lamb

there over the hill!

straining my eyes blind until 

a soft tumbleweed sweeps closer 

roaming over rolling plains

coming closer with knobby knees 

wobbling sheepishly under its collapsing coat of cotton

beckoning my sensitivity 

oh lamb of god,

i will cherish your sacrifice!

divinely divided from his herd

i meet you below my womb

where you nuzzle angelic fur into the nooks of hips

i fall to my knees

genuflect onto the grass beneath  

where i gullibly lay 

consumed by my self proclaimed 

prophesy as your shepard

i allow your outgrown hooves 

that now seem more like claws

press your full weight on my sternum 

while you pull your wool over my eyes 

in this warm dark silence of trust

my ears are painfully pierced

by your hollow howl 

i am devoured 

ripped apart limb by limb 

canine teeth piercing my flesh 

i was devoted to feed endless herbs 

hot blood drips back onto my face

metallic spit leaks from my lips

as i lift my neck to kiss you 

a selfish dying wish

i do not fight

paralyzed under a soft blanket of betrayal

woven from weakness 

consecrated into communion

consumed in tender transience 

my sacrifice in isolation 

won't be celebrated in scriptures

mothers of america

Mothers of America 

sit and stare out the window

picking apart scraps 

scraping across fine china

restricting themselves

reserving the hope to 

revert their stomachs to a state 

before stretch marks

when they still had hobbies

prior to eroding their identity 

they hang their neck

under the noise of their 

nuisance husbands 

who neglect their needs

and silence their worries 

with subpar salaries 

feeding mouths created by accident

and fear of the catholic church

figures who are now fathers

a haunting compromise 

for the unrequited college roommate

and first love who they still

let fill the frame of their eyelids

when their husband 

parts their legs as promised

by pity only once a month 

living the dream

of low calorie luxury

I can't believe it's not Butter!

and Paula Deen consume 

their glossed eyes

glued to the television screen

scrubbing their wrinkled brains 

clean and smooth

with soap operas sudsing 

at the dream of celebrities 

who still look thirty and have the 

body of their daughter

they can't help but humiliate 

as their extension of self 

reflecting back their shortcomings 

until they no longer come home

and perhaps then

only then 

can they remember

that they are

more than

Mothers in America  

mittens

your ringed fingers

wrap around mine

palms pressed

our knuckled intertwined

strengthened by

gaps filled

between webbed curves

we mesh into one 

a knot of skin

twenty buried bones

woven together

in the finest mittens

of fleshy yarn

never to age 

nor be outworn 

resistant to the forces

when whipping winds 

threaten to rip

us apart, We bring 

each other closer

pressing breasts

uniting our hearts

left alone in lab

fuck wafting, i am smelling every carcinogen

cinching my nose hairs until i release my head back 

floating like helium 

leaving my lab coat behind

as i defy gravity ascending through the atmosphere

the cheap plastic of my safety glasses 

bounce across the lab bench

as i rip off their obstruction

fogging up my vision

divine blind precision guides my hands 

i undress the chemical condom

suffocating each finger with sweat 

swirling the wet solute that tickles my fingertips

raw sex with the elements

returns me to my curiosity reborn 

i pour a potion of poison

until my child mind is satisfied 

with the precise concentrated shade of purple 

a princess would drink before the ball

i dip my tongue in to taste the tang

my ears rang with each clink of glassware

bumping beakers like the cheersing 

of a cold beer shared between boys

who are allowed to be scientists

stronger than hydrochloric acid 

after im satisfied i strip naked

documenting my feelings in my lab notebook

making sure to balance the coefficients

i crank on the safety shower that runs red from rust

accumulated from being unused for years

by scientists gripped by the fetish of the mind

whom find safety in sterilized paths

predestined and unquestioned

void of all sensation 

to prove a point to their company in lab

i remember breathing

 I remember a marine biologist telling me on a tour how whales are conscious breathers, how they choose to come up from the surface to breathe in the same way we make the conscious decision to eat so that we don’t starve. I remember the splash of each spout on the horizon invoking a powerful sensation of resilience that I envied. I return to this memory, and it brings me back to conscious breath.

I remember wondering why our body isn't always breathing on autopilot, how it is for most of the day. With the same unconscious care of our smooth muscles contracting and expanding without our mind explicitly spelling out the command. Each organ moving with invisible memory, sleepwalking throughout the night. Wordless whispers are exchanged in the secret language of breath, a slow constant radiation of life feeding the trees empty calories.

The choice is always there, to control my breath, and yet consciousness only finds me when I am suffocating under the weight of choice. This feels like a metaphor for free will in a way, or perhaps the human condition I can’t manage to diagnose.

I remember I am breathing in the silence of the night, when the whistle exhaled from my nasal cavity echoes off my sinus walls, ricocheting against my skull. I count each breath like sheep, each exhale taunting me with white noise reminding me that I am awake. I cannot remember my last breath before I go under the blanket of night, and this too upsets me. How breath blends from choice to compulsion. 

I intimately remember the absence of breath. Life without breath was a paradox I was quite fond of, though I cannot grasp the reason why. I reminisce, holding my breath under pool water, pretending I am dead, a limp jellyfish swaying my limbs beneath my arched back until I could feel the carbon dioxide press heavy against my chest. I counted the seconds until chlorine stung my nose, instinctually inhaling absent air.

I remember learning how to inhale smoke, which was the first time it didn't bother me to consciously breathe. Wrapping my lips around christened glass was the only time I could reach depth in my inhales, sucking in the artificial life force I mistakenly identified as consciousness. I remember drawing chalky breaths from my desert dry mouth sucking in the ghost of my mind’s rest. I inhaled and inhaled until my memory went blank, and I could no longer remember breathing.

I remember when I lost the choice to breathe. When I thought I took my last breath, and no matter how hard I sucked, I sank further and further into suffocation. My chest a popped balloon deflating with each hyperventilating breath attempting to pump life into its rubber. My trachea, a broken straw bent beneath the weight of anxiety, wheezing from my diaphragm. I remember thinking back to the whales, and watching my twisted tail attempt to kick up to the surface for one last breath.    

I recently remembered how to breathe in a room dominated by the stench of sweaty skin. I recall switching to inhaling through my mouth to avoid the olfactory tickle of body odor. My knees bent before me, planted parallel over the soles of my feet where my toes gripped the foam of the mat, and I opened my rib cage to the sky. The pink fluid of my lungs overflowed over the brim of my bones while my belly stretched to its full capacity. I remember sucking in the salt of tears subconsciously rolling down my face for the simple fact that I wanted to remember this breath.    

confession

Each night, as my eyes close,
I push open the church doors
and bless myself with holy water
accumulating in the corners of my eyes.
Behind those four walls,
my temporal,
paired parietal, and occipital lobes,
I waltz into confession,
though I haven't physically been in years.
Guilt brings me to my knees,
where God watches me from the sockets
of my eyelids,
where He lay woven since my first communion.
When I used to recite the National Anthem,
mistakenly documenting it as prayer,
slurring along its repetition as my repentance,
hoping to alleviate the shame that pushes down on my ribs,
stolen from Adam’s chest.
I confess to what consumes me,
apologizing for the warmth I find when laying
my heart against a woman's womb.
Yet, in the same breath, I express gratitude
for the love that fills me,
divinely gifted by no one less than Him.
I plead for forgiveness
for all of the skepticism I let scrape away my faith,
and I bow my head in sorrow
for all of those whom I disappointed
in finding my own peace.
I swear an oath of silence that I press deep
within the indents of my skull.
And when I open my eyes, I genuflect out of the pews,
Father still sticking behind my sockets,
my ambiguous guilt forever guiding me back to God.

iridescent girl

My iridescent girl,
you are impossible to reduce
into something words can pin down.
Your true nature lies in the pearly belly of the oyster,
calling me to crack open and explore its luminous insides.
I see it in the twinkle of the diamond that studs out of your nose,
glimmering a hypnotic glow that pulls me in closer and closer,
until there is blood across the sheets
when my nose snags against yours.
And we are laughing at our reflection,
your hot, sticky blood creating a sheen across our skin,
glossed in blood, sweat, and tears.
And I try to capture the precise color of the moment,
but it is gone,
shifting across the moonlight.
I wake up to your opalescent wisps of blonde across my chest,
twirling around each silky strand with tenderness.
I wonder how it can exist as so many colors at once,
and I know I may never have the words to understand you,
nor the ability to capture your fluid light in my cupped hands.
But I experience you with full clarity,
feeling the rays of your shifting warmth
as they fleet through the gaps of my fingers with tender transience.
I will treasure you in my temporary possession,
polishing your skin for as long as you reflect my light.
My iridescent girl.

salt

I beg your sweet face to

evaporate neglected years

let the tears dissolve like morning mist,

unveiling the ancient salt that stains your cheeks.

Salt, a mark of sorrow,

and yet, in the same breath,

it heals wounds,

stinging both an offering and a promise

Every drop, a memory,

every sigh, a prayer—

may it wash away the weight of fears

you've carried like stones in your chest.

You refuse my touch,

but my hands remain open,

and still, I love you

like the sky loves the sea,

endlessly pulling and releasing.

Swallow your apology

it tastes like regret,

let it dissolve on your tongue

and fall

leave it to the earth,

where it will be forgotten.

You recoil, as though love itself were a betrayal

your chest pulls tight,

skin drawn taut like the strings of a broken bow,

but my hands stay open,

waiting for you to return.

The taste of salt still fresh on your lips

I pull your hips closer to mine 

Where your exhales are recycled 

by my lungs hopeless expansion. 

I want you to feel loved

Not sorry.  

read me

Can you feel me infused in the ink?

I am absent,
only words on a page,
paradoxically present in your space.
It is not enough to feel you,
to penetrate your flesh with mine.
True intimacy lies between the lines.

Are you literate in love?

Love feels right when written,
when adulterous eyes are guided
down lingering lines.
Let your subconscious undress my syllables,
consuming your internal dialogue
with the monologue I script inside your skull.

Do you understand the metaphors I liken you to?

Your vocal cords rest
while your heart strings are tugged,
unraveling love embedded in a song unsung.
Yet the tune rings between your ears,
an invisible melody caught in your canal,
pulsing along to your heart’s hum.

Will you read me?

Pick apart my punctuation
sensual skepticism translating my true intent.
Trace each period pressing down,
mushy indents into my heart,
where each cavity reserves space
only to be read on the page.

prism

i lie with women

while lying to men

thinking of the other 

while tossing in bed 

i shut my eyes tight

basking in ambiguous skin

the light illuminates 

duality’s disappointment

futile flesh

concave or convex

serves its purpose 

in shortening my breath 

i crave to connect

but feel isolated 

between oscillation 

dueling for my attention 

bidirectional tug

my heart split in two

hushed by a label

limiting my love 

they pray on my confusion

hoping to heal me straight

a prism of light,

fractured only in their eyes

ill continue to distort 

the normative noose

that aims to silence

this continuous hurt 

sorting through the white light

basking in the invisible 

colors, kissing my skin

i lay with the silence

of absent resolution

breath

In my dreams, your hair is longer,
your lips still soft.
My hands start to wander
down your chest,
but there’s no heartbeat—
just an empty, cold cavity.

I press my sternum
against your breast,
transferring my heat,
hoping your breath will return.
But you lie there like a mossy stone,
collecting my life over your frozen bones.

I doubt you still think of me,
but you remember my love—
ravenous vines intertwined around your hands,
faithlessly holding on,
forming around you like fingerless gloves.

I tend to grow in cold, absent places,
devoid of light and nurture—
the familiar torture I’m native to.
You remind me of home,
where I curl beneath your stone
and hopelessly grow.

Your mountains collect snow
this time of year,
and I wonder if the frost
will finally let this love die.
I’d rather be released,
like new seeds escaping in death,
than continue depleting my oxygen
to feed your breath.

selflove

love birthed from 

immaculate conception 

radiant heart of an open kitchen

welcoming travelers in, wanting nothing in return

yearning for reciprocity but soon you will learn

you are self sustaining 

nourished by the silent song of solitude 

love is strength engraved in ink down your spine

strangers trace down in translation

their false assumptions only bring you gratitude

for the fact you contain multitudes moreover

than the human mind can unravel

only you know the depths traveled down

roots to uplift petals— blooming 

into the fruits of your labor

sweet tropical juice drips from your lips

each time you are reminded by

the capabilities of your gifts and virtues

that spontaneously secrete from your soul

you are evidence that from neglect, internal light is born 

whisper these words

when you wallow under the weight of the impossible

tuck your brunette curls behind your ears

hush the fears that aim to silence you

as you embrace your passion to persevere 

for you are a force to be reckoned with

a warrior whittled by the whimsical

revealing your soft underbelly in rebellion 

sensitivity slithering through your veins 

empowering a divinity no mortal can contain

birthday

frosting licked lips

sweet butter creme 

sprinkles on top

party city candles drip in anguish while awaiting my wish

flame flickers 

my eyes have grown old

strained from screens and stars

my eye doctor gifts me the word photopsia

in this blurr

whirling voices consume me

congratulating me on another year 

i've felt sixteen for half a decade of denial  

how long can i squeeze?

the lust of life out of the

lungs i breathe—hyperventilating  

desperately sucking for youth that escapes me   

until my age is an absent excuse 

for my teenage blues gnawing

at my hips that have widened 

and my breast that have flattened from starvation

this day of decay 

tucks my brunette hair behind my ears

and whispers words of salvation

pearls of wisdom birthed from frustration

home

Bless us, O Lord

I return home smaller each year than the last. My grandmother tells me how i've shrunk when she wraps her arms around my ribs and squeezes. My eyes have sunken into their sockets and I am reminded with each scrutinizing gaze from my relatives. They shove money into my pockets and pray for my nourishment come Christmas.  

and these thy gifts

I pick at my plate and pivot my gaze every few hours, searching for a dead man. I expect him to walk down the stairs, taller than the years prior. His lanky arms cloaked in cashmere, materials of maturity juxtaposed against his forever baby face. He sits frozen behind memorial photos and I wish I could punch through the glass to pull him back into my reality. I am reminded not to talk about such things. There is safety in my silence. As if that could suffocate my grief.

which we are about to receive from thy bounty

My brunette hair bobs against my slender neck. No one noticed how I cut my hair, nor the masculine style I arrive in. I deny speculation of any suitors, though the blonde hair of a woman stains my eyelids. I wish to be uncomplicated and palatable for the thanksgiving feast in which my identity is served and picked apart.    

through Christ, our Lord

My youngest sister fingers through her Bible. A cross dangles down my décolletage, and I flip it between my fingers to imitate faith. I feel their disappointment in me. A distance growing beyond ligation, and I linger in this pain. I am a stranger in the home I was once welcomed. Paranoid of relatives who refract my demented reflection back onto me. We join in prayer that I recite with empty rhythm. Behind my words, I longingly beg that I can somehow be embraced again.    

Amen

again

i am a fool for second chances

helplessly hypnotized by rose tinted glances 

twirled around by your manipulative dances

only to spin out of your grasp nauseous

dry heaving your betrayal onto cement

left wasted again by your lament 

you try again

scavenge up what love you can amend

pry open the door to my heart with the appeal of being friends

i am naive enough to welcome in a stranger

dumb enough to not bat an eye at danger 

redirected love feels better than anger 

there is nothing to gain

in the word again

i count my losses and scrub out your stains

i mourn the lost time 

and stitch up the holes you carved inside

a plant i watered just to watch curl up and die 

again, you come back to me 

begging on your knees 

prodding my heart, pleading please

second chance, you expect a third?

repeating patterns i never deserved 

again, i will never return

kiwi

bird in search of sky

your wingspan consumes clouds

blinded when too high 

instincts intertwined with greed

grasping at the infinite 

until failure bleeds 

prison is perspective 

incarcerated inside a dome

birds eye view, two feet land alone

nesting into Neverland 

 cracked speckled-sparrow shells

hatched a new hell 

dangerous heights

humbling arrogant wings 

into a faithless flight 

wind resistance whips while

high altitude wipes the oxygen 

from expansive lips

crash landing

friction suffocated by soil 

heaven spoiled: grounded by gravity

bird in search of a cage 

where safety is ensured 

and rage is contained 

you crave control 

in the comforting ways 

lying in your limited domain

collapse of your wings

aids in the aversion

of harmful things 

rested in human palm

impossible to differentiate between desires

when you are finally wanted 

you traded your wings 

for the gravity of belonging

to earthly beings 

behind metal ribs

you peak through the bars

beak pecking between the chasm of choice 

an illusion of noise

where entropy expands 

born with wings not hands

unable to grasp

the mystical

mist of wet winds

you chose this simplicity

you chose to observe 

you chose to be a flightless bird

entropy

entropy engulfs me 

bending and distorting my soul into its smallest conformation 

it’s more stable this way 

more favorable inscribed in my notebook

can chaos be controlled?

taunted by variables and formulas 

all meaning is exiled 

when graphite strikes an x= 

i plug in neat numbers

and am fed functions of pi

and words are worse than numbers

they too have error between syllables 

between the synapse of neurons 

unable to connect my precise meaning 

substituting numbers with letters into a more complex equation 

my identity is indivisible
an unrestricted domain I find myself making brackets for

explaining my words 

across different worlds

never to be truly understood or heard 

 i knelt to the thesaurus as my theology

only to stand up an atheist

lost in translation 

screaming empty words with frustration

the limit of language similarly approaching zero 

i am left defining the non differentiable

staring blankly at a page

saturated with numbers only a calculator can compute 

etched into a world of binary code

i refuse to simplify into zeros and ones  

        diabolical dialect

my neck constricting in a noose of ill-fitting idioms

i fail to pronounce my feelings

with the formula to flick my tongue correctly

complexities are left gnawing inside of me 

though they are mute, their teeth still bite  

inside this vessel i suffocate 

grasping at grammar

sinking my teeth into solutions 

i am unable to derive 

entropy expands, i am left boiling inside 

rings

she washes her hands with her rings on

collecting green and blue hues

between her bruised knuckles

with logic she seems to refuse 

but i can't help but admire

how the tarnishing metal 

mirrors the seafoam green

that laps the shores of her dilated pupils

my fingers lie naked, unadorned

due to the strangling sensation 

of unwanted stimulation worn

cracked calluses accumulate 

between my webbed fingers like warnings 

she entertains herself by twiddling her thumbs 

rolling each ring off

placing it on a new numb

between rounds of exchange 

she spares the generosity of some change    

her horseshoe gallops around 

the neck of my middle finger

sterling silver that mocks my gold

i hold and twirl her around 

letting our differences linger       

while the faucet splashes and sings 

i baptize my own fingers 

decorated with her rings  

i am reminded how her lack of logic 

births beautiful things

spit

i love licking envelopes 

and your lips are no different 

all to achieve the bliss

of tasting my own spit 

my morning breath 

reads blank to my blind nose

I can only taste myself 

when my eyes are closed  

when your convex breasts

connect with my chest’s concavity

your tongue in my mouth 

digging for cavities  

when we pull away 

with wet lips 

i am left with the tangy

aftertaste of my own spit 

i savor this saliva 

that you sweetened with your own 

my tastebuds pulse at the thought 

of feeling known 

as the spit settles 

matting down to your soft skin 

i inhale us together 

letting my true self in

limerence

its 2am and she is watching me

i sleep naked in my bed 

while she combs through my metaphors 

and hoovers above my head

all of this attention 

from a girl i never met 

i can't call her crazy

without admitting

i've made myself go mad

narcissist live symptomless 

while the rest of us hold 

the emotions they never had

it wasn't enough to rip apart my heart

so she watches me bleed

feeding upon the paranoia 

that consumes my entire being

writing was once my release

now the words she stalks strangles me   

i understand why he hates you

why his mother warned me

of your manipulation 

why his friends cringed at your name

because you will forever play the victim 

of the crimes caused by your own pain 

admire me

desire me 

conspire against me

and i will watch you embarrassed 

not by my own pride

but by the limerence of your obsession

you can't manage to hide