at peace, you breathe
in somber cadence,
a masterpiece blossoming
as the sun wakes from sleep.

shaded in multicolor
like a painter’s palette,
wrapped serene
in a nest of sheets.

the natural *****
from your hip
to shoulder creates
a canopy,

a perfect spot
to rest. rise and shine,
Beloved,
there are better days ahead.

we spin concentric,
like a record on wax
and i feel the heat of analog.

you are the quiet harmony
hiding in the background
of my favorite song—

a melody
i couldn’t quite catch
until i turned the volume ****.

watch us turn
like twin suns
sustained in infinite orbit.

hydrogen-fusion
synthesis. combusting
like burgeoning nebulae—

a great osmosis
in our corner of the cosmos,
an ouroboros in lemniscate.

we slow-dance to Turnover in the living room
while cars roar past and ambulances wail.
backlit by the yellow glow of a dimmed lamp,
we whirl endlessly, choking back melancholy.

“would you come here and spin with me?”

visions of the past still haunt
our periphery, but we cling
to hope, enduring even at the end of a rope,
waiting for our chance to catch the next breath.

“i’ve been dying to get you dizzy.”

your tears collect, mourning dew,
slipping insistently down your cheeks.
i kiss the salt streams and sing quietly,
lips pressed like a seal against your ear.

“find my way up into your head...”

the needle scratches against the LP.
aimless, we twirl in unspoken rapture,
hearts thumping to the very beat
that sets our feet to turning.

“...so i can make you feel like new again.”

limbs taxed by atrophy, we collapse
once again into the bed, light-headed,
giddy. dazed with joyous, ephemeral bliss
to flit through another sensuous tryst.

we held hands behind the Black Lives Matter banner.
we took to the streets in solidarity with Heather Heyer
opposing white supremacy and every vestige of bigotry.

the cops stood idle while racists circled
the park like sharks to shake our resolve.
but we carry a new world in our head and hearts.

we marched down Kennedy and Ashley
no badge or gun could hope to stop us hundreds.
we mourned and wept and rose like lions.

no justice, no peace! no racist police!
1-2-3-4, this is ******* class war!
5-6-7-8, organize to smash the State!

i cannot find the rhythm and beat amidst this misery.
but, in her memory, we will drive the fascists out.
from Tampa Bay, FL to Charlottesville, VA: *¡No pasaran!

she rests her chin on my chest
as we lay naked
beneath sheets
knotted by affection.

the moonlight filters like silver tresses
through the blinds
on this cloudless night,
illuminating tears quivering
in the corners of cold brew nitro eyes.

as her fingers twirl
in the brambles of my beard,
she whispers, “the scars i wear
are the wounds
i carry inside.”

i push my lips against the angry stripes
in the crook of her elbow. she winces.
grits her teeth. the scars have hardly healed.
i brush my hand across her cheek
and speak truth—meager as candlelight,
but maybe enough to swallow the shadows
playing tricks inside her mind.

in forgotten eons long before
our sun was forged,
the molecules that would conspire
to give you form were born in the cores
of super giants. those same cells
floated through chasms of space-time—
billions of years—to this very moment:
with you and i entwined beneath the gaze
of a cosmos lightyears beyond.

nebulae watched, powerless,
as you suffered in a black hole
of oppression, desperate to aid,
but paralyzed by distance
and the entropy of time.

but they did not stay idle.
like some whisper of the divine,
i find some solace in the fact that somehow
dying stars put us on this planet
at the same time, almost
as if we were two photons
in perfect orbit.

for, while dying gods
couldnʼt reach out to save you,
the stars have converged
and our paths overlap.

some wounds may never heal, Beloved.
old hurts often refuse to lose their ache.
i cannot save you from the inhumanity
youʼve suffered. i cannot erase your pain.

but i can lie by your side
and ease your anxiety,
hold your body close to mine
solidarity, forever—
endlessly intertwined.

the first time i said, “i love you”
we were lying in bed
at your apartment.
your skin held the hue
of the afternoon sun,
but a frown
pulled at the corners of your mouth.

a chill that had nothing
to do with the Florida summer
came like a cold-snap
and, in an instant,
covered us in hoarfrost
smothering as a blanket
racked with smallpox.

the scars in the crook of your elbow
had all but healed, but an itch
crept across you—insistent
and incessant. for a while,
i read The Myth of Sisyphus
aloud, moved by Camus,
wrestling with the one
true and serious
philosophical question:
suicide.

i searched desperately
for the right string of words
to convince you
the razor isn’t a solution.  
i made “prayers of my hands
on your body” and sang hymns
like honey. i sampled
salted, caramel apple—
you hung precariously
on the tip of my tongue.

wishing i could wrest my eyes
from my skull so you could see
yourself from a new perspective.
Beloved, this may well be
your war to win,
but in every struggle,
we need comrades.
in solidarity, i remain.

i refuse to leave you alone
to fight the shadows
lurking in back-alley
neuroses. in a world
that is utterly absurd
only three words
make sense anymore.
three words. a song
that fills our lungs:
“i love you.” partner,
dance with me
to the beat
of a new drum.

i trace your cartography with my fingertips
as the yawning sun filters through the blinds.  
your chin sits on my chest, confident, at rest.
you smirk before you kiss me, run your hands
through my hair, and whisper, “g'morning, love.”
i chart your valleys, climb your mountains, slip
into the crevasse parting greedily to admit me.
you are a new world, one i only yearn to explore,
to document, to adore. you’re built of marble,
somehow delicate, yet firm
all at once, as if you were set
into the corridors of my mind, chiseled
by divine hands. you're a relief
easing anxiety, a treasure
to cherish every morning
when i open my eyes
to burgeoning life.