All the Stars We Cannot See

Some of us are born in cities made of steel and fog 

Never laid our wondering, sleep-deprived eyes 

Upon the glittering skin of a star 

But you’ve probably seen the sun 

It’s just….less magical up close 

That’s kind of how

All things go 

So beautiful when far away 

Some of us our born on hillsides without map names 

The sky absolutely freckled with glamor and shine 

It’s almost like a night-time city up there 

Which is also beautiful 

But man-made landscapes 

Always feel so damn 

Artificial 

We call things separate from ourselves “natural” 

As if we are not meant to be a part of this world

Is it arrogance or ocean-deep shame that 

Causes us to be 

“Unnatural?” 

#humanity

Seraphim lips plant flowers in the hollows of my 

Throat 

Your eyes blink like galaxies vanishing 

Let me disappear into the silver and the violet 

Let me die in the cradle of your stare 

Faces pressed into pillows sideways half-lidded morning gaze 

That’s the moment my heart breaks 

Because I know you’ll never feel the potency of the drug that is my love 

For you

this is the best that I can do

Hold your pianist fingers in my warrior hands but gentle 

tell you the truth and swallow your endearing disbelief 

Hurt rushes into your arteries when you find reflections of your scarred skin 

But all I see are lightning strikes and the willow that 

Survived it all. 

Hemoglobin earths, like red, like alive 

Water and star-glitter, glamor, clamoring for more 

More, more, 

Shed the rose’s thorns and make room for swords 

So that the infinitesimal children don't stop breathing and feasting and wreathing 

Their mother’s necks with the weight of eaten dreams

And swollen catastrophes 

If every neural network is a universe 

Than every mother is a carrier of the cosmos

is it dark in there or can you see the distant glimmering of stars? 

Eyes flickering 

Buy another cigarette from me 

Sans nicotine it’s all just burnt sugar 

Carmelized to the underside of a bloodless heart

Cross-hatched face-mask love-not

A monster such as I 

I lie 

When I don’t know how to put my physical symptoms 

Into human thoughts  

Maybe I’m just not 

Human. 

Gray undoes my thoughts // reverse-spider spinning cloths 

Rain does make the spinning stop 

I’m always dizzy and being made so by the pitfalls in my head

//worthy of being dead they said //

Of being dead // of being dead // of being death

Sometimes I feel like a reaper 

Or at least a reapers // pet 

Because I put a scythe against all my dreams’ necks 

Blood fountains // invisible mountains 

I don’t know I’m climbing // until all my bones are split 

Until my lungs are tiny infernos where Dante finds hell 

All seven layers // in my chest // Purgatory in the pockets of my vest 

Resetting // recalibrating // as the clouds quiver  

Remember// what it means // to be // okay. 

Inhaling feels like breaking / I listen 

to the voices that aren’t mine / rattle in my head

Inhaling shatters every part of me / glass skeleton 

Crackling beneath my fucking skin / invisible bruises 

Self-inflicted and world-inflicted and / love hurts 

They don’t tell you healthy love sometimes / hurts 

That family trees are mountains and valleys / and islands

For some of us / everything pours out of me 

But I inhale it again and again / like cigarette smoke I didn’t choose 

To devour / pain can be an addiction 

Pain is simple and involves / steady conviction 

To hold onto needlessly / I need to feel something 

And if breathing hurts / how do I know if it’s real 

Or if it’s just a part of something called / anxiety. 

We used to live // 

In stories // 

We used to write // 

Messages on the walls // 

With black light pens // 

That we got from // 

Fake space // 

We used to run // 

Between the trees // 

In our backyard // 

Pretending the grass // 

Was the ground of // 

Fantasy // 

Our names were not our own // 

But we did own them // 

Our voices must have sounded // 

Different in our heads // 

But now that our ears are just our own // 

Everything is worse now. 

She Vitrified my wings, you see, 

Fallen angel without a tragic story 

Glass feathers shatter so easily 

Against asphalt and I feel every tremor

Every needle-thin fracture folding me inward like bedsheets 

On a maudlin’s mattress 

Hurry the arteries to bleed, Might I present a pretty picture, 

Splayed out on the ground, like taxidermy in motion, nail my fingers down 

Keep lifting up, I don’t know how 

What a shame it was to crawl from the pool with wings 

Only to be chained under the skin of the earth. 

#suicide #darkthoughts #darkpoetry

The skin of our unshaven calves wear socks of dry earth. 

The humming of distant metal birds and the whispers of an overgrown wild field. 

These are the textures of our home brewed fascination 

I could draw the blurring lines of your shoulders 

Rounded with farmhand muscle 

A thousand times and still drop my jaw in admiration

It’s the kind of love story they sing about in 2000’s country songs

But softer and held precious between our arms and our ribs

Plaid button up shifting against pick-up truck unbelted night rides

My face buried in your long hair, coarse from the sun-rain and the dry, dust-air 

Soap and dirt and hay bale hair

Kisses like the revealing of soda cans (which we call pop) 

And drunken howling at a full moon so close we could take a bite out of it 

To see if it’s really made of Swiss or cheddar or something better

river-walkers brushing off tiny leeches that are too small to cause real harm

We say we’ll both go off to a college up north and to the east someday 

Or maybe escape to California where the beach waves 

But I’d be content to stay just where I am

I’d be content to live in your dreamer’s eyes

To ride into the sunset with you on the back of a Belgian horse with boots for hooves 

I’d be content to drown with you 

In the listless belly of the countryside where you can actually tell there are stars in the sky 

I’d be content to knit sweaters with you when winter falls

If you wanted that

I’d put my muddy cowboy shoes with spurs I don’t really use 

Atop the gas pedal of a vehicle that rumbles a dozen times before ignition 

If you wanted to

We could drive eternal on this dirt road and let the miles teach us songs of old 

We could wish to be lone rangers like the ones on 

Dad’s cassette tapes and write our own versions where the wives are more than household bakers

And the duels are more than bullets 

Where the love stories last years instead of minutes 

And the bandits are imagined. 

#lesbian #love #countrygirl