unplace

slipping, sloppy, remnant,
remains. slackened by a lack of light
or a lack of rain? old house, stuttering bones,
limping back and back and back again
back to young friends with old homes
with lumbering gazes, with peaceful minds.
between places, jacked-up kid
losing face
in the face of this

después

cada amor, cariño, cada dolor
como una cicatriz en la cama
un vistazo atrás.
he sentido este amor con mis huesos
profundamente y completamente
he sacudido en mis sueños por el
gran placer y el miedo impenetrable
pero más por su presencia afuera de la cama
en el mundo, viajando
con mi alma en tu voz, mi corazón
en entre los dedos.

no me abrace, amor. tengo miedo.

9/19

and here, i can say, is
proof of our heights.
the sexual fact of your existence
echoes through my caverns
long after our collapse
pushing shapes into my walls
that are filled better
and incompletely
by men who understand
what it means to value land.

radio silence

how, and when, and where, and why?
deep, damp shadows shield our faces
from our faces, eyeless
lipless, careening senselessly like
moths, like leaves. i want to take root
in your bones
feel your morning stretches
against the curve of my back
synesthetic kyphosis, i'll call it,
and you'll laugh at the syllables
and i'll laugh at your laugh.
when, and where, and why?
it seems we've been hiking these trails
since time immemorial, since
david touched goliath,
the industrial revolution.
i've watched the smoke of coketowns
curl around your fingers,
shroud you, take you away.
i lost you in the fog, though,
in the natural way,
us both staring at the embers
of a small set of beautiful days.
where, and why?
i imagine us happening again
in a silly, barren place
with modern architecture and undying trees.
a stream flows through our house
and you wake me up with a whisper
the whole of your weight pressing through me.
hello, you say, as if it's the first
time. hello. did you sleep well?
nightmares, i whisper,
your weight too much for my lungs.
about what? you ask,
and why?

memorandum

i must have been swallowed
last night, broken down and
reconstituted as nothing but waste
i am cold-pressed juice, the
healthy, expensive kind that
tempts you at Whole Foods
or in crunchy bodegas after
obliterating yoga in a city
so large it can't help but
swallow people whole,
put them together as
romantics, idealists
destined for love
that is sharply
impossibly
finite

the last night in town

once upon a time
there was a
boy
who slept sound
while i kissed his back
whispering silly
passionate things into his ears

and he was the best there ever was

in which we protect ourselves from the outside in

my persian god looks different in the light
of a computer screen, all soft
and shadowy. more familiar now
(in this glow)
as the remnant of an awkwardness we've left behind

these days we are the kinds of people
who cook good food with each other, and
laugh at my sweat as it pours into
his mouth
and build houses together
and don't assume that any of this
means a darn thing

but of course
the fluorescing stain of light strings tension
along his cheekbones, and i am reminded
that utopias are by nature fiction
and persian gods
belong to a country called Iran
and a time called Before