And if I didn’t want it?
I would have it. Look at
us– we are in love, long
grass abundant around us.
This should be enough
and you have it, what I want
you won’t give. What you want
I can’t do– not in my lack
of trying, but the extreme
wealth of it, the love we have
a mountain rising into fog,
the peak no longer visible
as I hook into my bootstrap
and you hook into yours.
(originally published in Dandelion Scribes, Spring 2025)
Used to be you’d be the one
I’d tell balloons to– the moon
changed positions in the sky,
obscuring Orion. I’d wake
and brew you coffee dark
as peering down a well,
then drop into your cosmos,
dreams you just survived
in the night. This left me
an azure hue to proceed
through the day, delivering
good news of bread and butter
to those who were hungry
in my chosen city’s streets
of lead. I’d hold gold. Now
I am present in the intersection
of three rivers, a bridge
standing on steel Xs on
a stack. I want to be a pillar
for all who drive me home.
(originally published in Ariel Chart, Spring 2024)
Last night, I dreamt I stood
on a tall stack of books, gathered
with others around a roof
like we were at a dinner party.
When I glanced down– finally,
from the top of my tenuous skyscraper,
I had to brace my shoe against
the house to keep myself
from falling back into reality,
but I did anyway, repeating
to the guests anxiety,
anxiety, anxiety.
I used to dream I’d get so high,
anything was possible. I entered a tower,
beelined to the elevator, and pushed
the button to the top. Sometimes
the platform was already ascending.
Sometimes the whole structure was.
When the doors (if they existed) parted,
the view from the sky was so rich,
I had to be dreaming. Deep tree greens.
Eternal ocean blue. I returned
to this view often, but stopped
near the end of my twenties. I was
itinerant at the time, my life
still an open road ahead
of me. A million meanings yet
to interpret. Not yet bogged by
a steady job but not quite steadied,
living off the promises of strangers
and the engine of my Ford Fiesta,
emitting exhaust into the atmosphere,
accumulating.
(originally published in Artvilla, Winter 2024)
I bet you have
a mansion. You sell
land at true
cost– blood-
soaked
beasts,
all the kingdom
in your pocket,
the precious
metals
polished
at your feet,
hungry stars needing
forever
more. I wish
that for you– my hunger
tastes of bitter
rosemary,
the dreams
of a plot
go on through
the storm.
(originally published in Trigger Warning Magazine, Winter 2025)
So, you caught
me dozing.
Our bed a compass
without direction.
We buy a home
we say will wrench
us from the dredges
we have been stuck
in, the blue head-
lights pointing up,
forever, the language
of our love.
(originally published in Bindweed Magazine, Summer 2023)
This fork in history could veer
wildly left, though the bus driver
announces he forgot his glasses
at home but memorized the route.
Don’t worry, I have been this way
before and before and whatever
obstacles you see before me
and before you belong in just
those places in the long telescope
observing the passage of time
(originally published in Linked Verse, Summer 2023)
I am done with dating
apps. I would like to make
you dinner: salmon, rice,
brussels sprouts. You said
you know what I want
for my birthday over a bed
of nigiri and leaves. I rolled
sushi once in a cavern
of doubt. I couldn’t stop
shaking. The nervousness–
I mean, the lust– grew
on your vines by
your side door.
We had your home
re-keyed, then there was
trouble with the locks.
Couldn’t keep the lovers out.
(originally posted in Discretionary Love, 2025)
I’m no fan of gore
nor button mashers,
but when you speak to me
as if from pixelated reality
get over here and finish
me, I equip my knit cap
and fight sub-zero temperatures
to be under sheets with you
in all the fatalities
of the heart. We die
many times in each
other’s arms
inputting
the proper combinations.
We are reckless
when we love– we attack,
we defend, I watch
the blood flush out of us
asking if you will love me
always. When that lands,
I’m finished.
(originally published in Stickman Review, Fall 2023)
If someone jumped I’d jump
into the warm whatever of mid-
May
I’d not leap as the
maneuver’s overused– I understand
these liminal expectations from
poetry
if I haven’t quite mastered
the rudimentary mechanics
of swimming. I am the sediment
from a different continent rising
to you as loam scraping against
sand. You said wave, I said wind.
The red tide carried us. Whatever.
We ended at Point B. The alternate
universe if you’d call it that.
But I said the stop sign.
I said all kinds of things
as you drove through
ocean construction.
(originally published in Roi Faneant, Fall 2023)
And my eyeballs
are on fire.
I used to like the sound
of a brush in flames,
and this is the same
thing. The burning
beneath me,
molten soil.
Running is my prerogative,
but my heart has to be
a certain way,
not not.
(originally published in Monologging, Winter 2024)