delia

What tortures must the lover of the sun endure—

To feel it hold you like a paramour then watch

Its gold complexion withdraw to cooler tides while you

nurse your own heartache. You’re too clingy. It’s desperate.

What tortures must the lover of the son endure—

To feel him kiss up your spine and graze the fragile skin

Like sunrays mouthing at each beauty mark then watch

His gold complexion withdraw to new currents like stingrays

Cutting through salt water, evading the hand that reaches out

To caress. You’re too clingy. It’s desperate. To love

a mortal being means to fear the leaves changing colours.

The only thing time will ever bring you is change.

I can’t control the weather but I can quell my heart.

or, aliment laments (on how love chews at your cheeks)

There is music murmured

through the bakery aisle: 

the symphony of crackle, 

the synthesis of ancient earthy aromas,

the raucous harmony of voices 

arguing over what’s for dinner. 

There is poetry to be found 

in the reciprocal nature 

of hunger, in the way

satiation calls for sacrifice, 

in the way quality food 

bites you back.

He who loves to eat 

must also love the oven’s flame.

There is no nourishment

without cost. 

But the price of good bread 

isn’t that extra inch around the waist

or the hole it leaves in your pocket—

the price of good bread 

is the way it shreds your mouth

while you chew.

Blood and flesh mix with grain

but all you can taste

is the earthy comfort of Her bounty:

the life force of your ancestors,

generational labours harmonizing

on your tongue like it was grown and cultivated 

specifically for you. 

The earth does not care 

about your fragile inner cheek 

so you don’t really mind 

the lingering aftertaste of rust.  

If you can’t handle a wounded mouth, 

you don’t deserve a full stomach.

Love is for those who will crawl back tomorrow,

with their mouths still torn and bleeding, 

Maybe nothing will come of this;

maybe nothing should come of this.

Maybe we’ll just keep orbiting each other,

two minor stars caught in each other’s gravitational force,

until one of us burns out,

bright and beautiful,

a lucent supernova.

Maybe I’ll just keep pulling you into me,

two magnets circling each other on the sidewalk

jolted apart by a fleeting brush of sun-warmed skin. 

Maybe nothing will come of this,

but as always, 

I’m a slave

to my daydreams.

I’m not a person to toe the line with,

here and now,

drunk off spiced martinis and humid July air, 

prone to bouts of infatuation,

deathly susceptible to sharp wit

and brown eyes that stare into me

like I’m a puzzle they’re trying to solve

and like they’re realizing they quite like 

the way it’s all 

coming 

together.

I’m keenly aware

this could never work 

and it's a horrible idea—

one of the worst I’ve had so far—

but

but 

but

I can't help it—

it’s summer

and I love the way you make me laugh,

loudly,

fondly,

Aphrodite

dearest,

you surround me 

like sea water I’m 

drowning in.

Devout worshipper 

of your form,

I trail my fingers 

over my lover’s 

dips and curves,

careful, reverent, terrified,

like I’m touching god,

and I think I am.

An angel dipped 

in the tides of 

cotton bedsheets, 

a creature blessed 

by your hand. 

Aphrodite

dearest,

I can’t help 

but wonder if

I see her in you or 

you in her. Woman

and woman—was this

your doing? Your invention? 

Your will? Woman

to woman—how did

you know that this

was the closest

humans would get

to godliness? I taste 

the cosmos in 

her nectar and marvel 

at the way her flesh 

contains stardust.

Aphrodite

dearest,

what spell did 

you weave into 

the eyes of 

women? I know

it’s a cliche to 

say she’s heaven 

to me, but if I died 

in front of her 

right now, I’d be 

content knowing 

I visited Eden 

still in breath. 

Aphrodite

dearest,

Athena would be 

disappointed in you:

your daughters 

turn me foolish. 

What I was doing 

on this earth 

before her is 

irrelevant; all I 

want to do now 

is unfurl her 

like an oyster, 

suck on her slick 

sea salt skin,

and see what 

will emerge from 

heavily inspired by “Saying Your Names” by Richard Siken!! <3

I took down my tree today

(even though I said I never would).

Each ornament I pulled off

cracked my heart a little more;

I guess some things are only

meant to last a season;

like the holidays and snow

and the sunlight and young love.

I would stop time for you if I could,

make a marble statue of your happiness.

Hell, I’d live forever on that freezing pier,

but a Christmas tree doesn’t belong in April.

You can ruin a beautiful thing

by dragging it out,

by letting it sit and collect dust,

by not knowing how to let go in time.

I’m still in love with

my Christmas tree lights

but it’s not Christmas anymore——

and you’re not mine anymore.

I kept looking over my shoulder,

gripping onto what we had,

so much that i never saw the road

ahead of me coming to an end.

I’m so in love with the past

that i didn’t realize i missed

my highway exit two kilometres back

and this car doesn’t go in reverse.

Time doesn’t work like that,

no matter how much I beg for it to.

I want it to be December forever

(that says a lot: I despise winter);

I want to be seventeen and in love forever

(that spell has long passed).

That’s the thing about first love:

you truly never believe it’ll end.

You think you have discovered love:

love, who is more poetry than law.

Even when you reach the last chapter

and see the remaining pages

shrinking and shrinking, the story ending,

your vision warps and stretches the book.

What a privilege it was to love you;

my heart was always yours for breaking.

I asked you to be gentle with me and

you were the softest thing I’ve ever known.

What a privilege it is to watch the

tear tracks on my face spell out your name.

Isn’t it strange how breaking and healing

both feel pretty much the same?

I took my tree down today and it took

all the air in my apartment with it.

I unplugged the lights and now it is dark,

so dark where this place used to glow.

How can my house be a home

when your ghost haunts every corner?

What used to be a room of our own

is now a graveyard of our love.

A space so large yet so claustrophobic,

I sit in my Church with a gutted altar;

my heart calls out for you—

Each ornament I watch you put up

feels like a step towards the horizon.

It's our third Christmas together 

and I’m more in love than I’ve ever been before

(granted, I said that last year, 

and the year before that one, too). 

Whatever, it might all be consumerist bullshit 

but I’ve found my new religion in the way

your cheeks flush pink and your eyes reflect the tree lights—

I like to believe that you’re glowing from love.

You could break my heart tomorrow 

and I’d keep this damn tree up forever. 

What a privilege it would be to be hurt by you,

to have loved to the point of pain.

What a privilege it would be to have 

the pain of my loving come from you,

not from some man on the street corner shouting Dykes!

The air smells like cocoa and some voice

is crooning about giving his heart away;

I can’t help but think about how

all lovers think they’re inventing something. 

Make me your George Michael,

I can write the next Last Christmas;

but I know I’d fall for you again next year

(what can I say, I’m predictable—

I’m a poet, not a revolutionary). 

So what, maybe my Church will never marry us

and maybe your mother will never see me as a daughter, 

but we have our own little microcosm here:

you, me, our love, and our Christmas tree.

And look—it’s expanding, a growing golden stream

spilling out of my seventh story window panes. 

It’s expanding, filling the dark streets with light,

a light they haven’t seen in years.

It’s expanding—

Dead is the green of yesterday;

the forests have all turned red.

Can’t you see their scarlet foliage

kissing the sky? The kiss

of death, the kiss of

noxious breath, the darkening

exchange of air that we

have granted a season.

We’re in the end times, baby.

The rivers run crimson with blood

and waves paint the sand a pretty pink

as we run blind and wave goodbye

to the array of hues we once knew;

we’re at the end of the colour wheel now.

Dawn seeps into the sky and

no longer fades like it once did.

What was once blue

now rusted over

and mother looks tired and old;

the wrinkles seem to have formed

overnight and only now you realize:

this can’t last forever.

There is an ending worse than death

and it’s watching the clock hands

count down and join in the middle,

intersecting like your hands do

around Her throat.

Can you breath without Her lungs?

Keep strangling Her with greedy hands

and tell me, can you

The sickness clings to your skin

like rain beating down on you—

persistent and desperate

to infiltrate your bones,

to rot you from the inside out.

The scent of despair follows you around—

you wear it like armour, like an umbrella.

Can’t you smell it?

The damp melancholic air

tinged with the scent

of an indescribable sorrow;

it surrounds you like screams,

like the thunder shouting her anthems of rage—

the same rage that you harbour, child,

longing for a reaction, for an outlet,

for something that your faceless

bedroom walls cannot provide.

Time floats on by, indefinite,

blown by the ever-changing winds.

Shades of grey contorting

and melting into white,

cotton clouds replacing

the gloomy overcast;

the sun has come out—

you didn’t even notice, did you?

Feel Her joyful rays dance on your skin,

evaporating the rain that has soaked your bones.

Wake up and smell the petrichor,

that earthly aromatic hymn

of the calm after the storm.

Breathe in, breathe deep,

let the dewy air enter your lungs

and embrace you like a mother.

The black sludge that lives

in your chest is evaporating,

fading, fading, fading,

until it is almost entirely gone—

reduced to puny tendrils of parasite,

suspended in futile attempts

to cling onto your ribcage;

and in its place, a sphere of light

amongst the likes of which

you have never felt before:

a blazing, all-consuming light,

but not blinding, no—

for you’ve never seen so clearly;

the veil of fog has lifted.

the world is so vast,

its corners unfolding before your eyes.

The storm has been long and harsh—

you deserve this happiness, child.

so breathe out slowly, lie down,

feel the grass tickle your bare skin

(don’t be afraid of the earth,

we are all an extension of Her, anyways),

breathe in the petrichor,

the promise of blossoming life,

What can you say to 

someone who licked 

blood from wounds 

while others were sucking 

milk from teats?

How do you love a rabid dog?

The answer is simple:

you don’t. 

You euthanize it. 

You euthanize the dog 

because it’s contagious;

it is sick and you are not. 

It does not even have to bite—

a lick would suffice to kill. 

Sinking my fangs into tender flesh 

and holding on for dear life 

is the only way I know

how to call something mine. 

If I were to hold your hand,

I would crush your fingers. 

I don’t know how 

to love without possession  

to the point of destruction. 

I cannot love you in the way 

you deserve to be loved;

I could claw my heart out of my chest,

feel the veins popping, 

hear the ribs snapping,

and offer it to you like Holy Communion,

still beating in my hands and

bleeding down my arm, begging

consume it, make me a part of you,

but that won’t change the fact that 

you’ve never quite acquired 

a taste for raw meat. 

My tastes are known;

kindness and I were never friends. 

A gentle hand did not raise me, 

wolves did, and they do not 

take kindly to a soft belly. 

Don’t you understand? 

You’re a complete crisis of my faith. 

The sun could never love a black hole

without eventually succumbing to the darkness. 

I would ruin you for anyone else. 

My hands would stain your lovely skin–

ash-dirty handprints marking you up,

scarring like an infection, ‘til the end of time. 

My rabid dog kiss of death 

would follow you around, 

the foam from my mouth 

sticking to your teeth like plaque. 

I beg you, don’t let my rot fester

and peel your flesh from bone. 

Besides, you would ruin me for everyone else. 

I wouldn’t be able to feel 

the sun on my skin 

without recalling how much 

it feels like your touch. 

I’d never be able to open myself to another 

because in every lover I’d take,

I’ll look for grains of your face, 

haunting my narrative with your tendrils of life. 

Love will forever be 

synonymous with your name. 

You’ve made a graveyard of me, my dear;

your chest: my final resting place. 

I sleep in your aorta, eyelids fluttering,

with dreams of your smile and warm mouth,

I. 

I met the devil in a dream. 

He ripped my heart out with 

nails sharp and curved like talons,

took a bite, and put it back. 

I watched my blood drip down his chin 

and couldn’t help but smile. 

We shook hands and ever since,

light bounces off of me,

refracting in all directions,

never truly reaching my skin. 

II. 

I met the devil in a dream. 

He showed me heaven and 

I can't seem to remember it,

but its scent still lingers 

in my nostrils and on my skin,

hostile as the stench of death. 

I don’t remember what it looked like

but I remember I wasn't welcome there. 

III. 

I met the devil in a dream. 

We shook hands while he 

told me his name. 

His mouth curved around 

the vowels he uttered, 

dripping from his fangs 

in a ghastly whisper—

and though I can’t recall 

the exact sounds, 

the precise melody of

his name on his tongue,

for a moment, 

I swear I heard yours. 

IV. 

The devil kissed me in a dream,

with blood dripping down his chin—

hot, wet blood, my blood—

and he tasted like heaven, my heaven:

like rust and sweat and you. 

We exchanged breath and saliva 

as I felt a contract being signed 

in viscous scarlet ink:

from then on, I was bound to hell 

through body and soul,

but with his bloodstained mouth on mine,

I couldn't bring myself to care. 

V. 

I met the devil and no longer know 

if it was a dream or hazy reality,

but he held his hand out to me,

promising a life 

of sinful kisses in dark corridors,

of wicked lust, angelic in its purity,

and of hiding from the sunlight.

He promised a life of blasphemy,

forever dancing on the outskirts of the almighty plan,

and I followed, willingly,

i play your body like a lyre

and savour the sweet songs you sing;

my fingers know every string by heart,

i’m fluent in your vocal poetry.

i would start and end wars

for your ambrosia lips

and the way they trail down my figure—

your mouth more devastating

than any of Eros’ arrows.

we make such beautiful music together.

modern greek lovers; Sappho must be proud.

caress me like you’re

making love to Aphrodite;

i’m all soft curves and pink skin,

dripping sea foam, ready for your touch.

gently work the oyster shell open,

and polish the pearl ‘til it shines.

trace my flower petals with your tongue,

drink the nectar forged only for you.

bite me like you’re

fucking Dionysus;

claw me open, hear me cry out—

you know i like it rough.

curl around me like ivy,

scratch down my back and feel it arch.

sip on my wine, suck on the cork;

watch how i put on a show for you.

embrace me like you’re

bedding Hera;

spread yourself wide, peacock-style,

give yourself up to me in offering.

brush heavenly kisses down my neck,

you know i’m your queen—

your hands gripped in my hair, my crown,

your face of carved marble, my throne.

make my mortal body tremble

on our altar of honey-sweet elixir

and damp, discarded bedsheets;

limbs heavy from exhaustion, and

head foggy from probable sunstroke,

i collapse on a bed of stone

below the famous arches

and contemplate the birds.

the stiff rock i lie on digs

into my back, and i know

i’ll be sore when i stand up,

but i don’t move;

comfortable in my discomfort.

with legs bent at the knee,

and my dress awkwardly scrunched

between my thighs and

not on the littered ground,

my feet rest on jagged cobblestone.

stone that has been here for

decades, centuries, a millennia;

stone that bears the weight of

hundreds, thousands, millions of people

and now bears mine.

how many have come before me,

and how many will come after me?

how many will lie here, just as i do now,

with lungs crushing under the weight of time?

how many will sit here and write a poem

about it? how many already have?

the question makes my head

spin more than my dehydration does.

here i lay, bumpy stone digging into my soles.

here i am, a single grain of sand

on a beach spanning infinite miles.

here i lay, with my sunglasses pinching my nose,

dizzy from heat and sticky from sweat,

watching the birds.

watching the pale birds glide,

the sole white blots against the blinding blue,

landing on the empty spaces

between the towering bends

the same as it would on a plain beach rock.

the oppressive grandness of

my view suffocates me,

but the birds fly over and under and through,

in a taunting tango with time

that they appear to be leading.

my body is heavy,

so heavy,

but the birds look weightless,

and right now,

that’s enough for me.

oh, to be a bird flying through roman arches!

oblivious to the historical weight of

the stone that holds up their nests,

passive towards the clock’s choking hands,

tw: s€lf h@rm, $ui€ide

i’ve never outgrown

the child who purposefully

trips and scrapes their knee

for their parents’ attention.

years later and i still

wail and scream just so someone

will spare me something more

than a fleeting glance.

because my knee isn’t

the part of me that’s hurting.

my knee is bloody and scratched

but it will heal by tomorrow

and you won’t even be able to

tell i was ever bleeding.

it’s not my knee, it’s my heart.

it is my heart that hurts,

cradled by my ribcage and

stowed away in my flesh—

who would ever be able to tell

it is cracked and bleeding?

out of sight, out of mind.

i put a bandage over my bleeding knee

and my mom kisses it better

(it’s the only way i can be the center

of an adults attention);

i wrap gauze around my bleeding wrists

and fall in love with the colour red

(i never fell out of love

with intentional infliction).

the screaming child in me lives on;

i want someone to notice

and beg me to stop,

beg me to stay alive,

because it feels like i could

take a flying leap of faith off of

the bridge over the creek near my house,

or bleed out in my bathtub,

or choke on a bottle of mystery pills,

and no one would notice.

or worse, no one would care.

intentional falls evolve into unscrewing

pencil sharpeners and still nobody notices.

scrapes mutate into cuts

and still nobody notices.

so please, just look at me.

i’m not asking you to rip my body

from the bridge barrier,

just look at me.

look in me not through me;

look into me.

see me for who i am

beyond this wounded persona.

sorrow is all i’ve ever known,

but with soft words and gentle hands,

maybe i can forget what torn flesh feels like.

maybe i’ll rediscover sunlight.

take the blade out of my hand

and place your heart there instead;

for i am only cruel to those

who i believe deserve to suffer,

and that is not you, never you.

you are safe with me,

i am not safe with myself.

no one has caused me as much hurt

as i have myself.

these scars would not exist without me—

i have only myself to blame.

look at me.

i want to scream:

look at all of my ugliness,

the blood of gods

runs through my veins;

slit my wrists and watch

the golden ichor trickle.

bow down to my

crown of ivy and laurels,

kneel before my

throne of precious stones

and ignore the cracks

in the sacred foundation,

creeping up the sides

like mold in an abandoned house.

avert your eyes,

because you see, my dear,

it is not just achilles

who has a damned heel;

for what are gods

without humans there

to worship them?

altars are built to worship,

as the source of divine rule;

but tell me, my dear,

who is it again,

that creates these altars?

who is granting them

their life-giving power?

the creators of the creators

are ignorant to their own influence.

don’t you see?

don’t you understand?

i need you.

i need you the way

mundanity needs divinity,

the way immortality

needs death.

you are the bones

that hold up my body;

you are the moon

and all her stars

that chart the skies

and guide me home.

with your ambrosia lips on mine—

through you i feel divinity.

pour the nectar that sits

sweetly on your tongue

into my mouth,

lick it onto my teeth.

your skin against mine is something holy—

touching you is an act of worship.

my hands on your milky skin

and my mouth on your neck,

your scent the strongest aphrodisiac.

bury yourself into the crevices of my body—

confirm zeus’ fears and show him that

he was right about the first humans,

but i still found my other half anyways;

no divine knife can keep

the two of us separated.

i will always find my way

back home.

home is where the heart is,

and my heart lives nestled,

beating hard in your gentle hands.

pull my mortal body flush to yours,

exhale softly against my lips.

breathe your warmth into me,

this sacred exchange of spirit;

and watch as i rise

from the rolling sea foam,

radiant and glowing,

i’m nothing but a shelter dog;

mean because i’m terrified.

desperate to be loved but

snapping at anyone who tries;

needy and overly attached

while being cold and distant—

but i can’t help it,

call it survival instinct;

i can’t be left broken hearted

if i have no heart left to break, right?

your love is a new home but

the feeling of being trapped

does not go away just because

you can’t see the bars anymore.

the cage disappears but that

doesn’t mean the scars do.

i’ll bite the hand that feeds me because

what if it’s not pets this time, but a strike?

i have my hackles up at all times,

growling at sudden movements,

because i have been through too much torment

to let myself be beaten again.

i’d rather be called a bad dog

than be kicked in the stomach

by yet another foot.

but why do you keep stepping on my paws?

it’s an accident followed by apologies

but i still yelp and must

lick my wounds alone nonetheless.

every time i show my belly,

that vulnerable skin ends up wounded,

and there you are, oblivious

in the other room,

and i’m left with only the stars

the sky spits out shimmery snowflakes

that land in your hair,

and i feel like i’m suffocating;

how can a person be so beautiful?

the sky is heavy and dark

but i’ve never felt so light.

your sweetness is new and melts on my tongue—

i’m drowning in your honey, honey.

i want to drink you with my morning coffee;

because she called me baby

but you call me

your love, your dearest, your muse,

and there is something religious

about the way you make my soul

feel like it’s been rinsed in cool water—

clean, revitalized, reborn.

i like to think i see a future

in the palm of your hand;

one where all of our socks

are mixed in one drawer,

you’re wearing one of my shirts,

and i’ve had a bad day,

but i come home to you,

and suddenly i can’t remember

what was ever bad about my day

in the first place.

you whisper my name

in the heavy darkness of my bedroom,

to the shell of my ear

and to the crest of the moon,

and it sounds like a wish, a prayer, a promise.

i never used to like the snow,

but with you looking at me

like i am all you’ve ever wanted,

wearing a halo of snowflakes

and a smile that thaws my soul,

i realize the snow has grown on me.

no matter the temperature,

and no matter the snowfall,

winter is pure warmth