waking the flowers

on hunger & harvest moons

the dim streetlight, in its cosmic glow, makes
the world feel small. or perhaps, your body simply
is taking up the space you once promised it, as if
step by step it consumes more of its shadow in a
hunger for the world. years of shrinking tend to
warp your perception of everything else. & maybe
this is why you stopped swimming in your own
thoughts & woke to reality, letting the secrets wash
ashore (except, it never is that poetic). after all,
seasons wake from the dead & rise with the high tide.

the creek that follows you reflects the face
of the full moon. things have a tendency to get lost
in the darkness. you hold on to the moment & hope
it does not get washed away. for once, you are full.

locus delicti

the scene bleeds out like a free-flowing wound, ruby red but hardly rare. most days you don’t feel much; that is to say, the pain has become so normal it is a living nightmare. except, forget the sleep—the scene catches you in any moment of silence, scraping away at skin. carving a landscape out of any surface it finds, pushing on your pressure points as if to find diamond / as if to defend the discomfort / as if, as i am, it is not enough.

the california coast erodes more each year

the fading memories of fossils are all that’s left of past lives — much like i try to dig up my own bones, somewhere along the way i’ve lost the pieces i once was. my dad claimed the world is like this, revolving / devolving in circles so much that we lose ourselves. this was before he, too, disappeared. (i’ve been chasing the imprint of him ever since.) it all dies eventually: in dirt or dust, we become what we leave behind. i hope this is enough to be remembered.