an alphabet of skin

Dearest, you fill all my thoughts. It’s true: you live in my eyes even when absent; you are the holy ghost haunting me, cleaved to me, ever-present, and in you, my heart bursts into sparks of effervescent love, bubbling up, bubbling over, aflame and ruby-red.

whenever people say ‘virtue,’ i don’t know what they mean

my aunt came into my bedroom as I laid idly on my sheets, eyes to the white ceiling, and she said “it’s like you’re dreaming,” and I wanted to tell her I am, I am, I am, and it’s so wonderful, and warmth is radiating from my shoulders to the outskirts of my forearm and escaping, jumping, leaping, and they’re reaching the tips of my fingers in lightning, and I am, I am, I am, and the sun shines like it’s buzzing, and the world is suction cupped into the bends of my elbows and knees and the nape of my neck and I am, I am, I am. Instead, I said “Yes.”