time, it is a river that moves as fast as you do.
slow down, slow down, don’t move too fast— for oh, how this life will pass.
time, it is a river that moves as fast as you do.
slow down, slow down, don’t move too fast— for oh, how this life will pass.
you’ve no idea
what is waiting
to pour through you,
pour from you,
if you’d just get out of the way.
you’ve no idea the river—
demolish that dam,
it is your mind.
demolish that dam,
it is your fear.
demolish,
pour.
sometimes,
love’s flame
is a fire that spills forth
as the sky cracks:
dawn’s light.
sometimes,
love’s flame
is a lamp burned.
its oil:
midnight.
love’s labors:
so oft
in those liminal spaces.
the heart’s torch:
the bravest tea light.
this love:
it is a quiet courage.
it has
no hall of fame.
it is
a gift
with no wrapping.
you feed on it—
you cannot see it.
you live on it—
you cannot feel it.
sometimes,
the truest loves
are unspoken,
& unseen,
but lived:
in the shadows.
a numinous force, light itself, overtaking the senses, the nervous system, the whole of your being, electrified by something so pure//tidal waves behind the gentlest touch.
there was a look in your eyes
somehow… dead,
yet more alive
than i thought possible.
it looked like
you stared each of your fears
straight in the eye–
then, snakeskin:
they were shed.
it looked like
all that died
were the bits of you
that kept you from living.
i pray
you’ll keep me around,
if only to teach me how.
Yours was the only bright light that made pupils not constrict, but dilate— as if they knew they needed to drink in as much of you as possible.
Sober living: it is about learning all the secret ways that exist to get drunk that they don’t tell you about. Love letters with a sweetheart: there is no greater wine. Breaths timed with the sea’s lazy waves: what intoxication. Dancing without a care, not a drop of alcohol in the veins: it’s a form of nakedness, nothing more liberating. Spirits, spirits, spirits: they are everywhere.
you mustn’t ever love
something without claws,
you mustn’t ever love
what cannot bite.
a hand that feeds
should be ready
to bleed.
there’s no such thing
as love
that draws no blood.
only shut mouths
do not bite —
only in silence
are edges smoothed.
honesty: it is serrated.
love too.
there is no other way.
you branded the inside of my heart
can’t shake the feeling
that anyone I let in
sees you there.
your initials scarred,
emblazoned
on my chest.
you softened my heart,
then shaped the clay
with your hands.
into the crucible:
our flame scorched me into ceramic.
then,
you dropped me.
still am i here,
bloodied knees,
picking up the scattered pieces
of myself.
i wear you:
lesions on the brain,
burns on the heart,
scars on my knees.
i wear you.