i am just a child
trying to bathe
in your eyes
simply
slipping
into the puddles of your lips
i just am a child
letting you
become my man
kissing me all over
kissing me clean
for my mother
i.
when you were born
did you know
that the sunlight would pour
from your palms?
ii.
when you pushed your
childhood beneath the ground
when your tears grew flowers
beside the earthy bed
of your mother
did you feel her soul
expand in your lungs?
she is in your breath
when you hold me as i shake.
iii.
even before the sun
has broken through my nightmares
you fill me with song
so that my eyelids will never
be scarred with fear
in the morning you
rescue me
from darkness
iv.
you dive beneath the waves
of my sadness
hold your breath
while the oceans of my tears
crash over you
i watch your fingers
knit a garden out of my despair
you taught me
how to rebuild
after the storm
v.
words are not much
just jewels
i can use to decorate the smile lines
around the seas of your eyes
diamonds to decorate milestones
along the path of our lives
vi.
i am a monster
on the evenings
when i am my father’s daughter
your voice
never quivers with regret
vii.
when you were born
did you know
how beautiful you would be?
fast
you kissed me on my neck
you must have tasted promise
and sunrise
or counting stones where i tucked poems
into the grains of my ancestors
there must have been a scent of safety
because i held you on those summer nights
when you fell apart
and the showers of falling stars
were breezes against our cheeks
and pools beneath our spines
i never showed you
that my veins would come untied
and there would be no skin to kiss
i never showed you
because i never knew
it would come to this
i have no more poetry
no more sun in my veins
no more fluttering in my heart
no more ease
I swore off writing about the stars
Or the snow capped pine trees
I silenced our muffled laughter
Into each others cheeks
I looked past our goodbye
Or even our hello
I stopped remembering
Sometimes memories are too sweet
Too far
I have sworn off calling you my star
30/30 - Goodbye April or The Final
Goodbye April
Goodbye self-hatred
in the mechanically folded corners of cryptic codes
that were licked shut and sent away
Stolen peace of mind, stolen places at the dinner table
Goodbye anger and failure
where veins twisted furiously
I pounded my chest until no more water would flow from the storms of my face
Goodbye doubt and anxiety
in the sweaty palms of lonely rests
I lost count. You weren’t there.
I filled the silence with my song
Goodbye fear of friendship
I am building myself upon newer arms that I learn to trace
I lean my head on open chests
ribs massaging my scalp
there is more to a body than the mere space it occupies
Goodbye dripping cups of iced coffee
sweetened with desire and rich like lips I only dreamed about
Goodbye childhood
I didn’t want to see the future
I made quilts of knotted muscles inside the stitches of my shoulders
Hello adulthood
Hello May
water
is difficult
to draw
pruny hands
feel like
wrinkled pages
purple lips
and flushed cheeks
walls created by
oxygenless boxes
the surface
is out
of sight
in between your lines
wait
i’ve been looking for you
the ripened berries you’ve grown
on the marble stairs
where the trees of your words extend outwards
with leaves brushing the dirty heels of our feet
but wait
i’ve been looking for you
for the clear stream water that flows
from the parting of your mouth
wash me in your words
i want to feel the sweet rushing
sounds of a voice purer than nature
spill you into me
and hold us there
as the last note quivers
squeeze our hearts
without even looking, mouth open wide
wait
i’ve been looking for you
27/30 - for someone who has disappeared
You’re so frail now
I don’t even know how
to touch you.
You crumble in my hands
To a dust that is white and powdery.
They whispered secrets about
the lines you drew in the bathroom
that I followed until I reached your gums.
You are half of a body that once hugged back
A body that was more
than air passing through tangled knots.
You dyed your self-hatred into multicolored strands of hair.
I looked away
when you showed me your cat scratches
On your wrist and above your life line.
I was afraid you had torn at your heart
So I held you closer.
When you downed a bottle of pills
Happiness rolling off your tongue
worrying your stomach would explode
Regurgitating the medicine closet
the dance music
that time he held you under the sheets
I was afraid you’d break then too
So I held you closer.
But your lines became invisible
and in the bathroom where they whispered
Secrets
You kept from me
I couldn’t follow the map of your self-destruction.
You were half of a body
Coffee for blood
And tears for breaths.
You were close
But I couldn’t hold you.
You’re so frail now.
