I smiled when she said
That I was the only person she really talked to
In the only class we shared.
I would ask her
How her week had been
Since we both knew
The quality of our week
Far outweighed our day.
Only, I don’t think she ever realized

Where I hope to be
In case you ever need to find me
And I am no longer here:
Find me in the stolen glances
Across the room when everyone is busy.
In the anxious anticipation
Of someone’s presence
Or the small thrill that comes
From a brief moment of locked eyes.

Three strings across my body,
Pinky and thumb pinching each fraying end.
Pulled across my chest, three strands
Strung taught in my open arms.

Pink,
Blue,
And white.

seven horses dead in 10 days, track dirt still
painting damp mouths and eyes that will
never start again and here we are with
our feet kicking up ground and orange light
staining like iodine on skin and we never
think to worry it’ll be us splayed out on the

a split second meeting.
one glance,
and nothing more.
i do not know your name.
neither do you mine.

a short friendship.
we drifted apart.
i have your number,
but i won't call.
you won’t either.

Studying my nose in the mirror
I recall roaming for comfort
My fingers are my ailment- dismay
That you will one day let go of my hand,
Not necessarily for another, (though it has been so)
But from a gradual loosening
My knot of insecurity,
A continual,

Her hands were golden, as if baked under runny sun,
Yolk dripping into the palms,
Painting her in ancient warmth
As her fingers held the cigarette to her lips, allowing the aged paper to crack her mouth open
Autumn afternoon senior year ‘08

Once again,
my eyes have failed
to cradle the sorrow
of her last morning’s cascade.

Once–
my back bathed
under the lazy midday sun,
lightly awakened
by her calloused touch.

i was raised in the house that neither of my parents built
although my mother was the one that raised me
she took a home not built yet and filled it with daughters
and when her husband left
he took his paintings of french women
garbed in robes with eyes grinning into the sun

In his head, he is
beneath the stars,
that are shimmering
but silently so,
quiet in their
overwhelming beauty.
They reach out to him
despite being held
captive
in the sky’s embrace.

there is a gentle pulse on the other side of forever
when Mother Nature’s whisper grows hoarse
and our two hands hang limply in the space between us
leaden feathers dragging on the corners of fickle consciousness,
the laughter drying,
morphine for the pre-dead

The paper is old and wrinkled
Tapered along the edges like a fairy’s carpet
Billowing outward, flowering, creases unfolding in waves.
Rising off the words is the scent of brown sugar, old parchment dancing on the kitchen island.

cradled in the peak of an eclipse my breath capsizes into
the fray
a shuddering recognition of lost time

we sit back on the river rock letting the waves trickle between our toes
wrinkling our fresh skin into prunes

how did we get here?

Everyday I bleed on paper,
(It looks prettier that way.)

Here I present to you my blood,
Crimson seeping through sheets,
Spelling out words that stitch themselves into sentences,
That become paragraphs and poems.

Demeter’s calloused hands inch towards mine
I taste each fingertip in the golden dust that sprinkles my scythe
Her pitying reflection in each bead of sweat that rolls down my earth
Wetting its molten core.
You are a shadow oil that spills and spreads

Morsel of fire-kissed stir-fried greens
Tossed, unmissed through clouds of steam
Hissed as they dished in the wok, has been
A familiar sight preceding my teens

Does it scare you?
Does it remind you of when you were young?
A thin dirt road unpaved and unexplored like your heart.

You were born at the bottom of an infinite whisky glass
Your dad isn’t ever gonna reach you.

i crave what i can’t reach.
burn me into an iris
i want the sun to love me

what is a god anyway?
these cicadas are singing all wrong

boil my bones
i’ll hold this family together

My temper is a candle, with it’s wick burning low
An impermanent cloud where I come and go
My mind is a cavern, where I bury things deep
So mostly I smile, but sometimes I weep
My body is a temple, at which I throw stones
The collisions break away soul, leaving only some bones

They do not tell you how it happens.
Ignoring the signs does not make them disappear.
The sadness has a voice now,
it speaks in moans and incoherent cries.

part 1: carmine
you want to see my heart?
go on then
haha
not what you expected?
here’s a secret: it never is.
oh, look at that— it’s still trying to beat
but the mice are already gnawing.
was that a grimace? how rude.

Tomorrow my heart will thunder.
rain will pour like a thousand tiny words

summer can swallow me whole.
I’m ready for an ending

the sunlight can eat me alive.
lay me down in the backyard.
I’ll fall right through the grass

It was mid-November, 1983 when James first got sick. It started with a dry cough and exhaustion; in all ten years that Edward had been with him, the occasional affliction was nothing out of the ordinary.

She was the epitome of fragile beauty: lips slightly parted, rosy flush tinting the apples of her cheeks, raven hair framing her face. I knelt there, holding her wrist, touching the papery skin that shielded her blue-green veins. A ball of unshakeable guilt weighed down my chest.

Oftentimes, it’s said that people make a home, not the place.

My feet bounced as I waited in the dimly lit examination room. The dark curtains blocked out any hints of sunlight, the only light source being the single fluorescent lamp standing in the center of the room.