The Sea

The waves sang the same siren song that had lulled me to sleep as a child

and I swore that this time I fathomed them

I tasted the subtle warmth of the salt in the air

And I let the openness of the water trick me into thinking I could grasp her

But as the grey of dusk fell away into night

the dark of the sea stopped revealing the secrets of her depths

It was then that I learned the truth

We never stop fearing the unknown

Anthology

I would write you everyday.

Poems and scribbles and notes,

Until you learned

The unevenness of my hand

The habits of my penmanship

The chaos of my scrawl.

In a world of dying paper and ink

They would save every scrap

Torn from the back of notebooks

Jotted down on well-folded receipts

They would compile anthologies of my sweet nothings

Until children who had long forgotten pens and lined paper

Would press their fingers into the ink and indentations

And know this is what devotion feels like.

For The Moth That Lived and Died In My Bathroom

And his wings, folded

shut in death, concealed that he

had been beautiful

Coming Out

I read that we never get

to stop coming out.

Well I came out to myself the other day,

Stepped out of my glass closet for a moment,

Well, not so much a class closet than one of those

Cabinets old people use to store their china
I am transparent, the way I hoard your gifts,

Your presents, your presence.

I never tell the ones who need to hear it the most.

Instead I let it rest on my lips the way I wish yours would

And flitter round my tongue the way I want yours to,

But I can’t.

Because I only tell you in sighs I hope you read

Or maybe see it in my gazes that linger too long

Or notice how I touch you too often, sit too close,

Smile too much.
I am transparent in my cabinet as I watch your hands

Dance across tabletops.

But I would never come out to you.

I much rather confess to strangers on the internet,

Or in ambiguously phrased verse,

That I dream about you at night

And I think of you all day

And while I may joke about others,

Everything I say I love about them,

Just reminds me of you.

Shop Boy Crush

Do you have a lunch break, or do you sustain on cuteness and sheepish smiles?

Because if you do, I do too.

And i don’t mean to be ambiguous but I do mean both.

Because if you don’t have a lunch break, I don’t really need

That soup and a sandwich I buy everyday

Just that smile…

See I’m like a plant except instead of sunshine, I flourish on your shine

Because boy do you shine.

See I’m more like a flower than anything else,

You know, like how they lean to the sun and all?

Yeah, that’s my flow and I wouldn’t mind if perhaps we could…

Pollinate?

No I’m just kidding, I meant conversate,

Oh sorry,

Converse, my bad.

Your brightness makes me a little dizzy

So forgive me if I get a little bit mixed up,

You make my head light with your light.

And if you do break for lunch?

Perhaps you can take a break by the juice bar

Because bar none, you are sweet

And it would be nice to see your other half

And perhaps another side of you

Other than” thank you and please come again,”

though at this point I’m sure even though you say that to all the girls

and all the boys

and whoever else may patronize this fine establishment,

that you specifically mean me…

so if you have a lunch break, or sustain on cuteness and sheepish smiles

remember I do too.

Hands

I have become enamored with your hands.

The way slender fingers join knuckles,

Soft palms taper to fine wrists.

I cannot look away.

Cupping your face,

Clasped around knee,

Rest belies their strength.

Your hands could craft the world if they wanted to.

Sea Shanty

I wrote this on the offhanded request of a friend. She said that her OTP (One True Pairing), was sand and salt water. And I take inspiration where ever I can get it.

Sea Shanty

You are the salt of my earth,

Said the tide to the shore.

Leaving sweet nothings

In pools filled with stars

As the moon’s siren song

Pulled them further apart.

Palm trees with their heads

buried in the clouds

promised he’d return,

You could hear it

in the crashes of the waves.

But every time you leave,

You wear me away,

The shore whispered back.

An Education

I want to learn the language your body speaks,

Whispered by your hips as you move,

Decode the ciphers between your sighs.

I have learned the angle of your slouch,

The spread of your fingers

And the coil of your curls.

There is a science to you I have not yet learned.

I have learned the contours of your face

The locations of your moles

The longitude and latitude of your dimples

The length and breadth of your smile

Better than I ever learned geography.

Maybe I’d map those contours of your face

(Which I’ve already committed to memory)

but I can’t.

To recreate the brownness of your skin
is more motivation than three years of art

Ever were.

Writing commits you to memory.