what it is to suffocate

careful strokes of a brush,
glancing off of cheekbones
_____(like rain, on a windshield)
putting colors together
_____(like worlds in a universe)
and making of a canvas what gods did to the cosmos
carefully pushing a smile onto lips thinner than candlelight
planting a fingerprint onto Mona Lisa's skin,
_____calling her a masterpiece,
_____and then calling her "mine"

(the way her skin folds is the way you hold your breath)

Jupiter

She is like the greatest of planets: grand and made entirely out of gas. Spinning, and pretending to be solid. She is a carcass of dreams, and all her heartache pools into her empty ribcage and freezes into a heart. It beats soft, but resounds vicious, like the growls of wolves' footsteps when they rush away from hunters. Hunters.

She is a sky of shards of everything. She is a piece of clockwork, ticking away the (star)dust of her eye shadow, and everything else she hides behind. She is a crumb of all the food she didn't eat, and a bead of all the sweat from all the sex. And just a bit of the bones she breaks every damn day.

Her hair strands are sharp and cutting like the needles from syringes and the edges of the words she wishes were spoken to her – sweet and kind and gentle words they are, but cruel in absence and longing. When she runs her hand through her hair, there's a chaos of new scratches on her fingerprints.

Who is she, now, then?

She sways to a song that thuds like thunder, wearing smoke like a second skin, like an atmosphere of cigarettes and no-hard-feelings. She is like Jupiter: great, grand, and made of gas. Just spinning and pretending to be solid.

you're so loud

your name is a siren

that brings violent coughs to my throat, when i'm twenty seconds away from you

and my skin screams, when your skin cells are my skin cells

and alarms i never snooze go off in my head, when a word – any word – slips from your lips

and the most rapturous knocking beats in my chest, when you're here

gunshots and bombs erupt in my head, when i'm enveloped in you(r cologne, and your fabric, and your body heat)

and yet

the silence sits ringing beside me, when you're asleep and as quiet as a dried-up ocean

ochre

as i type this, you're listening
but you can't hear the words

and when you sing
and when you breathe
i'd like you to know i listen.

every word,
every little whip
from your lip
s.

*

sometimes i can hear my sobs in my breaths.

Forests

They would be all sorts of natural – skin and blood and bones. It's all one and the same, and it's all real and there. Unabridged flesh, metal mouths.

It's like falling into place, but breaking some bones.

*

It's Forest, eleven-years-old, and Tops, just a couple months older.

Tops had big teeth and Forest made fun of her for it. He laughed and laughed, and she shied away from him.

*

Twelve was an odd year for the both of them. There was a lot of sitting, on all sorts of surfaces. Marble, tiles, baskets, gravel, cement, wood, chairs, rocks. Skies, suns, clouds, Saturn's rings, and all those celestial things. It was a dream. But they were just sitting.

*

And then came the years of the Great Separation – Forest and Tops grew and shrank and tripped and tripped and tripped in love, and fell so far away from each other. There was a lot of grasping and clutching and grabbing but sometimes their bodies were buttery.

Sometimes they were just butter, melting away under the heat of elsepeople's gazes.

*

And then Forest came back, and Tops let him in. And it was day after day after day of stories and words and so many words. Have you heards and have you watcheds, then let's go outs and are you guys frees. The geography of a line, and the silence of a car crash.

And then there was Piper.

*

Three consecutive numbers – the first was Forest, the second was Tops, and the third was the night. There was a lot of sitting, and a lot of swaying, and a lot of her make-up on his suit jacket. That was when the night was young.

When the night grew creased and even the stars were dull, Tops was alone with her thoughts. And when the sun came up, Tops was alone and her thoughts burst from her skull like a bullet through her brain. It painted her face with the colors of chaos.

*

Forest and Piper could be real good together. They ought to give it a try!

*

Tops was okay.

*

Sometimes she wasn't okay, but most of the time, she was okay. Tops was a skeletal wonder. Real strong spine.

*

It's strange how it all ends, really. Everyone is a princess except the one who wants the crown. And there are no speak nows, no see you tonights, no it was always just yous. It is just smiles that aren't on Tops's lips. Not lost smiles or misplaced grins. They are just not her smiles, and she can't own them.

Pity, though. She would've made a good princess. She would have been a natural princess. Natural as water and forests and volcanoes, but no one's ever going to see her try.

*

 oh, poems in prose! why don't i cut this up in lines and show you the ribbons!