You asked me
to bandage my wrists
with your lips,
stitching kisses across scar tissue
and drying tears that spilled from eyes
split open like wounds
that never healed.

You found me broken.
A fractured bird
clinging to branches
of a tree grown gnarled and withered,
acrophobic tendencies
fighting the natural propensity
to hurl myself into flight.

You tattooed your calm
across my trembling skin,
answering vertigo with stability.
And I flew for you.
Fashioned makeshift wings
from the folded paper of your words
stapled to my broken back,
soaring upon your exhalations
towards the clouds that became our kingdom.

Never one for religion,
but we impersonated angels.
I found divinity in your eyes,
tracing your jaw’s outline
into a psalm sung in reverence.
The Balm of Gilead found in the palm
of your cupped hand when it rested
upon my cheek,
filling yourself up
with my offerings until I had given
all that remained.

How quickly you changed.
As if your back was not strong enough
to bear the weight of all
I had carried.
Rearranged the times,
flipped me on my head
to leave sands building mountains
upon our oasis.
Desert in my mouth,
I choked on insecurities
that sifted to the surface.

Kingdom undone,
you asked me to fly
and then snatched back the wind
that left you breathless.
For the truth is,
there was no strength in walls
built from paper mache wings
and wounds stitched together
by strings
only strong enough
to hang myself.


"Maybe there's a God above
And all I ever learned from love
Was how to shoot at someone who outdrew you
It's not a cry you can hear at night
It's not somebody who's seen the light
It's a cold and it's a broken hallelujah

Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah"

Sanity is the black mirror calm
of the ocean at rest
and yet we soar towards
tempestuous storms upon rocky shores.

We are lovers of the flame, you and I;
moth-winged hearts beating in frenzy,
infatuation racing into the fire of our demise.

(your eyes,
how they have always been so tempting)

And so we fly,
til feathers char and burn,
relics left behind for the archaeologists of love
as we become no more than memories
of shadows upon the sun.

I'd like to keep you like this,
at a distance,
a stranger wrapped in secrets.
Face blurry,
details blending into surrounding crowds.
I'd like to keep you
a figure shrouded in mystery.
Don't come so close to me,
beautiful enigma,
stay right there.
I want lose myself in the thoughts
of all I don't understand;
forget your stories,
I have painted you new ones to wear.
Don't care where you're going
or where you've been,
only that you are here.
Beautiful man
you make me feel
like today is all there is.
Time at a standstill
as we stand, stilled by the weight
of tomorrow's hands.
I don't want to know you,
only to love you like this,
a stranger kept at a distance
from the secrets of a kiss.

Broken spine valentine


Twisted metal of a ribcage carriage,
shards of broken glass, carrying
distorted reflections of our faces.
A head on collision of bodies, moving
forward at the speed of longing. I beg

for your destruction;

we are much more honest when broken.

Crash against me, lover.
Tear through the mangled carcass and
wreckage of a fractured back. Reach inside,
line palms with life leaking from
the heart, beating. Liberate me from these constraints, break
into cages and set me free.

...When the Hands are Empty

Moments of weakness
slip through half-closed doors
as echoes,
settling into the hollows
your absence leaves.
And storms collect atop mountain cheeks,
threatening to flood you
from my thoughts.

On nights like these,
I return to past charades
of hand-holding grenades and blitzkrieg kisses,
obliterated defenses
in a world turned on its head.

Once again
doubt creeps out from corners
and I curl fetal position between sheets,
hands wrapped around bent knees;
lost in my head, retracing the steps of regret
that left me twisted in the depths of his chasms.

You know well how he dug inside,
excavating hope like some grave robber,
false dreammonger,
rearranging my mind
to leave me blindsided.
Eyes plucked out
to keep from seeing truth
tucked into back pockets amidst excuses
for the many times he tore me open.

If I am to love you,
it must be like this:

broken.

Cast of plaster around us
to protect what is damaged.
For you,
I am cracking open.
Fingers deep in chest cavity,
scraping the remains of disaster
into something that can beat again.

Your kiss is shock treatment,
jump starting flat lines
chalked around the figures
of dreams that died daily;
fingertips erasing prints
I have worn as shackles.
Your hands are healing,
mending cracks in bones and mirrors
that hold shadows of his reflection.
For in your eyes,
I see new destinations.

And I try...
I try not to bury you in expectations.

But you must understand,
the heart holds very little left.
For me this is life or death.
Love turned
Russian roulette.

And so I wrap my lips around you,
praying,
for another chance to live.

A Villanelle for Haiti- From a poetry challenge

A chorus of mourning, sung in refrain
as from the bowels came the shaking.
In Pandora's wake, would hope remain?

Buildings buckling beneath the strain
of the land's furious quaking.
A chorus of mourning, sung in refrain

Streets splitting like a single vein,
ruptured open for the taking
In Pandora's wake, would hope remain?

Cries fell upon the wind in vain
through the night, their echoes snaking
A chorus of mourning, sung in refrain

Fear blanketing the shattered terrain
left crippled from the forsaking
In Pandora's wake, would hope remain?

Rivers of tears raged on as rain
from hearts slowly breaking
A chorus of mourning, sung in refrain
In Pandora's wake, would hope remain?

Earthquake Weather

She picks at fights
as if they were scabs;
fingers, cuticle-deep into wounds
never healed,
pulling at the strings he keeps submerged
amongst the beats
of a tell-tale heart.

The puppet master,
she knows how to
make him dance,
this siren's song
echoing the melodies of his
insecurities.

You see,
she prefers to keep him
on his knees,
lost in her hall of broken mirrors,
crawling across shards of glass
just to reach her.
A tightrope dance,
she keeps him
hanging precariously
from threads of her spindle,
spinning webs to embed him into
the fabric of her hands,
while weaving paths to leave him
if need be.

You see,
she picks at fights
as if they were scabs,
fingers digging into the faults
along his skin;
keeps him
on the edge of shaken up
and giving in.
Because in her world,
stability is a pretty myth
and she learned long ago
that fairy tales
just don't exist.

Prayers of passion
stalking the edges of reverie...

I'll submit to you, my sins
and we will make confessions in sweat and breath,
take communicion in entwined limbs.
I give in
to the wine of your eyes,
the bread of your skin.

Holy man, you are the temple
where worship begins.

Partake in Thy Demise

Mama said,
"Don't ever lose yourself in no man."

...and I listened
to fractured fairy tales filling up ears
and the sweetness of your kisses still sleeping on lips.
I listened
til the echo of your words
was dancing with my thoughts..

I am lost.

Lying naked upon the altar of supplication,
breast bone torn open, body shaking,
take me please.
I will love you
into submission
with shackles around ankles and
noose around neck;
the serpent of breath
twisting
this love into constriction.
How your image
lays weight upon chest,
breath's exhalations stilled
to preserve the silence
of fingertips tracing psalms upon my skin.
Forgive me.

For I give more of me
with each passing second,
filling your empty hands
with the stories I have carried,
read me into the light.
For in your eyes
the darkness undresses herself
defenseless
at the temple of your feet.

And oh, how you carry me.
I should call you mother
for the way you have held me;
the gentle protection,
the lullaby of words
giving birth to my infancy.
I am born of you.
Product of your touch
and offspring of your thoughts,
you give me life.

The beautiful and the ugly.
But sometimes life is too heavy
and I break;
into pieces of you,
lover how you slay me.
Creation born of destruction,
you fashion wings of phoenix
upon my broken back.

Mama said,
'Don't ever lose yourself in no man..."
I never listened;
and found myself within your hands.

Hills cradled by fog in morning's embrace,
sun awakening the horizon with a gentle stretch,
and in the distance,
the sound of drums,
echoing the steps of a journey home.

She crawled out from under
debris of shattered castles
shards of glass and bricks and mortar
stuck within grooves upon knees and palms.
A broken butterfly, the child defiled,
her skin holding only lies,
disguising the abuse of bruises
that painted their darkness
beneath her fragile surface.

A world of storms,
she was drowning in the rain.
Cried an ocean in hopes that
the tears would carry her away.
Bent up in corners,
hiding from the shadows
of a phantom that wore no face.
A scene on repeat,
staccato blinking
twisted sheets,
she slept with the echoes of screams
from innocence stolen in defeat.

.
.
.

And then the skies broke open,
ablution pouring from the clouds
and a voice that spoke the words
of angels returning home.
It was slow at first,
their quiet whispers drying her tears
and gentle wings, lifting her up.
Arms clasped tight around bent knees
slowly unfolding towards the sky.

She crawled out from under
the darkness of a never-ending night,
with careful steps and wings tucked at her sides.
And in the breaking day,
her own voice softly took flight.
A story told upon her skin,
the sun healing wounds
unseen by the eyes of day,
towards the light she made her way
without a glance over shoulders
at the whispers calling her back.

Rain gave way to morning
as fear became reclaimed by strength.
Out of the bitter fog she walked,
her steps slowly gaining weight,
shedding the demons of memory
that had plagued her for so long.

Through fields she walked
and uphill she climbed,
her feet quickening their pace.
And as salvation appeared before her,
her wings reached out
to carry her away.