frostbite

Grey masses cling to mountains as I close my eyes and revel in nothing. It’s either heat exhaustion or frostbite in this goddamn valley, and somehow it always takes me by surprise. If insanity expects different results from the same conditions, I should have been committed a decade ago. I squeeze my eyes tighter with each moment, hoping for a revolution: inside my head, or outside my window. I remember your voice shifting between drunken playfulness, somber sadness, pleading confusion. Your tears nearly brought me back, frozen with painful desire, but spiteful reflection shows me otherwise. Take a shot of bravery and promise me you’ll bring back summer before I open my eyes. Promise me anything, and I’ll swallow it whole.

fingertips

I think I'll count the ribs beneath your skin,

Circle shadows round your hips, 

Press a promise to your chest,

 and hold my breath. 

coastal

It’s the soundtrack to a memory.
hours of asphalt to California
you riding shotgun; my car as a Catholic confessional
strands of hair shooting sparks through open windows
screaming delirium, sober insecurity
clashing in a blacked out coastal kiss

Shuffle

My feet shuffle past your doorstep, concrete sidewalk meeting brass boots in a shower of apathetic sparks. I'm just trying to put on a show, keep the fucking lights on through winter, but there's a whiskey buzz that always seems to dim the energy. 

You're warm inside your cocoon of chaos, and I can see your window blinds strain to hold it all inside, keep the fucking lights on despite your childish belief that there's someone hiding in every shadow. 

We live in cold, intoxicated unreality, never sleeping, holding out hope that the lamp in the corner will keep us safe. My feet shuffle past your doorstep, inching forward relentlessly.

sleeping

we kissed at the bathroom sink

your hair still wet from the shower

that we took together

slipping and laughing

and freezing together

together and separate,

all in that moment.

shock before injury

I drew a circle around my head, bouncing the broken piece of chalk over the rough irregularities in the asphalt. It grew smaller with every loop, harder to hold onto, fracturing in the divots and cracks, artifacts from mistakes long forgotten or never noticed. The chalk spat its last neon breath out on the street, but I kept my frantic rhythm, blending fingernails into blacktop like mixing watercolors, blurring my bright halo with numb, rusted red. 

sacred circle

You move through the world

a sacred circle cutting lines across your chest, 

every molecule gripping sunset skin

with my fingertips

combing every strand,

carving circles in my skin.

sacrifice & piety

There's only so much you can sacrifice

before you're skinned like a calf

There's only so long you can fast

before you're shorn and shaking

There's only moments

and then they're past

There's only love-drunk punches

that violently clash

And what good is one thought

when it's bound together with a thousand desires

And what good is one of us

when there's a thousand others burning between

If there's an altar, there's a knee

and there's a cap pressed to the ground in piety

If there's a hunger, there's a need
that's neither here nor anywhere you could be.

sonata

I pushed my nose into your skin,

tracing the inky scar tissue while your chest rose to meet my lips,

falling away with each murmured exhale.

My fingers conducted a piano sonata across your ribs,

down your spine,

circling a hazy melody on your hips.

I listened to the wind tear the leaves from their branches.

re:

I’m folding our last good memory in an envelope,
and there’s this imperceptible shift from longing to anger,
clotting and breaking like cuts on my knuckles.

I hate the way I disappear inside the fantasy of our lips,
our tangled hearts,
our promises and memories.

I’m taking a deep breath for what seems like the first time,
remembering how the rest of the world went dark
as we stood on a corner and kissed to our future,
a perfect fucking mess.

Do you still want this?