Your hips are an alter,
and I long to worship at your altar,
to adore where your embers ignite.

the desire is slow,
a steady storm in my chest
not to claim, but to taste,
to drown in your cave of breath
that you give me.

I want to write hymns only in the language
of your body,
to swallow your breath
as if it is a gift,
to melt into,
and between you,
until there is only the wind
that holds our names.

this ruin is soft,
devotion masquerading as desire
let me peel you back,
again, and again,
until you shine like stars
across my lips.

You glide like smoke through an abandoned sea of altars,
like shadows thickening the night
Each syllable you exhale
folds like a dagger in velvet,
soft, and precise, and unwarranted.

You are a candle in a dilapidated cathedral,
flickering, teasing,
while I am enslaved to the light you will not forfeit.
Nothing bends for nothing,
while I stand in your hurricane,
as if you and all your chaos may rationalize,
as if there was reason at all.

You smell of ink and ash,
the intoxication of chaos,
leaving behind scars on those who reach for warmth.
And I am watching,
waiting silently,
exhaustion creeping in,
unable to glance away,
from the radiance of your wreckage,
and a powerful chaos that dances while appropriating everything around it.

Even the walls evade your footstep.
The mirrors lie to soften your image,
and still you wander the hall,
tearing light behind you,
with each glance a riddle,
I am ignorant for chasing,
each smile a cleverly disguised snare.

Still, I am drawn to the orbit of your chaos,
not desire,
but it is simply awful to watch someone
so radiant and broken,
so cleverly vacant,
the air bends around this absurd, brilliant beauty.

You are the lamp in my sleepless night,
illuminating the uneven rocks I cannot move by myself.
You seep through the hollow ports like heated supple incense,
bringing warmth to the cold spaces where I had not brought warmth before.

I follow the outlines of your shade,
discovering stars in the silent void where you have been,
each star saying a part of the care you bring
even when no one acknowledges it.

You are the wave that shapes the cliff,
gentle but not wean,
reminders to the rocks of their placement
in the soil and to the sky of its compassion.
Without you, the night would reach longer,
colder, and substantially less forgiving.

Even in your absence, you are still here—
breeze through the trees,
stream reflecting the moon,
pulse in the blood of everything
that dares to exist.
I remain naked and held in the orbit of your light,
thankful for the gravity
that pulls my molecules toward you.

I need your body like fire needs oxygen
a throbbing pang gnawing through my veins
Every curve of yours is a wound I yearn to press into
every breath you breathe is one more reason why I cannot stay still

Your skin has promises
the ones that are scorched, the ones that rot
The type I’ll willingly bleed for.
I do not desire sweetness, I desire destruction,
your lips tearing me in two
your nails tracing hunger patterns on my body

Step closer.
Let me soak myself in your brilliance
Until I lose my name,
until what remains is just that is sweat, teeth, and the violent tenderness of freedom

You tell me you love me soft, rehearsed
A balm that does more harm.
For lips can deceive but eyes are tears,
And warmth can also perish because lips still struggle.

You envelop around me, holding only your name,
And never have I ever been as stonewood.
Your shoulders, an enclosure without an access key.
My words, wind that blows through me.

I beg in quiet, plead graciously,
And do not rejoice about your appearances.
No asylum there, no sand.
A stranger, who I no longer recognize.

You talk of love as still being,
And drown me year by year.
And every time I ask for your hand,
Slip between fingers, as sand.

You vow that I'm yours you never reveal
The type of attention that makes these statements true.
You behold me suffering, and turn away, And give that love that vile Decay.

Left to decay where there is anything. This container of us, these silent chains. Still holding on, still being hurt by. With love given, but given back.

that night, i cried
I begged her
Not to pardon,
but for recall,
for the spirit of what we had
To complain back.

I begged her to look
beyond the wreckage of myself,
To sift through ashes
for something delicate.

but she turned
And in that curving
left me to break,
A hulk not worth repairing.

and i know
God, I comprehend:
it is my fault.
each piece.

That is my fault as an auxiliary back-bone, bowed and merciless