verses, poems, and prose

my tattoos don’t feel like tattoos. they feel like birthmarks.

i sit on a bench alone, face to face with madison avenue, missing you, even though we haven’t been yet.

hope sits like an anchor in my belly, waiting for the day, when you are here, or i, am there, or we are somewhere new, in your car, your left hand on the steering wheel, your right holding mine in your lap, while the radio plays, with the windows rolled down all the way.

there is no place i’d rather be than with my head in your chest, your forearms and my shoulder blades kissing.

my eyelids feel

like they subsist outside their sockets

like separate planets

existing outside our solar system.

my nose,

numb.

this is what i imagine snorting coke is like,

i want to have adventures

i want to go to the museum of sex,

to look at all the cocks and laugh at all the funny faces and positions animals make when they fuck 

(they're no much different from the faces we make)

i want to walk around brooklyn,

spontaneously get tattoos and things pierced and poked,

i want to shop for old things at fleas and good snacks at bedford cheese shop.

i want hand holding on sunny days,

bodies cradled on cold ones,

togetherness in this city

or another.

i want a  partner,

who will play guitar with me,

full of harmonies and maybe

i just might pull out my harmonica

beneath my clothing

i have scars

some with ink

some without

i have holes

some from birth

some from needles

some in my heart

and my lungs

beneath my clothing

i am a different being 

different than the one you gave birth to

but mostly the same as you

i remember how adorable i thought she was

how i wanted to be like her

how i loved who she was

shy and strawberry

freckles and teeth white

how i loved that she could feel medicine working

right after she swallowed it

i remember wanting her to speak to me

illusive and quiet

i wanted to know what she knew

what she liked

who she loved

the shadows reflect 

beams of light

in the negative space

on my roof

like cutouts

marionettes behind a curtain   

we're all just cutouts 

all gutted from the same mold

cut out to vary in shapes and sizes

and pressed flat to conform

flat like pressed flowers between book pages,

dye smeared from its follicles

we are all just cutouts

strung on twine 

stuck in a limp stasis

this is no way to exist

lucky for me 

i found a blade that can sever the ties that keep me connected

someone's birthday balloons,

threaded through wires,

strung down a dead end street.

the wind caressing the foil strips,

sun pinpoints the folds and creases,

sun rays like the ocean dance

i'm nostalgic for things i've never had.

like records 

and typewrites,

the quiver of my belly when i catch my lover's eyes amidst housework,

or the laughter after being connected amongst bed sheets 

or blades of grass, 

recounting the awkwardness of these beginnings.

i'm nostalgic for fingers intertwined, 

for breakfast outings and park walks on sunday mornings.

city lights stream past,

the sun hiding on another axis.

the screen inside my head has my day playing for me to review.

recorded,

from start to finish.

i smelled you while you stood by my side,

your scent tempts the beast living in my bones.

i would have you take me for all to see,

biting, clawing, scratching, 

lying side by side,

talking about our lives. 

we are different people outside of your bedroom.

in fact,

i am a different woman the moment gravity takes hold of my garments,

keeping them safe until you've finally released the very last drop and i am

ready to leave,

satiated and warm.

i cannot figure out if it's wrong that i don't feel used and disposed.

i wonder if you can feel these things,

slowly infesting your crevices until you are no longer who you were born being. 

you do not fuck me.

you screw a shell of a woman who is soft and warm and makes all the right faces and all the right noises.

you're the first man i've slept with who i've never felt the need to say i love you to

we lie there 

amongst his sheets

talking.

i tell him my hands

are freezing

and as if it were a habitual occurrence,

he takes my hands in his,

rubbing them, warming them,

his left leg draped over both of mine.

we speak of random things,

while i stare at the stars

glued to his ceiling.

my hands,

slowly melting in his until finally

all the small ashes and dust

she has scattered about her room,

lift off from their surfaces

and travel

out of her window.

the particles swirl and fly at her face,

their forms warped,

like the stars alongside a

crashing meteor.

  they escape into the world.

they journey through homes and schools,

traveling through warm lungs,

finding comfort laying atop warm hearts.

boarding their next vessel

through inhales, kisses, arguments and sighs of relief.

  they land on him.

he has inhaled them and adopted her particles as his own.

they bury themselves into the deep, spongey pockets in his lungs.

they make their home here,

within the confines of his ribcage. 

under the comfort of his lung tissue,

her ashes fall asleep,

cocooned,

planting seeds in their sleep,

waiting to sprout from beneath

the surface.

they grow limbs and vines,

their hands intertwine with each other's,

tangled and tied.

  in unison they start to blossom.

fruits and flowers in his chest.

the foliage spreads onto his heart,

leaving it mossy and warm.

it travels through his limbs,

he can feel them in his fingers and toes.

he was consumed by her particles

with a longing for a girl he had not met yet.

  and she,

she hasn't the faintest notion that she is breaking a stranger's heart

with strange longing from

miles