//october fourteenth//

last night i dreamt of you &     woke   up weeping

            constellation struck     restless.

glistening.        split-tongued, i know no other language 

than love, & with the low tide, i shed it,   snakeskin reborne.

last night i drowned    &           woke up   withered,

           this saltwater ocean      a blade to my chest,

my hands scrabbling      for just a little more     life.

             after you left,               hollow i              stayed. 

 

//october twenty-third//

how must i reconcile        with myself?      what beauty

             may i steal,           rip away from     the stars?

before she         slashed the sky    apart,      a glissando of 

             violent light,                        my mother gave me only

a taste of yearning,          a taste of aching.

last night i          dreamt of you,       cocooned in silk. 

you couldn’t leave        trapped in metamorphosis.

 

//october thirty-first//

i want my nails to erupt from their beds,

        become blades                 made for slaughter.

my veins       my arteries empty, i would split this skin,

dilute my joy. let my lungs become           liquid luck

before the sky darkens. change has ripped my heart out

                & i will not remember the agony.

we were butterflies in glass                  bottles, &

            last night i dreamt of you taking to the air,

leaving it all behind.