Too Much Space

Dawn breaks behind

my shuttered eyelids.

Face to face

in the dark

I have only

a sense of fire.

The widow’s light

blooming red and orange

beneath a veil of skin.

–

Will you love me

when my eyes are open,

when the bedroom

is only a room

four-corned and vacant?

–

Your lips bare down,

my mouth cracks open

with a sleepy grin.

I love the way

you say I love you

with your eyes liquid-soft

and your breath

inside of my mouth

like a kiss.

–

Sometimes my desire for you

exceeds my capacity for tenderness.

I want to ravage you,

to pull you to pieces

with my tongue and teeth.

–

I am five liters of blood

wrapped in velvet.

If I could

I would fold myself

around your body

and let you possess me

soul and all.

–

If we stretched

our skin and bones out

like a bridge

we still wouldn’t be touching.

Which is to say I miss you.

Which is to say there is

too much space between us.

–

It’s been a long time since I have written a poem!

Exchange

We stand on the precipice of spring,

soluble with thirst and eager to be alive.

Let me carry the weight of your bones

in the crucible of my heart for a while.

I know that words rarely come

when they are needed.

We can be together in the silence,

in the sleeping hours,

in the beautiful void that is hunger.

Say that we are interchangeable

because I want to exchange myself for you.

–

You gather the hem

of my little black dress

in your hands,

like a love letter

and tear upward.

I have broken my heart

more times than I can count

thinking about you

and if I have the power to hurt you

does is mean that I don’t deserve you?

–

Teach me how to accept love

when it comes

because I don’t remember

what it means to be

comfortable in my skin.

With you I think I could live in me

if only to give you a place

to escape your loneliness.

I could be a beautiful home,

a mountain of treasure,

an open sky with a melody that carries.

–

Between my cherry red lips

you are tying knots

in my tongue.

If I could speak

then I would give you

all of me, every breath,

every shakey syllable.

I don’t think love is even

half of what it could be.

We could make it mean

so much more.

–

I don’t know if we love each other

in the same way

I don’t know it we ever could.

I promise not to die for you.

I promise to wake up a little more each day.

I promise to give you each and every

heart that has ever grown in me and those yet to come.

I promise to go deeper with every breath.

I promise to laugh until I lose my voice

and to cry until the stars have fashioned

constellations of my load-bearing sorrows.

–

I will be human, through migration and heartbreak.

I will be human. Raw. Bloody. Imperfect.

I will love you the way that god is said to love

but unlike god I have everything and nothing at all to lose.

You Are

I never feel more alive
than when you are
running your fingers
through my soul.
You penetrate
all the surfaces
inside of me
and I am
never more
real then
I am when
reflected
in your eyes.

I feel you filling
up my being
with your being.
I close my eyes
and find your face
like a sanctuary
in the darkness.
You are as close
as hunger,
as close as air,
as close
as the words
in my mouth.

I love you
simply
because
you are.

Stranger

Every time I look within
I recover a piece of you:
a smile that fits just right,
a love that is too big
for any one person to create,
two hands that feel like home.
You are a memory
that hasn’t taken place,
a promise, a gift, a mirror
perfectly imperfect.
Each day I find myself
knowing you, missing you,
and it’s as if you weren’t
a stranger at all.

Inside Out

The moon is liquid heavy

I carry it cupped

between my timid palms

like a sibyl’s nacreous eye.

I am drinking confessions

from your wounded mouth

and I don’t need to understand

the words to feel their significance.

We are struggling together

underneath the sheets

like two frightened animals.

 

I am nose to nose

with a wall of shadows.

I am a capsized boat

drifting fitfully between

the apparent and the profound.

My hips are in the custody

of your beautiful hands.

I am a downpour.

I am sinking into your thrusts.

You are pushing apart

my margins with finesse.

 

My weight breaks in waves 

across your trembling hips.

You are bedrock deep.

I am wracked with peristalsis.

I am milking you dry

and making you wet

at the same time.

We are reinventing love

from the inside out.

Exposed

If I stood before you

mouth askance,

fingers folded

into the hem of my shirt,

gaze soft and itinerant

would you pay attention?

If I stood before you

with too much to say

would you wait for my words

to push their way past

my trembling heart?

 

I could stand here

all day drowning on air

thinking without thoughts,

feeling too many feelings,

alive but blank as paper.

I could stand here

all day with my silk wings

tied behind my back

and my hair rising and falling

on an intermittent breeze

looking more vulnerable

than I ever intended.

 

Would you let me tattoo

invisible poems on your skin

with my fingertips

in order to occupy the silence

between each breath?

I would break down

between your arms.

I would let you tuck

our smiles together

for safe-keeping.

I would gladly spend

all night rearranging

our bodies underneath

a bruised meniscus.

In the moon-heavy darkness

I would gladly undress for you.

Drowning in Ether

I am drowning in ether,
a constellation of seas
that is neither here nor there.
Is it your dream or is it mine?
I think it must be the collaboration
of two similar but supremely unique minds.

I’ve pulled all my doubts out by the roots
and examined them from every angle.
Still I cannot find a single instance
of reality that is not filtered through perception.
We are what we believe ourselves to be.

In my heart the stars congregate
and though I can only be measured
in fractions I am still a reflection of the whole.
In that musical, amorous womb
there is a universe on the cusp of crowning.
I am mediocrity elevated through inspiration.

You are a fire
that quenches while it burns.
I search for you
as the ocean searches for the moon
and like the moon
I can feel you even
when the shadows
hide your face.
I swallow you
without discarding,
and all that you are
will find sanctuary in me.
I empty myself into you,
unleashing my multitudes
into your alluring mouth
like a song at the moment
of its inception.

Yes

You are knocking at my ribs

very gently and I’m not sure

if you want in or out.

To me you’re extraordinary,

the only possible choice

and if I were to condense

all that I feel into a single word

that word would be yes.

Yes I love you.

Yes I want you.

Yes from the bottom of my heart.

Who am I?

I watch you take
your clothes on and off again.
On because I left the room.
On in the name of pursuit.
Off because I returned.
Off because you want
to connect the lines
of our bodies.

I stand behind you
wearing too many clothes.
Your thoughts are tugging
at my heartstrings.
Your thoughts float across
the jagged surface
of my subconscious
like paper boats.
Sincerely situated.
Perfectly adaptive.

You recline on the bed
and I can tell by your expression
that you are aware
of my underlying nakedness,
of my threadbareness,
of the wetness
gathering between my thighs.
I am aware of you,
the way that one is aware
of the force of water
only when buried underneath
a collapsing wave.

You reach out your hand.
I cut my sentence off midway.
My words are redundant,
you already know who I am.
You inch closer
and fear exits my heart.
Every part of my body
has a pulse and every pulse point
a fire worth repeating.
I know where I belong
because I know who you are.

Consent

Dismantle me with your prescient grin.
Say something that only I will understand,
something that connects us without as within.

I want to swallow your moans
while drowning myself on top of you,
to find in your insatiable appetite
a depth of self which is equally infinite.

I want to conceal you inside
of the most vulnerable parts of my body
to work you into a state of synesthesia
so profound that our souls overlap.

I am warm and generous,
fill me with your distress.
Let loose your torrents in me
and take of my consent
all that is in my power to give.