our wedding vows | a lifelong epitaph

I had a dream about you. We were in the gold room
where everyone finally gets what they want.
You said Tell me about your books, your visions made
of flesh and light and I said This is the Moon.
This is the Sun. Let me name the stars for you. Let me take you
there. The splash of my tongue melting you like a sugar
cube... We were in the gold room where everyone
finally gets what they want, so I said What do you want, sweetheart?
and you said Kiss me. Here I am leaving you clues.
I am singing now while Rome burns. We are all just trying to be holy. My applejack,
my silent night, just mash your lips against me.
We are all going forward. None of us are going back.

-- Snow & Dirty Rain (the final stanza) by Richard Siken

in which spark gets her feet back under her and tries to write a poem

years ago, when i showed you the first poem I wrote about you— my mountain faced man with a cliff for a jaw,
i told you that i could feel my edges coming undone between your finger tips, heartstrings laced through bone and tied tight.

this was before i knew the way your neurons would rewire themselves every time i laughed at one of your jokes
or i knew the way your eyes look when they're reflecting me back at me -
all your stars are strung out between my eyelashes
twinkling constellations, secret messages written on the back of my palms...

Wrap your arms around me and squeeze as hard as you can.
remember the way i looked under your sun. remember how your light looked dancing in my hair.

i know i will always wish i could have those first weeks bottled into perfume.
i know i will miss smelling your skin for the first time.

One.

you are my dreamscape turned to sunbeams,
a picture i made up in my mind came to life

musings on the love of my life

years ago, i showed you the first poem I wrote about you —
my mountain faced man with a cliff for a jaw.
i told you that i could feel my edges coming undone between your finger tips, heartstrings laced through bone and tied tight.

since,

i've spent years walking up and down your spine
the curves, the edges, the backbone that stands ram-rod straight
the rib caged piano flattened into infinite space between my morning and evening suns
east and west settled beneath your collarbones
your shattered stars between sips of coffee and my kisses

as if the symphony we make in bed is something that can replicated an infinite amount of times

i spent years writing stories about you

long before i knew the way your neurons would rewire themselves every time i laughed at one of your jokes
or the way your eyes would look when they're reflecting me back at me.
all those twinkling constellations, secret messages written on the back of my palms
telling me there is something -

someone,

sitting there in the dark, waiting for someone to throw the windows open—
let the light in.

am i the one to save you from your burning buildings? to put the rain back in your clouds?

i like to think so.

i like to think i know the pattern of the way your synapses fuse when you're looking at my poetry and know it's about you.

Wrap your arms around me and squeeze as hard as you can.
remember the way i looked under your sun. remember how your light looked dancing in my hair.

i know i will always wish i could have those first weeks bottled into perfume.
i know i will miss smelling your skin for the first time.

incomplete


the first love story i ever wrote was scribbled between scraped knees,
paper cut kisses dotted with candy hearts - right over the letter i.
with toes touching the sky i was pretty convinced i had figured it all out
every place inside me that was hollow was made for somebody else.

for so long, all my dreams and dragons and desire
just meant i longed for a piece of self that was always somehow missing,
transient senses of belonging turning sour on my tongue
before i could weave them into any type of constellation in my sky.

Four.

unnamed


i write pages and pages - all the poetry i see strung out between your stars when they catch the beam cast out of my lighthouse

(searching, searching, searching)

seafoamed skin softly nestled at the edge of an undertow - my supposed safe harbor, my elusive oasis. i dive in head first, forget to breathe.
before i reach you, i am almost consumed. whether we are drowning or in love, it ends up the same way.

me, a boat bobbing on waves, waiting for a siren - finally come to help me escape the desolate existence.

gulping down air like wine, waiting for this drought inside me to end.

and so,

we reach land, we create a home, we finally dry off our bones.

even still, i remember nothing quite like the way i remember how the water sluiced off your eyelashes just to get stuck like crystals in your hair. it may have been years but
even with this forgetful mist
i can trace every curve of your spine into my palm without missing a beat.
maybe it's not me who forgets, but time just slipping out from under my feet faster than i can stand.
a life line tied up in heartstrings and left in the sun. bleached but so loved, we take it home and make it our own. we write what we think is a destiny into a constellation.
maybe it's yours, maybe it's mine - it doesn't matter.
we weave it into our skin so we never have to be without each other again.

we learn, after awhile, it really doesn't matter how many times i repeat your name like a prayer - how many times i feel your syllables roll off my sea salt coated tongue.
you will always look at me like it's the first time i've ever said it.

darling, i would know you and your name even if i forgot every word i ever knew.

toss me in a bottle out to sea, i will always end up on your rocky shore.

Five.

The shape you take when you lay like that
Reminds me of a love I've never had
If loving's wrong, what's a boy to do?
I ain't scared of death, I'm scared of losing you
You ain't out of my league, you're out of this planet
But dammit if you ain't drilled into my skull

-- Sandpaper by Zach Bryan

small bits and pieces about my midwestern man, my st. louis daddy

i want to pluck the stars out of the sky and pop them on my tongue
pomegranate seeds bursting a constellation against my lips.
desperate to be kissed. what do you taste like after you've tasted me?

Seven.