think
of even the possibility
that we could grow to
learn to love each other,
to,
possibly,
love each other;
to be:
together.

Because men like you
do not get together with
girls like me.
Do not end up loving
girls like me.
Men like you,
continue doing
what we’ve been doing,
and girls like me,
continue questioning:
why the dark?
why only in your car?
what for?

Because I am
the type of girl
that wants to meet your family,
I am the type of girl who would stop kissing you
to play a game of Monopoly.
I am the type of girl
who will give you compass kisses
to show you that she’s caring.

And you are the type of man,
who isn’t entirely ready
to give up being a
boy.

Who gets scared
when girls no longer
seem to be a
toy.
Men like you
get out because they equivalate
“single” with “joy”
and “commitment” with “misery”.
Men like you
wade in the shallow end,
and hope girls don’t see you
as buoyancy.

Because when we are
turning your car windows foggy,
it is not because we will leave the car
with me as your girl
and you as my prince charming.

You drop me off,
kiss me twice,
and wait until I set up a date
again.
Some type of gathering
which involves food,
random conversations,
and some form of a dark room.

A panic room.

Because while I am reminding myself
girls like me, do not want “boys”;
I am simultaneously wondering
why you held me gently,
did not take advantage of me,
why when thinking of you today,
my heart might’ve skipped a beat,
I’m wondering why,
why,
for the first time,
with you,
I don’t feel like a toy.

You (M)ake Good Poetry

I tell her,
“I wasn’t in love with him,
but I could’ve been.”

And she says,
“Write a poem.
Because that’s beautiful.”

Because poetry revolves around you.

Like it’s that easy.
Like I think you may actually like me.

Because notions are put in my head,
that you were the last person to look at me
and not just my body.
You were last person to caress instead of grope any
skin that was showing.

You were the last person to listen to me.

You were the last person to look at me.

And when I tell her I can’t stop looking at your mouth,
when I tell I know I’m going to have to do without,
when I tell her I know we can’t be—-

Dear God, do I wish that
“been”
could turn to
“be”.

But baby,
maybe it’s those brown eyes.

Because I’ve never shed a layer for any man,
but there’s something intimate and exposed
when you look at me.

And when she says
“That’s beautiful.”

Despite missing the attention,
despite my constant craving for affection,
it is your gaze I am picturing.

Because you were the first guy,
the first person,
who didn’t know me,
but looked at me
like I was something,
someone——

and when I remember that,
it’s a damn shame
that “could’ve been”
isn’t
“can be”.