Long Live

THE SIGHT April Before my eyes, no such beauty had yet u n r a v e l e d itself to me and surely nothing quite this lovely No, not once in the nineteen years I’ve advanced toward the sun inch by inch She is vast and unique Her hair pooling over her shoulders, soft and sweet like honey cradling her protruding clavicles Oh, the way is caters to her face I compensate my breath for a single glance in her direction My limbs are numb to the aesthetic encasement surrounding her She has her own aura and I compellingly welcome its vacancy From the mere sight of her I reach an enlightenment I was born to seek If I’m a star, she is a galaxy If I’m the calm before the storm, she is the raging wind at my back door s e e p i n g her way in and chilling my toes Of the many miracles humans bodies are capable of doing and feeling I have found complete fascination with how the pupil of the eye dilates upon the sight of something erogenous or alluring though I’m sure mine spill over each iris depleting them of color in the reflection of hers I’ve never longed to be lost but I’m still s i n k i n g in the endless oceans that are her eyes (I’m never coming up for air) THE TOUCH August If at any point I am b r o k e n the even, rhythmic pull of her fingers across my chest mends all that needs mending The base of her wrists caressing the ravines of my spine I descend into equanimity with a force stronger than any sedative I’ve slipped beneath my tongue As she whispers “I’ll never leave” (the sweetest declaration to have ever filled my ears) her lips fail to renounce those of which are mine Traces of her on the back of my teeth Long after we touch the embers she abandons burn as I gather them But with me, I haul ethereal morsels of her scarred into my flesh I remain placid, for she mustn’t know the frenzy awakened beneath my exterior My stability; long astray I fall in and out of her the way the sun pursues the moon Never closer Never further I do not deem her aware of the tremors that deluge me in quakes as her body lies along mine For this, for her I yearn And oh, how I long for the innocence she hoards so selfishly behind her fingertips She is ever so gentle as if everything were to perish at her touch She deserves to know; Not to see, not to hear For her sake, she deserves to feel and thoughtlessly comprehend all that she genuinely is THE AFTER December Three years her life has been withdrawn from mine Roughly Nine-hundred twelve days thirteen hours seven minutes In her absence, I carry on with saudade resting upon my shoulders The time she’s been away is no longer a chapter in my life For the individual days trail on burning stale in my memory Endlessly, unforgivably A metronome of bemused pulsations Her heart still pounds against the core of my ears The breaths expelled from the of bottom my heavy chest The days I wake liquor stagnant on my taste buds morning light crisp on my face dusting a spectrum of blues upon these barren eggshell walls eight minutes She was such a promising flame to have burned out Incandescent and radiant Lustrous and scintillating just as I’ve contained her in my heart-shaped prism Upon the cold wooden floor of my apartment, she is scattered Light beams through her with such brilliant illumination Still, I wait Though she resides in Earth’s blankets the life in her will subsist once more The oaks will anchor their roots in her veins which once furrowed the warmth she held so close to the paper-thin surface of her skin God, every atom every molecule was perfectly arranged The totality of her was love She’ll live again as something unfamiliar Nevertheless, she’ll live as something equally resplendent Tonight, like many, my aching bones and weary eyes are that of which I do not recognize for she was the smell before the rain and without her, there is no me En masse, thousands of veins disseminate beneath my pale white sheath Within them, her Elysium flows Passing through my heart a thousand times a minute I’ll never collapse unto belief that she is gone in entirety Everything once amassed falls to severed pieces in time like ashes fall from cigarettes along shores that kiss the sea But all the parts remain She was born; given life A constellation of skin and bone She was built; composed and was she ever so composed As she sinks into the Earth to lay forever she deteriorates like walls of a home that see no light I exhale the smoke living humbly in my lungs It dissipates, and disappears Just as she did But I’ll never manage to make dying beautiful Just as she did It is said that all energy is constant Never created, never destroyed We are merely souls confined to bodies Each radiating with our individual vitality Neither depleting, nor accumulating From this I conclude that she existed and thrived long before her lungs first expanded and she still exists long after her lungs have c o l l a p s e d For her, I count the stars peering from horizons For me, I let my sorrows sink to the bottom of each bottle For her, I leave an open seat and the left side of my bed unoccupied For me, I leave my wounds untended so I may feel hereafter For her, I scribe these words that have grown old upon my tongue bleeding down my throat and starving me of breath For me, I answer my own wonders, still fixed on your submersion into an ocean of self-destruction and where I went so wrong and why For her, I wake For me, I dream Long live all you were Long live all you are (my darling departed)