opaline-skies

we are in a constant state of revision, like stones that are only beautiful when wet we learn the way a back curves in bed. we find ourselves debating things biblical, and there's a hook dragging your mouth upward when you say "Lucifer wasn't so bad of a guy." you said this, a devil with those angel's eyes. Oh, take me under the water, so that I can be sent to heaven. take me, past where the trees are fractal. that night you said, "when the train goes by, let's hide in the trees." "make them think we've been taken." I think this is because you've spent your whole life with no decisions of your own. I'm afraid that you'll try t

He falls in love with her on a Saturday, when she shows him how to skip stones across the river and doesn't laugh when his sink two, three, four times before she corrects his wrists. He likes being around her because she keeps his thoughts quiet, even though she isn't; the tv in the living room is always switched to The History Channel and he laughs quietly while she waxes poetically about Napoleon, holds her hand all the way through the Salem Witch Trials and when she falls off the edge into sleep somewhere between The Coercive Acts and the Boston Massacre, he lets her doze against his shoulder. When they go out to dinner, he holds the door

Is there supposed to be some kind of decorum for this? Why are we trapped in a world full of hearts afraid to be heard beating why do we hide our rosacea the spark in our eyes our shaking hands that rattle teacups and touch upon soft skin and litter hips with bruises. How are we ever supposed to move past the fumbling hand holding stage? As humans we are given multiple chromosomes but no instruction manual, given hands but nothing to touch, mouths but no words. I want more words, I want us to be able to move past the precipice not over it and off the jagged edge but down towards the waterfall itself. I want less places of worsh

i liked it better when neither of us talked and we used gypsy words from other people up the river to peel the skin away from our cores. the earth has been gray for days, with a funny sideways rain that I don't think i like. its hard sometimes to remember that i am alive, but i have proof in my palms and fingertips and a certificate that says i slid free from my mother and the only warmth i've ever known. everyone is looking saying stay safe. it's like pushing a ball of lights across the armpit of the united states and the ball keeps unraveling. i don't want to be kept chained to my coastline and i don't want to be this person w

Instead of trying to fit in he always spent time mourning the fact that he didn't. He always had too big shoes (from his brother) and fingernails chewed all the way down (a product of being so nervous all the time). His brother took up a life of hard drugs, and Alex was all of a sudden very used to the feeling of cramping in a person's stomach, the fleeting beat of a pulse under sweaty skin. Art school wasn't very different, and when it came down to it all of the motions were the same with only a different city to house them. He sometimes had this groundless fear that he would come home one day to Toby passed out from beer or drugs, and he'd

You have got stupid kisses like dark wine, dripping down your skin, always effervescent. It's like you think maybe the more often you impress me, the more often I'll say the things you want to hear. Smashed tomatoes, honeycomb pattern, and everything you've wanted to be is just wrapped up inside my skin. I don't want to tell you that you are right, that I'd love to just keep all of my secrets inside you. Androgyny is not misogyny, but I'm pretty sure that the world thinks they're the same like we're making fun of women in the way we love each other with big hands little words little birds.

Teeth scraping over knobby ribs; It's October, you are here again. Water under your --skin, there is air in your veins the sunrise stutters. Pumpkin spice is not better than salted mocha you lovely girl.

I am so glad, you say, that you picked me. She looks up. She's got three fingers tucked inside the mouth of her stocking, half rolled down. When she smiles, it's a simple smile. She's got no secrets today. When you lean in to kiss the side of her neck, you're reminded of a time when the sun did what you do now, swept over the expanse of where shoulder meets neck, where the y splits. She has navy panties on today, and they match the lace of her bra. She says this means it will be a good day. She's visited you often, lately. A lot of your dreams have been more her than schoolwork. You shift, and the floorboards creak under your feet. You wan