DANCER

03.3.20
you didnt break me when
i caught you stargazing
you mistook a starfish for a comet
stillness was never
fire rushing towards you
there was nothing solid there

and in your carelessness
you cut off my arms
starfish made puck-comet-to-pebble

but you didn’t break me
starfish grow back

DANCER

2.11.20
you leave nothing to the imagination
there is something about you
lacking subtlety

peacocks are exhausting –
with their plumage and high expectations
are getting old
splashing in the same pond when water
doesnt go any deeper
same ol’ tunes

1.3.20

DANCER
youre my first and last fuck of two years
the first meal i cook with tenderness falls on your lap
with gratitude and grace
youre willingness and kindness
carving joy into my laughlines
sculpting me into better

i speak deeply of you – so far out of this world
hubble cant see reach

if i told you, she walks two steps away from my heart with every packed bag
every selfish action
things you sense but don’t know
the way my mother sense beauty in your presence
pride in our love

what would you do?

i want to tell you these things
how she breaks my heart everytime i leave
how i fought for a small place for you in our mirror
stained with shampoo and hair curling products
and i shatter at her silence
date nights turned half smiles her face only lit up with the shine of a cellphone screen
her fingers trace those keys more often than my skin
on my hands
cooking meals delivered to no one
throat too sore for a gentle goodmorning
but fingers willing for paragraph conversations elsewhere
i feel exiled from the first place that feels like home
pushed away to make room for someone else
every night feeling her presence more and more foreign

if i told you these things
would you rejoice? or would your heart brake with mine.
what kind of person are you.

DANCER

12.22.19

im sorry i said waltz was stiff

What i meant to say was

you move like magic

and nobody, not even the rain

Can dampen how i feel for you

DANCER
11.27.19
you call me collected
sweet boy
i live half in pixels, half in reality
when i tell you im mostly chlorophyll
i mean my brain has been rewired
by frogs in the amazon
jumping to new neurons
poisoning fear and all that’s
in-congruent
feel this water?
remember this dream
you lived it.

so easily dismissed a reality of other
more real than hussle bussle
keep this seed
water it
feed it heart songs and thought bubbles
beyond this threshold there is purity
a way of life
washed away the way water took you in
too me
too you
it’s nothing but synapses
you can train
to only stop at the right station
if you allow

DANCER

11.20.19
petulant, showmanistic, fragile, feeble,
compromising
inefficient

like, like, like, like, like, like, like
the ring around your neck
slowly untying
raw – the way i like my knees
what good is rice
without a little spice

DANCER

9.19.19
things you will never know;
i’ve seen a man loose an arm, and i cant unsee it.
it’s the kind of sight that turns pain into discomfort
illness into inconvenience

i’ve learned humility the way you’ve learned confidence
one day i think perhaps we’ll trade lessons
may yours be as soft as your pillow

i don’t want a key out of convenience
out of need
give me a key because you want me inside.
i don’t need a place to run away too –
i’ve become adept at running away.
give me instead, a place to stay.

falling in love with you has been
far less graceful in my universe than yours
at times i wonder where you saw the open in me
i don’t believe i had a choice in the matter.
even if i did, i wouldn’t choose otherwise.

it’s fitting i suppose.
a blindfold can freeze a body one second
you catch me off guard
there are times – i’ll admit
i want nothing to control

i have a knack for beings
intuitions for those i know mean something
conversations with cicadas
and the magic of those talks
guides my choices, my life more than any reasonable human would admit.

you’re right
if we told people how we fuck
how my body and your body have met heaven
how i’ve put yours through hell
how you’ve made me call out god’s name and pray for more more more
in one in-breath
no one would believe us

i’ve drafted more words for you that you can count
none of which have any meaning
without how deeply i’ve fallen for you.

DANCER

9.11.19
im not sure what you are
too smooth to be cinnamon,
too social to be saffron,
too neat to be cardamom.
youre not quiet ginger or pepper either

im not sure exactly what kind of sunflower
you are

right now, however
you are perfect lavender dreams
splitting cake pieces with swords and calling them mercy
the way fawns lick the grass before they eat
like an apology to those around
not for their forgiveness
but within their own

you are right in one thing
its all worth it
if they ever ask me – if id do it again
in a heartbeat
for you, for her, for all of them.
i will not bitter and sour over spilt milk

DANCER

9.3.19
and of course i could talk about
all the flight anxiety, the turbulence, how i didn’t drink the wine and only got vegetarian meals
i could write about chasing a robot down the airport terminal
finding wrist-less time on a dumpster
or lawyers, letters, immigration
my flute playing neighbor
portugal and lanzones
the size of the magnolias
how humid it is here
at the other side of the world

i could writre about about mercato
the kinship of another familiar place
posh breakfast with upper class yuppies
being called ma’am more time in one morning than in one year of my life

but all those words are tiresome compared to the sweetness
of your “good mornings!” your “how was your flight? ” – “and how about that flight?”

your questions both
a love note from home and
grounding me in the now
in the beauty of my luck
of my travels

how odd. to feel loved within your day – and not outside of it.
i think you’ll make the perfect travel partner after all.