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I had been steeping my emotions

in what brewed in the impassioned summer light

poetry I had left seamlessly early last winter 

I placed it in a box 

had the birds fly it south

didn’t really care to ever have it back

but when I felt as if I’d lost a friend 

I called for its absorbent tea

it’s black liquorice dream

that would stain my clothes if I let it sit after a spill for too long

the residuals reminded me of filling fractals

all within the hows and whats and whys of when

I could smell him on my palms 

I could smell him from across the floor

I could smell him from a block away

I could smell him when he wasn’t even there

(something even a poet can’t explain without the right acceptation)

the words started to fallow me back

and I just simply wished for the sake of wishes

on every lightening bug

ever double on double number

ever dying fire lit rock that was falling through a sky that is

so infinite you could not even rhythm your way through it 

I said, ‘I don’t understand how nothing is real!’

he said, ‘If you did than you’d be free.’

I kissed his chest

I kissed his soul

he said, ‘Oh,

I don’t like at all’

I waited for him to catch my fall

but he just watched me shatter like a million dandelion taraxacums

dispersing in ruderals

rapidly colonizing disturbed soil

scattered out to the brim of the world

but this all had me and poetry back at peace

and I waited between blades of grass 

photosynthesizing my desire to last

when he has been drinking he tells me I’m too good for him

when he’s drunk all I want to do is hold him

kiss his need to hide

tell him it’s not okay for him to die

I have been counting out days till I don’t have to bind my breath

and every haiku I’ve written since I’ve left

has been decorated in shore lines and salted waves

I kissed up and down the cape of your neck

and I made up names for all the constellations on your arms

felt the bones in your elbows

(worn rough)

and I did not say a word

the clam placed within my throat

pulled slender to my heart

forced me to lay stilled 

tense my way back to comfort

and I didn’t want to go

but I could not stay

and it reminded me of how he said

when it is too good

I do not want it

and I am starting to feel the same

I stopped writing poetry and I stopped finding ways to love.

i.

Why would we waste our time not falling in love when the world is crumbling at its seams?

Why should we stop staring into each others eyes in a time of need?

The distance we put between us is aweing

There is nothing more wasted in this world then life itself, and that is something that never runs out

so why

in heavens name

would I ever stop 

writing these poems

about heart throbbing

rhyming body loving

words

and poetry

to remind me

not to run out

to always keep track

ii.

I stopped wanting to comment on their hands

their spine

their hips

their touch

I just had to stop documenting feelings arising from silent smells

I wanted to stop writing on how it felt like weight

or how it felt like a nuzzle on the base of my neck

so I stopped the words from spilling from my very swollen

and very pasted throat

I let them go

(how silly of me to not flow)

iii.

I was born the year before you were your saddest

I was born the year a war busted out in the desert 

I had a dead vein when I was three

my body stuttered in the idea of touch

I have places within me I’ve never been

and you have places I’ll never see

and I had my fingers counting the roughed out

hills and valleys of your palms

because I couldn’t count anything else

I didn’t have a dime or a dollar to give or spend

but I gave away my good intentions 

to have a piece of your sides

and I think you are right

we’ve got nothing to own here

but smiles and sacred exchanges

I haven’t been willing to fight

(maybe I just want someone else to declare war for my home)