I am good at nothing but my youth

I suffer from perilous boredom, everlasting nighttime, pious family gatherings, head-on collisions with terrified blowflies and moths, daily hot flushes, wine stains on library books

And always I am stalked by an aching deliberation

There is an anchor in my bones. It holds me very still

‘Til eventually all Time is quiet, the water is calm, God forgets

How fickle I really am. How being good is insufficient reason

To keep me shackled here. But I have dreams anyway

Of standing atop the Burj Khalifa alone: I draw sharp, ovular breaths

I saw the architect of your mind was my own

The same world was prying out through the tiny, square possibility of flight

From my childhood, when shoulder blades were wings

I am a baby, afraid only of falling

And loud noises

But it’s not true

I have a feeling it’s not true anymore

characterizing my sins

by a multiplication of obsession, of observation

it is a brutal awakening

into a fingertip lunge

I remember an embarrassing pause we took

between Tuesday and Wednesday morning, when I was

Washing my hair, scrubbing my scalp

Getting my youth clean for you

to be there again afraid

the way i was in the moment, both old and young

afraid of affection and peril

and being topless: a right prude

it is between your teeth now
souring flesh and sweetening
up your cheeks, the god behind the sky
wants to pry
you open—so you’ll notice it’s whisper

it’s right hand shifting higher on your thigh
stings like a hornet 
and have you seen the cherry tree?

billow of sunlight, storm of morning
we knew about nothing—it was sweet
and we knew it too, we were bare-foot
duller then, much happier, apparently
it is much easier to kiss if there is no
proof of time passing. pleasure was a clean wound; i could touch yours.

olivia, i saw you on the stage today
electric breath i saw you bathe
in their viral applause; song&dance
kisses in the air hanging there, all silk fast fame frozen-over
a lake; all tears in spades, moss at the break
of your hairline

the publishers, they

like this

kind of

muck

about waiting

pining

being lost

i imagined
being up against you
the far reaches of you
edges, corners
multifarious beings
disguised
cloaked in skin
of you
i wanted you
to despise me

when you asked me what i wanted
i begged you, get the blinds
and so i used my hands to teach you
about your body, earthquakes, the divides
between us and mankind

crawling out of me like first light

the self as an expression of desire

dark with smile, a mindless flashing through

an infinite dryness of being