Inverted landscape

But if I could just
cup the base of your neck in my hand
and pull you to meet me, breath to breath
your mouth to mine
I might be able to experience you
all of you at once, instead of in pieces.

But only after we share
a cup of loose-leaf tea and gentle smirks.

Can we float outside these walls, hand in hand.

Inverted landscape
the trees are purple against a sepia sky
and nothing is moving except the tips of the purple grass
under our worn sneakers, pointed toes, grazing.

But did I mention the floating. That's important.

Like in those movies where an unseen force
is pulling, pulling
leaning forward
the toes again, grazing the purple grass.

My breath is the salt spray

My breath is the salt spray
on your deep brown skin
as if we were ever on the same beach at the same time.
I reflect on those Los Angeles years
through a new lens
tinted
brown beach holidays when there was time to make the traffic-locked drive from east-side neighorhoods
we may as well have called the Westside whiteside as we stayed inside
I'm learning
about white privilege from black teachers
and now I almost know
what it feels like to never have had to speak for all the people of my racial group because
we are individuals
we have always been
individuals.
I have never had to worry that my actions will reflect poorly on other white people.
I am sickened by this
realization that I have no history, no meaning, no shared experience
of depth I cannot fathom.
Cast me out to sea, I want to struggle
to stay afloat
to take into my lungs little gasps of air and water...
My breath is the salt spray
on your deep brown skin.

A NaPoWriMo prompt - http://www.napowrimo.net/day-six-6/

Vivante

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xe1gmkL3xQg

I apologize, it's true

that I imagine us, cavalier

more violently alive than the world would have us

https://www.poetryinternationalweb.net/pi/site/poem/item/24561/auto/0/At-the-highest-point-of-her-development

A NaPoWriMo prompt - http://www.napowrimo.net/day-five-5/

Long winter

It's April and snowing again
and the sounds of life slowly disappear
and I can't think of any other words except
blankets
and the landscape recedes, zooming away from my window, down the block
my ears suddenly ring with desperate silence
as I feel the weight of the window sill
lift beneath my warm finger tips
to let the isolation whoosh out of the bedroom window
and the smell of fresh nothing fill my lungs

A NaPoWriMo prompt - http://www.napowrimo.net/day-four-6/

Band Names

Fizzled Daydreams We Are
Perpendicular Universes
Colliding in Your Back Seat
Locked Into You
Until I Gaze Upon
Unexpected Pistachio
Ever So Slightly
Split Like Me

A NaPoWriMo prompt - http://www.napowrimo.net/day-three-4/

Fine Lines

I think there's a fine line
between remembering and forgetting.
The clinging to and the letting go,
as with my body and its blood.

You sense there's a fine line
between sociopathy and buddhism.
The monk is not attached to her hair,
as you are not bound by reproduction.

She knows there's a fine line
between starting over and moving on.
The postcards have different names,
as her luggage waits by the door.

A NaPoWriMo prompt - http://www.napowrimo.net/day-two-5/

Panorama

That I think of life as death and death as life
is a secret held close from the common.

And you might think me inside out and backwards
in that brief moment of your discerning.

But that's okay my short-time friend
the mortal soul knows its calling.

And I will hold your hand and lead you from here
As you allow yourself to untether.

Where edges of the world bleed into focus
and tears are shed for the smallest beauty.

Life and death betray a spectrum
of a love story unending.

A NaPoWriMo prompt - http://www.napowrimo.net/here-we-go/