With paper lungs and a straw heart; I began to sing.

    There is something funny about grandparents. It is the fact that in our memories, they have always been old, they have always looked the same. But in photographs, those memories we cherish look different. Our nonnie has more hair, our nono has brighter eyes.
    It is as though with age, we become more dull, like stars slowly dying we are born, these beautiful glimmering sacks of flesh that cannot do much more than blink, breathe, and let out the occasional coo. Have you ever noticed the way a senior admires a child? The rare light in their eyes upon a cute action, or even an ugly one?
    Then as toddlers we are nightmares, but beautiful ones;  adorable little brats who are always forgiven. A child who is not a prodigy begins to dim; a child who is maintains their glow. As teens we feel as though we are glimmering, but most of that glimmer is chemical, artificial. Teens are excited for graduation, college students always seem nostalgic and longing for high school. College students seem unhappy and uncertain. Adults seem restless and angry. Seniors seem unhappy beyond a few easy smiles.
    But for my family; I see this glow in these photos. In my mother’s eyes, in my father’s. I don’t know when was the last time I saw any of them show a real smile. Not my father, nor my grandfather. I wonder how long it takes for stars to die; I wonder why the adults who maintained their sparkle for so long always end up flat regardless.
    Sometimes it feels as though there is no hope for the future, because we always decide to turn and look at the past.  I think part of the reason we dim is because our expectations never truly meet our reality.
    Today is an uncomfortable day.

I miss the sand-stone underbelly of skyscrapers and stars

I miss the home of humidity

I am aloft in a sea-shore Ferris wheel

and each time we approach the ledge;

I am the first volunteer

to leap.

I am lost, I miss the promise of raspberries

You really must love her,

if you let her go;

I am pear-upon-pearl

of unopened clam shells

and encircled beaches

I hope for sand-bar lullabies

and waves that rush like tiger lilies in wind

I remember

constellation education

teachers and passing periods

the concrete slabs of staircases

climbing to oblivion and

bellow

Shaggy hair and untamed eyes;

you were the most silently fierce thing

the inkling of something

of sand-bar lullabies

and waves which rushed like

tiger lilies in wind

I came home to fresh sheets and into my pillow case I whispered “I wish I could live in a world this color” this honey dew yellow muddled around my face.

I just can’t do it, sometimes I don’t know what it is, sometimes it’s everything.

There were lemon drops kissing the sky, like God was melting down honey dew in his favorite pan, like the flames were uttering “I-lost-you’s” into the forlorn bits, where stray oil burns could not be removed.

Oil paints were strewn across the sky and landmarks were built up only to be torn down; cider skies and apple vineyards, I am a vine dangling in the finest of breezes; gorging myself on the plentiful taste of hose-fresh energy. And I can only try to remind myself that, though vast, supplies are never endless.

There are breathing techniques to soothe heartache, to stretch sore muscles, but none seem to aid in the inconsistency of sleep. Only daydreams fill what I lose in the night;

You have shot confusion into my immune system, hurdled dreams into my mind during awake and my internal clock is rattling with the distance of its clicks.

With you around, there is no use for dreaming.

There are
letters
spindling their perfect tip-toed touches
down my spine
and there are thunder-storms
gone unpronounced.

I observe
alphabet soup thoughts
and minestrone sea eyes
tire-ing through my head
the way only vines can mangle

Window panes frosted edges
leave kisses on the tip of my nose
and the swirling circles
of my fingers
will embark
across the wall which separates
me
from summer

utter delicate calligraphy
into the finest threads of clouds
working my way

to the sun.

Your touch lingers on me like the residue of sunset. I hope you’ll keep me like a secret. I believe one day I wished for something on dandelion bushels and the seeds spread in fondness. My heart is soft on you; like cotton-candy clouds and moonlit burgundy shorelines. I could spend every last Saturday night with your hands against mine and your voice close-by. I can’t quite get past the nerves you set in my stomach and the heat you bring to my skin.

You are every rose petal which falls from untamed bushels, you are the rough tug of the wind. You are the only boy I can recall writing of so fondly. I often find myself struggling for the words to capture this; I am turning my mind upside down with the poems you leave entrenched on my skin. I want to know you, the insides of your palms and why you think the way you do. I do not think there is a childhood story I could long to keep from you; I don’t think there is even the slightest inkling of a secret I would hesitate to share.

I have never felt so safe;
I have never felt so vulnerable.

Tattoo terror into the back of my neck. Massage forbidden words into the gap between my eyes and hollow out romance in the delicate valleys running between my fingers. Hot concrete on bare skin, like the sun is layering sandy kisses into the arches of your feet.

He calls himself devoted because he mimes obsession into love. Love does not follow the dotted line you set for yourself, love is a rain cloud of misunderstanding with lightning generated at it’s root.

Utter grievances into the pinesol protected telephone keys. He misunderstands affection.

The sweet stretch of your fingers, my waist in your palms and the simplicity of the joy which you bring; there are words for this feeling and boundaries of my disbelief; but you seemed to have ignored my every line.

Take me somewhere beautiful

My head hums with poems when I look at you. I am growing tired of kissing rainclouds and holding hands with the moon. Summer-times soft embrace is fading, but there is a certain warmth in my chest on cool nights. The bow of your back and the careful graze of your fingers, there is a sweet kind of thoughtlessness in being near you.

It is easy to get lost when you’re around.

I feel like a mess of arms and legs, limbs hanging jaggedly from an empty source. I know if I let myself, I could ravel the edge of his conscious, down the bridge of his edges, create knots where connections lacked, mark lines to speculate where we should, and should not, cross. My mind wants lit candles and oregano, shade and also sunshine on my skin, empty thoughts and also full ones. There is a stereotype, a judgement, a thought we all value escaping. But sometimes I pool in it, allow it freedom to absorb into my skin, to prune my fingertips and light fires in areas of volatile substance.

I feel like a mess of arms and legs, empty, like I had one too many sips of feel-good-drinks and I am brain-dead beyond bodily functions and movements. I don’t feel much like myself today. I feel flat, one dimensional, like there must only be one universe, one suburb in all of the world. Like a soda left open for too long, I feel closed up but also robbed.

I feel like worthless and stupid all rolled into one. I wonder where I start and where the universe begins. I wonder what part of me is really me, and what parts are just stray, markers from past-lives and past moments. Who the hell did I become? I can still feel my insides whimpering out, hoping, this isn’t me.