purely to terrify

but when it’s time I can never

let myself begin / what’s the meaning

of acceptance if everything collapses

in the end we are left embarrassed 

and alone in a world unknown 

but wandering towards maybe hope

trying to unfasten the limits of our being

which is to say all of this skin

and unmovable vastness within

purely to terrify / I’m starting to believe

no world could tolerate my heart

abundant with wants

of betterness / I still don’t know

how to speak effectively without 

this glint in my eyes desperately 

asking you to stay while I build a home

to carry on my back and learn to exist

without the certainty of your breathing

echoing through my skull

synchronized in our aliveness

II

september remembers all wounds

beautiful sunrise I can't look away

when nesting in suffering stay awake

indistinguishable light tries to dissipate

gray clouds migrating in my ribcage

is there a word for temporary joys

or does the leaving always hurt this much?

windows the cruelest invention

call a wound the sunset

from here it's all insubstantial

orange matter streetlights merging

no skyline

could I live limitless

how to define freedom without escape

I might've figured it out

what everyone's looking for

to be large amidst something larger

how do I shut down this loneliness

I want to be so absolute

yet bodyless

III

but this

buried beneath the body

I forget it even exists

blue everything

morning crescent moon

pleiades

fleshed-out

entire sunset in front of me

turned orange the landscape

(staring at its eye

subtle fragments oscillate

whatever holiness this is)

ripped perfectly wide

the sun yawns

tilting forward

amplified

skin pale (under the) light

bedroom window

me, left starstruck

far-fetched

naked

exposed

the sun disarms

in a worldly moan

fluorescent

dying

I want

to see all of that

IV

in an attempt to condense the human experience into a tangible

and holdable thing I forget myself

you’re sleeping and I’m confessing

something absolute

in silence.

imagine a gentleness filling every parcel

of your skin, felt like wildfire made vulnerable

everything refracting gold but your face

and, looking directly into your eyes,

an inevitable car crashes into my ribcage

it means despite brutality

you became something I hold and keep holding

your heart is known and keeps being known

fleshed in and out of my soul

despite the gaps in our collision

(two imperfect beings

in search of forgiveness)

still not whole, I emerge / but closer

staring blankly / noticing

only the impermanence

(it’s not about the collision

but what we do of it)

trying to hold it all in my palms

wondering how long we have left

never looking away until

blackness extinguishes

V

fleshly light

a new tangibility

in-between thumb and forefinger

I hold it

I am held within it

the non-place

split ribcage reveals

tenderness, the soft spot

surrender everything

that you are

miracles are born

the light thrusting

everything forward

ugly face up

elevation (airplane sunrise)

uncountable amount of

magnificence

thinking, maybe, I will stay

maybe, when the silken orange gap

that deforms every worldly wonder

hollows the sky to its core

dripping redemptive sweetness

(a divine quality we are unworthy for

but will gladly take & take & take)

it can be beautiful

for no reason

VI

the only worthiness I have to offer is lodged

where ribs poke out from beneath skin

begging for answers but if I admit

the ugliness and the body cannot be separated

would I still love it the same?

when I notice this body shifting from tender to desirable

I cannot recognize it / not the spine / not the eyes

so the self becomes a ruination

for which I spend my life attempting to make whole

where do I go from here?

VII

but the panic of meeting eyes

slightly --never fully-- what if

I am seen without being noticed?

wondering what it means to be defined

by the body itself and not its appearance

not the way clothes hang on my frame

or the brief skin flashing through clothes

rather the thrill of touch / the lingering curiosity

to be taken as a whole rather than in fragments

my skin awakening under sunlight

or my hair cut short should suffice

to prove who I am / tilt towards me

with intention / I want to be acknowledged

purposely. without fight, my identity revealed

slowly, spontaneously, and without shame.

VIII

human heart so nebulous

how to trust something left unseen

pupils dilating to nothingness

stellar core held in my open palm

(maybe love, or only the space for it)

its density so immense it swallows

even the inanimate thing

that tries to reach me but fails

it all wants me alive despite

this constant soreness

from the overextension of my arm

towards maybe beauty

or something not so short-lived 

but what's quantifiable / even stars

end up dying before being witnessed

(what brightness can a star reach?

is it definable in an understandable way?

if we're all made of stardust, where is the light?)

I barely know what our world is made of

looking at my hands meanwhile they disappear

and why so much waiting / life left lacking

walking away and hollowing myself out

for some eventuality / dragging behind

this dead weight of unfelt feelings