I live in a home with monsters
We laugh under the roof always gigglinh
Their eyes glow in the shadows, sharp teeth,
Their smiles are more wicked

The food like lava burns my tongue
And milk drips from the twisted trees
I hate living like a caged rat
Yet i love these weird monsters
Weird am i?

One day i'll take you to my house
Nestled deep in the forest
Where the trees whisper about me
And we will dance in the dark

all at once, and little by little, i fell in love. for the first time in my life, it didn't feel like something i needed to force or prove. it simply was. is. and thinking about her, us, the simple, the fun, and the delightfully mundane fills my heart to burst in a way that feels like a secure embrace and a soft kiss on my forehead. i love the sound of her voice, her long-winded stories, and her goofy laugh that betrays the surliness she'd sometimes feign to avoid feeling too much, too quickly. i am seen and heard and loved and valued, and it feels so effortless. never in my days did I imagine wanting to cheerlead and love and support someone so fully, to point it inward and treat myself the same. blues and greens and purples and pinks have never been brighter to me, saturated by the richness of each tender brush stroke in our ongoing tapestry. i love being in love and i love the woman that taught me how to eat the sun and let it go before the moon can miss it.

writing a poem is hard when your soul contradicts the rest of you.
i say i love this woman and mean it,
and fear grips me, puts its finger on my lips,
and shushes me. tells me that neither of us
is ready, that i don’t know my own thoughts,
hopes, dreams, wants, needs, and their reflection
in the mirror of her stark blue eyes and soul.
that it’s all an imagining beyond my own soul
and comprehension, that i’m projecting
a long lost sense of helplessness and courage
onto her without consent because i seek
acceptances and intimacies beyond my worth.
and still, knuckle-deep in this hard, scathing noise is a truth i refuse to ignore.
i am hers in my entirety and only want to know
that she is mine— my soul contradicts
the rest of me but i faithfully **** it
and aim for the future i’ve hoped lives
in both of us.

you'd lie on my lap
with nothing much to say
and there i'd bend
to meet your wandering gaze...
the rain, however light,
would feign tears on your face
tears i'd pretend
betrayed a sense of elation--
had they been yours
i would've cried just the same.

surely, i say,
that day's a purple aster
in my garden patch of greys,
a haughty little lamppost
along an awry little highway...

that day was
(and i'd say it again,
without thinking about lifting
the spout tipping my pen)
a lovely day, a ten outta ten