mixtape: in love with someone who is still in love with someone else

i. she is a nightingale i keep somewhere singing in the braids of my hair, a song that i get stuck on, a melody that i pretend not to know the words to   ii. i dream of men with their mossy mouths coming near me and tell myself to choke the scream.   iii. morning comes on the bridge of her nose i think i once saw god writing his initials in her freckles. how are some people both the place you escape to and also the single ringing thought of three-thirty mornings when you’re not sure if you’re praying or cursing   iv. if i let him kiss me, will i learn to love him   v. “where were you when your first love broke your heart?”   vi. my hands stay locked in place so i don’t come flying up to wrap her into me. i see a forgiveness that lies somewhere in the waters of her. can you baptize yourself in something unholy, lord, if you mean it pure of heart, if her mouth and lips and laughter make you shake so hard that you will never stop telling stories about her   vii. where i always was; across from her, across an ocean, across this planet, across space, unable to touch her even though i ached for it, unable to unlock myself into her open ribs, unable to swallow each other’s nightmares, unable to hitch wide our throats and let out all of our secrets until the universe takes pity on us and turns our teardrops into fishes. hush, my love. do you hear singing?