blue
       everywhere
                            why
calm
         sky
               think
colorless
               one substance
                                        why
transparent
                     water
                               notice

i see your finger wrapped around the trigger of your imaginary 74
i feel the empty pit inside your stomach you scramble so tirelessy to fill
i hear your muffled cries hidden behind your toughboy masquerade
i taste the bitterness of your sorrow
and the familiar burn of whiskey straight from the bottle

i want to reach inside your stone-cold chest
and cradle in my hands the warm fragile heart i know you hide
you're a baby bird nestled in a bed of tangled thorns
and i'm the little girl wishing to nurse you to health in a shoebox lined with cotton

i see you in brass knuckles on soft shaking hands
and in leather belts digging into sore red skin
i love you more than you could ever know
or even begin to understand

cherry pits held in my cheek
blackberry juice stains on my teeth
sticky heat and the tartness of love
the golden honey glow of your peach fuzz
the taste of summer lingers on the tip of my tongue
august sun fills me up and i come undone

I want to crack you open like
The pages of a book
I always wanted to read but
Could never get my hands on
Write my own words in the margins
Not with a pen but
With my fingertips
Take notes on my favorite passages
Not on paper but
On your lips
Memorize my favorite lines like
A prayer I never knew I needed
And then reread each chapter
Page by page so that
I'm sure to not miss a
Single word or phrase

Notes of rain
on a tin roof
mystify me

I try to put words
to its meaning

As if it is a calling
I listen to its tune

There, sometimes
like a scent of remorse,
a violet storm

Or a flash of a smile
so brilliant it pains

Night stirs the colors
about me with its ladle

But I can’t paint fables
or the whispers that follow

Dreams of love seem so real
for such a short time

I mean to imply something
larger, more inclusive,
grounded and wild

Something that reaches back
into stories we can never tell

Because we are the arc of them,
we are their breathing

Beaching ourselves on lonely shores
wanting only to be saved.

I don't know what
the limits are
what impacts fragment
beyond repair, outside the web
of what there are words for,
murderous facts that leave mute
witnesses’ souls brittle
inside their chests,
as the thousandth child starves
somewhere in our inhumane
universe another star grows dark.