I have learned to hand-stitch violets on t-shirt collars & make green-tea matcha lattes out of almond milk & powder. come morning, I cook my egg sunny-side up.

come evening, I try not to grieve.

when I say I love him, I mean I love sitting in a crowded coffee shop

with him; petri dish for germs, Germ-X safely tucked away.

we’ve long-since decided to turn off the news.

cherry blossoms flowered this spring. our neighborhood bloomed at dawn.

we walked & waved across sidewalk streets but did not reach toward each other.

this would come later, we knew. until then, we see & are seen.

he says ‘when this is all over’ often.

When This Is All Over let’s spend months by the sea.

When This Is All Over, we’ll have brunch out every week.

When This Is All Over, you can see your sister on lower east side.

buy a bus tour through time square. ride subway cars to brooklyn bridge;

watch tourists take Instagram’s with sun-baked arches backed by cloudless sky.

I miss petting dogs. When This Is All Over, I will pet so many dogs.

afterward, I’ll buy a starbucks macchiato with too much sugar—go to grocery stores

just to drift down the aisle. on easter, we’ll visit his parents. I’ll hug his mother hello.

we’ll dye eggs in pinks, yellows, blues. if she runs out of eggs, we’ll stop & buy more.

I will come to mass, without fight. at 5:45 we’ll set the table. at 5:50 we’ll pray.

when I browse through new watches in-store, I hope I’ll feel lucky

to keep track of my time. I tack calendars to our bedroom wall -

count out our precious days. april 12th. may 1st. july. I set my alarm for 5:15

though work doesn’t start until 9. I pour my matcha. fry my egg.

I hope the sun will rise.

note that you are ready to complete the registration form for mental disease,

eviction of wanting to give contiguous calories on adhesive labels.

she burned her bible at 16. it is poison; he purged it hot via I-23.

please note. you leaked in empty pages

the mammal caught by reviewing diary times

The thing you prefer (there's nothing else).

I only use feathers now. you don’t hurt me, I don’t bleed.

a month ago tops that, I want to scream back Parallel:

give me the same thing in your palm

lion of the delicate boy again

or the person who attended at the same time.

The best part is that you will work virtually.

Gorgeous superficial makes the man

launching an autonomous region of the world

vertical raising your spine

there's nothing to do,

there's nothing to do, you think as to seafarer.

Repeat all the time to use.

what a wonderful feeling: despair

Reborn, the morning. the courts will turn red

then pink the then silver. you will look back

towards, feather attracted.

I have the music to regenerate,

cell phone nebula, new history of the cosmos.

for dawn he lives in your lungs;

or confectionery refreshments,

as they focus on your circles.

harriers ...They are not aware.

The goddess, I promise you that I will.

*I put this through translate 7 times. To clean it up, I only re-arranged the punctuation and line lengths, afterward.

detailing’s of your brain matter smattering our bed-room walls,

sheets I can no longer use; forced perspective—your remains,

nirvanas of the stars.

A lie. a lie that latches in vertebra of my spine:

brushing shoulders, contusions of breath –

stars collapse inward &

that was all you:

quantum entanglement of fist & stomach,

where bruise mapped universe converges our minds

time, reality to singularity.

I look through black-holed eyes,

trapped,

this apartment

temporal distortion flashes behind

my mind-eyed terror-ribbed fluttered pleas:

please stop,

please kiss me

please come, close the divide

promise it won’t happen again &

there are so many worse things to see,

I wanted to hold you close, despite them

or maybe, one day, to erase the gaps

lingering in my shadow’s wake

& I think you wanted that, too.

If there is no you anymore

I don’t get to hate you anymore.

If this divide, impenetrable

spans along the echo of promises unfulfilled

I will, from the ash, build my own bridge

& become someone more than the mess

you left behind so

thank you.

I think that’s the worst thing I could say.

Summers swallowed by 90 degree heat

7 & ½ hours a day, 6 days a week

13 years old, when I say I love uneven-bars

I mean radio play, same 5 songs

lungs crystalized with chalk-cloud air

(chalk: applied to grips, to grip the bars

grips: applied to wrists, to help protect skin)

scrunchie hair-tie, determined eyes

perfecting same routines – toe-point here

extended knee & shoulder press,

body balanced on a forefinger,

trusting feet to guide my land.

I take stalk of bruises left between thighs

count each rip burned into my palm;

quarter-sized blisters, on the bad nights

large enough to fear reaching for another hand—

will they leave, disgusted

by my decimated skin? manglings

of once pure flesh; my childhood, my time.

but the weightlessness. God.

the weightlessness &

how could I not need poetry,

after thousands of hours

with aching hands & a yearning to fly?

When I say I love words I mean

I love the chance to break my neck, & by this:

the miracle of every time I do not.

Fuck the fancy words

and fuck the pretty phrases; 

I want to write I love you 

until my lungs collapse 

and my fingers 

bleed with the weight of it

I want to empty every ink cartridge

of every thick-smeared pen, 

to wear down laptop letters 

until they fade and fall apart.

I love you

I love you

I love you

I never said it enough. but 

I loved you

I love you

I’ll love you

until the very end. 

I’d rip every word off this page

and burn my stories to dust;

I’d murder my poetry

and watch my legacy

wither to blackened ash:

for you, I’d never write again.