You’re ten feet in front of me laughing. I walk up to shake your hand. Your smile breaks me. The heat that builds inside me is wildfire. And I think you look like my next, hungry distraction. And I hope I look like yours too. And you might have been a nightmare, but you were definitely wrapped up in dreams. And you might have been a nightmare, but at least you kept me awake. And your smile breaks me. And the heat that builds inside me is wildfire. And I think you look like my next secret. And I hope that I look like yours too. And we may have been whispers, but at least I could keep you to myself. And you might have been a whisper, but at least your voice nuzzled my ears. And your smile breaks me. And the heat that builds inside me is wildfire. And I think you look like my next dance. And I hope I look like yours too. And we may have spun in dizzy circles, but at least our steps matched. And you may have spun me in dizzy circles, but at least we always came back around. And your smile breaks me. And the heat that builds inside me is wildfire. And I think you look like my next destruction. And I hope I look like yours too. And we may have torn each other apart, but at least we built the moments worth breaking. And I may have torn you apart, but at least I razed your walls. And your smile breaks me. And the heat that builds inside me is wildfire. And I think you look like my next, infinite ending. And I hope I look like yours too. And you may have never ended for me, but at least I know I’ll stay for you too. And we may have never ended, but at least we won’t start again.

Summers swallowed by 90 degree heat

7 & ½ hours a day, 6 days a week

13 years old, when I say I love uneven-bars

I mean radio play, same 5 songs

lungs crystalized with chalk-cloud air

(chalk: applied to grips, to grip the bars

grips: applied to wrists, to help protect skin)

scrunchie hair-tie, determined eyes

perfecting same routines – toe-point here

extended knee & shoulder press,

body balanced on a forefinger,

trusting feet to guide my land.

I take stalk of bruises left between thighs

count each rip burned into my palm;

quarter-sized blisters, on the bad nights

large enough to fear reaching for another hand—

will they leave, disgusted

by my decimated skin? manglings

of once pure flesh; my childhood, my time.

but the weightlessness. God.

the weightlessness &

how could I not need poetry,

after thousands of hours

with aching hands & a yearning to fly?

When I say I love words I mean

I love the chance to break my neck, & by this:

the miracle of every time I do not.

It’s not easy, ain’t it? But you knew that already. You’ve heard it like a broken record in a silent bar in a ghost town which never existed. You knew it already.

When you heard about the meteor shower the other day. You wished to see it from the bottom of your heart. But you don’t have a heart, do you? That’s what your father says. And you convince yourself there was no meteor shower too.

Things which we see, we know that they exist. You see your friends happy, you see them laugh. But what about you? The realest you you’ve seen is after all only a reflection. Are you happy? Your photographs say you are.

I heard you got into a fight last night. It wasn’t easy, he says, beating up someone bigger than him. But you knew that already. You know everything already. Nothing is ever easy and you pretend that he doesn’t bleed. He’s invincible after all.

And under the stars that don't exist, you convince yourself that you're happy.

:)