Arrow

it seems

at least to me

always is too long

and forever is just a metaphor

for some time you’ve got right now

why does she need promises

why cant she leave

well enough

alone?

lingua est amo (it is the language of love)

un giorno
io sara ti mangimi con un cucchiaio
limoncello in sorrento
solo per assaggiare l'asprezza
sulla tua lingua
gusto come ti degustare
alla fine
vado a oscillare dolcemente con ti nella baia
vicino cinque terre
così possiamo cullare noi stessi senza tempo
faremo tutte queste cose
e tanto altro ancora

un jour
je vais marcher avec tu
dans les petites ruelles de carcassonne
tu serez mon château
je serai votre air de la montagne
saveur délicatement
avec la récolte d'automne
nous allons faire toutes ces choses
et bien d'autres
pour les moment est notre temps




someday
I'm going to feed you limonchello in sorrento
just to taste the bitterness
on your tongue
taste as you taste
eventually
I'm going to swing gently with you in the bay
near cinque terre
so we can lull ourselves timeless
we will do all these things
and much more
one day
I'll walk with you
in the narrow streets of carcassonne
you will be my castle
I will be your mountain air
delicately flavored
with the autumn harvest
we will do all these things
and many others
for now is our time

Quién sabe?

that's what I meant,
when I said you were beautiful
you stand apart
someday your fire will fade
may you find your way to this
then
think of the bullen discontinuity
think of the exosphere
you are everything between
I see them get at you
siphoning joy
pigeonholing your theories
as they do their own
that soft-center that I know so well
will curl on itself and plummet
anvil-heavy mid soar
it's not about you, bract
it never was
you are the milky way in a mustard seed
undiluted potential undulating aware
some aren't strong enough to hold facts
only while they're true
they've forgotten
we are all vaulting on our best guesses
you stand apart
knowing that truth is relative
you have aroused me by becoming,
by dancing on the fact
we can't all wake up
if we let anyone
keep us asleep

We Blaspheme Everytime We Say It

I had visions of your landing

falling down in a Jesus descent

you'd touch all the broken in me

& I'd be healed

in my visions your name was Katie,

your hair was dragon-breath licked,

I thought I knew your side smile

better than I know my own reflection

though,

I'd never seen it

You didn't come as Katie

as Jesus

You came in the backdoor,

kicked off mudboots,

made yourself at home.

I am not healed 

You've touched every cabinet in me

and called it like it is,

claimed my broken as scripture

my lost as poetic

Tonight I called someone I tried so long to hate

I sucked out my venom 

bandaged as best I could

and will sleep soundly 

on that good-night to you.

love is not a word

it is an eviction notice for harm

it is a call to be more than good intentions

it is a promise so sacred

that we blaspheme every time we say it

I won't tell you about the call

about all the ways I'm changing

that I'm becoming more myself

when you are around

love is not a to-do list

cannot be checked off 

it isn't calling you another's name,

thinking you'd look better ginger,

or comparing you to any one thing 

I have known before

it is knowing each of your side smiles

as a miracle

it is feeling my broken as scripture

staring into my rambling starting point

and simply 

doing right by you.

newton was a romantic

look at his 2nd law
for proof
the closer two objects,
the stronger their attraction
I have been falling toward her
since I branched off my family tree
I have been a wanderlust apple
tested by thermodynamics
and found wanting,
weighted with lack
avoiding close and near
his 1st law,
the conservation of energy
predicted my wait.
this vacancy has been hers
this awakening is not what I thought
it'd be
is it possible to ever care
and not be terrified?
as we approach the 3rd law
I am prostrate, open, humbled
newton's triptych is climactic
1patience 2intimacy 3zero, absolutely zero
he knew;
I have always been falling toward her
entropically

to: Myself

whispering I wanted to be hers
she volleyed: I belong to myself
this is a pattern I cannot repeat
so, we laid in a field under a starless sky
the color between azure and ochre
our timid tongues reaching
the edge of our vocabulary
we made love like the world
was beginning and ending
all at once
all in the arch of her yesnow
what we did should've been illegal
actually,
it probably is


I never meant to cage her
stop her from pursuing herself
I only wanted to spin her
as she's spun me
kissed down into my throat
clichéd my heartbeat into wholly:
to the exclusion of all else
passionate errors I've made: forgiven
trust that I'd ever find her: healed
like we were beginning and ending
all at once
all in the beg of my yesnow
this pattern doesn't need to repeat
I do, it's true, belong to myself
it isn't too late to reverse this,
to manage my careful drummer home


actually,
it probably is

Collective History

our collective history
built between eons of breadwinners
and backbreak
written in moments of stillness
to remember
struggle
has never dripped your sweet name
never gathered your filament kiss
my skin has frantically announced
with poor penmanship
that this is a travesty
my sighs do little to explain
history is made by winners
your frame on mine is not a game
is not a struggle
the story of us will blink out
far sooner than communism
in theory, I have some type of reason
in truth, the story of us
was built without trying
it evolved like flight
like flowers
purposeless and necessary
it will fade into the universe's reason
without trying
we've come to this conclusion:
the epoch of humanity, of existence
is happening in our brief gaze
at each other