At the base of the heart

the second sound

is louder than the first

and the third sound hardly comes at all,

In the pit of his stomach an unpitted olive

pitted itself in the lining

and grew itself up,

its stems connected

like the parts of his lungs

breathing, breathing, breathing, like he was instructed to do,

“breathe, son, breathe”

“okay, doc”

oil like sweat formed on his brow,

“say, doc, what are my chances?”

“hush, son, is that the base of your heart”

“yeah, doc, there’s your hand

I’m wounded, doc, I’m a goner”

the second sound was the shrapnel splitting his intestines

the first sound was the explosion that knocked him over

the third sound was the medic’s pressure,

makes olives into oil

grapes into wine, and

with elevation, blood into scabs,

In the pit of his stomach, the oily organs

a sheen made unpure by sticks, by the earth,

the third sound came and came,

the stems invaded each other,

“hey, don’t look down, concentrate on your breath”

“sure thing, doc”

“son, put your arm here, around my shoulder”

The sheen of the olive, marred by spice

the sheen of the gut, marred by twigs,

“say, doc, what was that sound?”

Love Poem

Narrative: You kissing me on my bike
You met me on the corner of your block while I was riding home.
I saw a figure raise his arms and I heard him say something.
I shouted your name and you shouted back, it was you.

You came to me as I slowed my bike
you straddled my front wheel with your legs and kissed me deeply
with both hands on my face and in my hair—such a romantic kiss
with so much feeling
a kiss I could feel reach deep inside me
and smear ointment on my wounds and hush the screaming,
crying thing inside me.

I said, “Were you waiting for me?”
You said, “Sort of.”
You had just parked. You figured you had beaten me, but you thought, “I’ll give her two minutes, and then I’ll go inside.”

The Elusive Scent
I’ve been trying to figure out the smell of you since the first time you got close to me. It was on my friend’s roof a few weekends before Halloween. You leaned towards me and laid your head on my back.

Sometimes I can smell you in the wind ahead of me.
Sometimes I can smell you on my hands when I come home in the morning.

Last night, my friend came over and he smelled like you.
Excitedly, I asked him what he was wearing—Crave, by Calvin Klein.
Introduced in 2002.
Fragrance notes of bergamot, cardamom, musk and nutmeg.
Recommended use: daytime.


Meta-Poetics
I want to write about you, but I don’t know what to say.

I’m writing this but I wonder if it would be a better use of my time to find a way to truly re-experience every moment, as it originally happened
Maybe through a drug or some nirvanic state, I don’t know

One time when we were drunk, you touched my waist and you asked me if I had ever been in love.
I briefly had this thought: "What if my prose actually comes true? And one day we'll find ourselves alone in your bedroom, intertwined, kissing and whispering."
Then, I answered your question.

Sex
Sometimes, I look at your face and I can see myself undressing in your brain.
I can see you thinking about me lying on your bed.

The time you held my neck between your hands.
Like flowers
heading a bouquet
I bloomed
Stems sweetly dripping, you sighed into my petals

I remember looking over my shoulder at you, the bare skin on my back red
like a matador’s cape.
In your eyes, the gaze of a bull.

I felt my heart in my chest, twisting and beating.
My eyes softened as I gazed at the ceiling, wide awake.
Your touch was a Valium I
ingested into my body through some sort of osmosis
set into motion by the touch of your skin against mine, giving me the impression that life had been sedated into a slow, romantic dream.

The way you lightly touched my skin with the very tips of your fingers brought back memories of everyone who ever told me I was beautiful.

I’ve tried to memorize the feeling of your lips on mine
it feels like two clean fingertips pressing softly together.

I like you so much that
I want to die with you in my heart.
My feelings for you will become preserved in my heart like a mosquito in a ball of amber.

I want to lay you down on my bed and open up your shirt, crack your sternum, access your heart, curl up among the blood and tissue and feel safe
in that contained space
to feel what I feel,

I want to think about you and how much I like you.
Your smile and your chin.
Your eyes like cool cold metal.
Your shoulders.
I like your shoulders, too. And your arms. And your wrists. And your hands, and your fingertips. And your forehead. And your nose. And your ears. And your lips. And your lips. And your lips.

Texas Winter

stoned in my barren backyard

staring at the broken beer bottles in the fire pit

holding a bowl of cereal in one hand 

dishwater brown hair falling limp into my periphery 

like dark leather blinders on a bridle 

i am circling the fire pit 

feeling the newborn sun on my back

and the raggedy yard around me

summarize and mimic how it was

to spend the morning in your bed
and hear your voice
while being very close to you

ATTN:

If you would like to propose to me,

here is how you should do it:

Using the key I gave you

you should let yourself into my apartment

on a Tuesday night

and you should spell out the words

“Will You Marry Me”

with expensive, really beautiful and fresh

sushi, on my kitchen table

for me to come home to

after a long day at work.

You should not be there when I get home.

I will eat the sushi

And call you to say “yes”.

"As" Virginia Woolf: Most Likely Something I'll Hate to Read in 2 Years

She came home that Tuesday night as she always did, taking the 6 pm bus, which, in the winter months, meant a cold and dark commute home. The lights in her apartment lobby greeted her with their familiar fluorescent golden glow, the elevator met her nostrils with the same stale smell of breath and musk from many different mouths and bodies occupying a small space for a short amount of time. Her key turned with a gentle deftness; the sound of the deadbolt retracting from the lock assured her that the door had indeed remained the way she had left it: locked. From 8am to 6:30pm, her possessions has been shut up and safe, and she walked through the door knowing there would be nothing unexpected waiting for her.

However, she had forgotten that another key had been made, months ago, and given, out of convenience's sake, to that other body who often found itself needing something that was in her appartment, something that had been forgotten, left in the morning after lingering too long in her arms, realizing he was late and, in his haste, leaving behind the leftover Chinese food from dinner the night before that he had planned to eat that afternoon for lunch. She would get a message on her phone at 11:30am and, smiling, she would roll her eyes, knowing that she could later expect to meet this body at the corner outside of her office to pass him the key. One day, she, for convenience's sake and because she trusted him, presented him with a key of his own. “For the next time you forget your lunch,” she said with a smirk as she held it out to him. His cheeks burned as he accepted the gift, at once embarrassed by and thankful for his tendency to always forget, when he saw her hair on the pillow beside him in the morning, those aspects of his daily routine that ought not to be forgotten. It was miraculous to him that she seemed the most lovely in her waking moments-- her morning breath was not stale, but raw, her eyes not empty of makeup but shining with rest. 

It was for these sleepy eyes that he used the gift-given key to let himself into her apartment at 5:55pm that Tuesday night, knowing she would be taking the bus soon, knowing that if he did it any earlier, the fresh, expensive fish might go bad. It was for these sleepy morning eyes, and because he hoped that he might see them every day for the rest of his waking mornings, he aligned the seaweed-wrapped spirals into the question he wanted to ask her-- in a way she would respect, in a way that would make her really consider the question, because of the gesture with which it was asked. He did not want the question to linger in the air between her ears and his mouth, air was too fickle and thin of a medium, it was too risky that way, he wanted to ask it in a way that guaranteed some sort of staying-power. In a nod to their Monday night tradition of dinner at Ocean China on the corner of Brodie and William Cannon, he laid out the words of the question on her kitchen table in her favorite rolls: Philadelphia and yellowfin tuna.

At 6pm, the moment she saw her bus round the corner and head to her stop, he was setting down the question mark; his fingers trembling with the pressure and urgency of perfection, he imagined her face the moment she would see it, and indeed, as it would be: stunned, happy and willing.

It’s hard to believe when I’m with you

In between the stacks, you checked over your left and right shoulder before you leaned in to kiss me
I think we were in the PQs, near some modern Spanish authors. I am certain that we have kissed in between stacks of books more than any two other people have.
It is hard to believe when I’m with you that we are anything but harmonious-- not the same, but similarly composed—like two different octaves plucked from one set of strings.
It is easy for me to know how we are similar and to suppose and to trust that we are different.

I look at you, and I would rather feel myself present in your gaze than move forward in any way, into any progression of time
Your hand on my back propping me up as I sit across your lap is like the second hand of a clock gone still

How has anyone ever been able to wrench themselves from their lover’s arms in the morning?
In your bed I find myself lethargic, unwilling
Never able to arise myself, it is you who must reach over and turn off the alarm, or possibly set it to snooze if you’re feeling reckless
You always awake with a start and this bright vigor in your eyes, your eyes shine brighter and better in their waking moments, as if they were polished all night by small hands behind your eyeballs
Whose hands have been polishing your eyes as we slept? What tiny hands? Whose small hands?

Some part of me hopes that I will come home one day to find that you have let yourself into my apartment, spelled out the words “Will You Be My Fool” with really expensive, really beautiful and fresh sushi on my kitchen table, like how my best friend’s prom date asked her to prom with pancakes that said “Prom?” I thought that was so great and romantic.
Seeing the message, I will drop my bags on the floor, cup my hand to my mouth and pace my apartment, yelling your name, listening for your response that I slowly realize will not come how did he know, I’ll mouth to myself gosh, how did he know? I will not waste time calling you to comment on your little stunt, and to tell you that I will, yes, forever.

this is a re-write of a poem i wrote called ATTN: and i re-wrote is "as" Frank O'Hara. this was for a project in school.

Snapshot moments October/November

When you pressed your hand into the new snow skin

Piled, freshly-shoveled, on my hip, something like ticker-paper

lines of poetry began to stream through my mind,

I thought, There’s some sort of transfer going on here,

out from your mouth, into my mouth, and into my brain--

At the exact moment of your exhalation, the bright son of panic

broke into your room and my body began to shake

like the sea-leg sensation one gets after a 6 minute mile.

II.

The astringent cherry blow pop I swirled around my mouth

You said would aggravate your already swollen taste buds.

That same blow pop I took from my mouth with my left hand

When I felt your right on my cheek, like David came to Jonathan--

A heart beat. Your roommate came

Into the room and said, “You two!”

This same cherry blow pop is currently stuck

To the bottom of my recycle bin, I did not finish eating it.

III.

When we were making marble-dust gesso out of rabbit-glue

paste, my art teacher told us her mother was born in England in 1920

was there for the War, and came to Texas to die near her daughter

in a hospice. My art teacher told me that when the moment came,

it only took 8 hours, which is relatively short for a hospice death.

The class stirred wooden spoons through congealing gesso,

nodded and agreed, that was relatively short for a hospice death.

IV.

I met a sweet pup on my way home from school

I called her "good boy" until I saw her squat to pee.

She was black and white with a yoke for a collar.

She trotted behind me until I reached my porch,

Her ears pressed back against her head, like folded wings

Eyes bright, nose wet and cold, tail slowly swaying like a metronome

She tamely sat at the end of my walkway as I went inside

to fetch her a piece of turkey meat from the fridge.

V.

A bottle to my chest, breathing, intensely aware of you,

Last Friday night we both sunk into the curve of a couch

In a hot room, my bangs plastered to my face, sweating

Off makeup and my perfume changing smells as my temp rose

You nodded to my thumbnail and asked,

"What would you call this color?"

I replied with the name on the bottom of the bottle.

"Wicked."

VI.

The other day I got a text from Rex. Turns out

he finally found my number from August when I wrote it

in his yellow-paged notebook. The text was a picture

of the painting he made of me as an art class model:

Seated, my arm over my head, bent at the elbow, nude.

I showed it to Becky, she told me I should wait a day to reply.

I haven’t replied yet because I don’t know what to say

And I care about Rex, and I want it to be perfect.

VII.

When I saw you tonight, I planned to tell you about the coldness in my arms

And the numbness in my hands that I feel when I think about the words

you said to me, I imagined you would listen to me and nod your head

as your top-heavy heart galloped, as always, to the beat of a sneaker in the wash.

Instead you asked me why I have to write, and how it feels when I don’t

I told you it feels weird, and nothing makes sense

like inside of me are stacks and stacks of heavy metals and bricks.

VIII.

There's no way to prepare for this besides

to repeat your name quietly to myself so that it sounds

natural when it comes out of my mouth when I greet you.

I have noticed that the cherry trees in the spring really do

leap with a vigor into their own time when it comes

and I knew she was nice because she came to me

with her head bowed down