Poetry

Adam’s Apple

To boys of blue: you must not cry,for yours is but to do and die;to march without the dire complexand folly of the weaker sex. The world that you were born intohas spaces carved out just for you,ripe with fruit fit for your pleasure—pick and plunder at your leisure. Power over crafted creatures,(fragile forms with…

A Sickness

It’s in the way we bloomed togetherand in the way that we fell apart:Wound tightly and scraping against the softest parts as we’d claw and lick and sting and soothe. All that’s left now are the ugliest parts. The looming shadow of two naked vultures circling each other in anticipation, plucking out feathers to keep…

Lady in the Blues

This town is a song about you. A melody of dead-end streets and off-step beats that my feet have all but memorized alongside all your tone-deaf lies. The quickstep notes of drawn-out nights and cymbal clang of booming fights set off by your much-too-short fuse and painting me in shades of blues. Lyrics lurk in worn-out…

for love of butterflies

In order to loveI havesurrendered the part of myselfwith the softest and most delicateskin. A simple touch will bruise andif the nails are sharp they cancomfortablytear it apart. Mine is a prayerwhispered quietly intomirrored hands. Yours isan explosivebursting with the potential toscatter me.

The Love Eaters

Dear Friend, when was it you began to fear solitude? To see the entry and exit of blood and breath, the coming and going of life and death as waste if performed in the absence of a lover’s face; From the start, were the spaces between our fingers spread apart to make us crave the…

Lamb to Slaughter

I set my heart between your teethto fulfill Delphic prophecy;slit my throat and slowly bledwhile chanting prayers in my head. Gouged out my offending eyesto strip off pretense and disguise,set them at your burning alter—these first sins of Adam’s daughter. When was it that I misspoke?What ancient rite did you invoketo carve me up as…

Stranger, Stranger

In truth, it starts to ache at times— The wear and tear of all these years stripped and laid bare eventually. Anchored at first by steady hands, rough sand smoothed into fragile gems that stem and then flower beautifully. Was it then that we first learned to lie? Blinding words of trust and submission as…

The Minotaur and I

There is a rope around my neck and it is pulling tighter and tighter until I can finally breathe past the stones that have rolled up from my belly and coated the surface of my tongue with something that resembles fear. I am running, further and further away from a sun that would cast light…

Reason to Stay

because I am born and I die in the open and close of your eyes — in that dream there is hope for a love more beautiful than this

The River

There is a river beside the trees that flows around the broken glass and hurries through the trays of ash that choke the birds and fumble words and smother all the roses. It winds around the crumbling brick, surging past half-painted walls and echoing through empty halls to wane and crash break back and splash…