i wonder if you soaked up

so much of the sky

you turned blue

my ears are open

and i study the sound of your voice

                                   running through them

… what i’m trying to say is:

we are the fabric of complicated equations

we are the lines and curves

that make up letters and numbers and languages

my body will betray me—

or the chances are high at least

today i feel expansive—

reverse gravity is what Neil deGrasse Tyson called it— 

and yet,  somehow i’m still

held together by

the regular kind:

curves formed by 

distance to the moon

(or something like that)

dissect the difference

between regret and rebirth

until something like nostalgia

emerges

you scan the world for broken people

to give you permission to break

you put words in my mouth

that melted like sugar

half-truths gave way to

unearned tenure

and i ate it up like chocolate

that first hush of cool air falls over my skin 

and i’m falling again 

if nostalgia were a tree— 

this one is red and green and bare in places where the leaves 

have no desire to cling anymore 

i tremble.

take a step.

i miss you in a way that doesn’t 

fit 

into any of the spaces i have left to 

fill

you were the coal that cleansed my lips

forbidden holiness

touched the sky when you looked my way

spoke to god when we kissed

in the darkest hours

the three a.m. wake up calls

where loneliness sits over my head like a premonition,

old artifacts in the attic of my mind

come to me like a vision

i want air that’s hardly cold

blowing on my face

the kind of cold that feels warm every few seconds

cicadas orchestrate

elasticity isn't a thing

i paid attention to when i was four

maybe in Play-Doh

but in my face? who wants a stretchy face?

well, i'll be

if i didn't reinvent my story

so it would fit inside your ear

land comfortably in your mind

spill confidently out of your mouth

this ground

feels like shifting sands

like shaky hands

like a scribbly line drawn

on a piece of paper

like when they measure

an earthquake

i’m a sleepy baby

wearing crooked shirts

and my hair looked

okay in the front

but apparently could house some

rats in the back

and why do they call it a “rat’s nest” anyway?

so much stripped away from me

mostly all that i would be

i was blind but now i see

i was clean but now i'm free