Womanhood

pouring all your love
into a broken vessel
and slicing your hands on the shards

full nakedness

To be

naked and in 

love: not all nakedness

is intimate but this is and 

we are

Re: tabanca

re: tabanca

It will always surprise.
It will come like a thief,
in the night in old love songs
like waves in full tide
like the dull ache of a bruise.
And it will linger.

re:re tabanca

Much like the tides,
it will flood, but it will ebb
And like the bruise,
it will fade.
You will learn to sing new songs.

"And in my first year of college I was with this girl and I called it a thing."

I loved you most when you were bold and bashful

wildeyed at 4 am

and brilliant

up late in the kitchen

sniffing daikon and shrugging

tasting everything

i loved you most when we were two warm bodies

moving together through the night

fitting perfectly

artifice

we speak in riddles and doublespeak

and half-finished glances

i am tired of never saying what i mean

and hoping you understand

me:

coy but ready

you:

distant but yearning

everything is artifice

and we are just playing parts

Day 3-Write about interpersonal relationships and the games we play to avoid vulnerability.

Love Like a Mango

Dec 22, 2014

There was a fullness to our love

like that mango just within your reach
unblemished and warm
falling straight into your palm
eaten under the shade of the tree
juice dripping down your elbow

temporary in its bliss,
but perfect in that moment.

24 april 2014

you are
not a graceful
sleeper but i have learned
to love your sprawled sighs when
i can't
sleep.

Sins of the Flesh

Flesh only begets more flesh

And this flesh of mine

-formed in sin and shapened in iniquity-

knows only lust

and I dance between longings.

Flesh begets more flesh.

Tensions

-->

I am beginning to name my knots.

Let one in my neck be Wanting

from every time I clenched my jaw after breathing in her scent.

Let the tightness in my shoulder be Disappointment who is also called Shame

a product of still wanting him to touch me

even though we both know he shouldn't

and being caught between recoiling and not.

Finally, the chronic ache in my back will be Distance

from consistently loving people that are too far away.

In the same way one muscle contracts as the other relaxes

these pains are interconnected

and I know that all these names mean the same thing:

I hold on for far too long and I need to learn to let go.

Requiem

I only love those

slender boys with slight frames when 

they remind me of

you.

Dear Beloved

An open letter to everyone I’ve ever convinced myself I loved.

I.

I am still sorry.

I fear that you were just the

first in a long line

of men I will be

all too willing to bury

my loneliness in.

II.

 Now that I’ve figured

that you wronged me, I am not

ready to forgive.

III.

I loved you more than

you knew, but you were still right:

it was not enough.

IV.

I have learned what the

infinite tastes like but

I still haven’t learned

that people can’t be

 fixed because they aren’t broken,

or that I deserve

better.

psychosomatic

-->

i’ve grown accustomed

to the pain. in your absence

everything else aches.

Going With The Tides

Going With The Tides

A Haiku Pair

  

 Loneliness sometimes

lingers like cold in your bones

and damp in your soul,

even when the tides

that washed it up have long since

moved to other shores.

On the Distribution of One's Heart

On the Distribution of One's Heart

(A Haiku Quintet)

I had given my

heart to someone who didn’t

know how to hold it.

Instead, they cradled

it like an adolescent

with a stranger’s child:

awkward and uneasy,

with a fear of falling

head first and snapping.

I gave my heart to

someone who didn’t quite want

it and was surprised

when they gave it back.

They said to keep it safe, but

their fingers left bruises.

Drowning

Drowning
(A Haiku Pair)

I am drowning. You

have oversaturated

me, but I need it.

You overwhelm me.

I gasp for air but choking

never felt so good.

Going The Distance

Have you ever gone through your personal poetry archives and stumbled upon an old piece that, at the time of writing, you were convinced was absolutely awful, but now that you've given it some space, it turns out it wasn't too bad after all? This piece is one of them. It's almost a year old and no longer personally relevant, but I hope you like it.

Distance pulls heartstrings taut

While memory taunts

Sighs go unanswered

Empty promises fill

Where your touch should be.

Silence breeds disquiet:

I quietly wonder

If it’ll be worth it in the end.

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.

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.