Fingerprints.

things make fingerprints on your heart
and i hope that never changes
those impressions you get, the feelings only a melody can explain —
your sixth sense has grown into something lovely and high above us all
in a realm we can't reach
but it's enough to catch a glimpse from time to time
you really do grasp the world, even if not with words
and i hope that never changes.

don't try to be an activist. or win a nobel prize.
just keep being the soft song in our heads
telling us we can do it.
you're the only reason i think i might have changed a life —

To My Unidentified Love Interest (insert name here)

I'm a poet. It's what I do.
So let's have a conversation.

First, to you. Unnamed. The offer stands —
"Oh, all right, stay. You've got my attention.
Oh, all my pain is bottled affection.
I see the weapons; I pulled out;
I met my match, so why am I so proud?"
Dress it up with a steady walk and a pair of blue eyes, and who can resist? —

Then, to You. Indescribable. The answer evades —
"I'm not the same kid. I grew up.
Didn't I? Or did I get stuck?"
Stargazing is like time travel.
There are places where I was a person.
But I go back and find that the edges of my heart are too far to reach at lightspeed —

I feel I am redshifting.
I think of you through the watches of the night.
Here you go, a handful of flatlined words. Courtesy of your lost nomad.

Save me.

Dialect.

(please keep writing your poems)
(as i throw tangled thoughts at this small town sky)
(i make sense of my breaths when i read them)
(you are the only one who sees over the edge of my soul)

Tender.

tender twilight.
did you know it can be dawn as well as dusk?
it is my favorite time of day.
what is your favorite time of day?

i'm sorry that sometimes i can't separate.
i am practicing.

tender shadows.
timid warmth.
old carpet.
holes in the window screen.
all your tender memories.

You are my tender love.
through it all.

You love me.

Labyrinth.

this heart's fickle.
but you know it like no other
all its walkways and avenues
its starry bridges and rushing streams
your thoughts float along its canals
your whispers along its darkest alleys
there's not a stone you can't name
there's not a step you don't love.

Breakers.

I try desperately to run through the sand
As I hold the water in the palm of my hand
Cause it's all that I have and it's all that I need
And the waves of the water mean nothing to me —

there are so many things i can do.
i can climb the tallest trees
drive to the northern lights
take photos in the rain
sleep under an eclipse
but i cannot hold this love.

the poet will never know what to do with an indescribable love.
his hands will ever be much too small.
i climb, i drive, i record, i dream —
but i reach the end and your love goes on —

all your waves and breakers
have swept over me.

Tails.

this rhapsody of ours continues

and I feel I must craft the poem that erupts in my heart —

a small attempt at praising you,

a tremendous semblance of a sonnet

that swells and soars

and at the end of it all, amounts to produce one note in the rhapsody.

i am not the shell in the mirror, we have said this,

i am a girl dancing

leaping through the air and spinning in watery ribbons to a song in her heart;

i am a fearsome bird admiring its outstretched wings, admire them;

i am rushing streams that just can't crash fast enough;

i am the old words of philosophers that lie buried in school libraries;

there are no words.

there is a love i can describe, but it is not this love.

so let it be enough — you ask for my heart and here it is, a strange unpredictable thing, lashing out and seizing, spitting —

but you ask for it and here it is, and thank you, thank you, i love you —

you ask for it and it says, let it be enough.

my head says, yes you are enough, of course you are enough.

but my heart says, no i will instead shred myself into tails that drag along the ground, it is better this way.

so as i chase you even though you are neverwhere, as i chase you down on a skateboard with the tails of my heart dragging a love i can describe,

help me at least to see that a torn heart is still one.

Neverwhere.

— so it seems your heart is the color of the sky.
you're the only one who can make me stand in the shape of my body.

when i hear your tender whisper i find i am atop mountains.

the shivers in my shoulders tend to hold me tightly. i try to make them feel like they are
an embrace but they in fact grip too hard, i will say it,

yet when i look, the air is crystal and the end is burning brightly for me.

you make the end burn brightly for me.

have i mentioned the way your eyes murmur and your words see?
you are gentle, and you don't have to be, — you know i am only a shred of floating ash?

you let my soul roam, take up its space,
so i will say it,
that it makes a sound, which you know, you hear it, — its sound is a contemplative swelling and ebbing symphony, mostly trumpets and deep strings, it drifts and scales and weaves and decides and abandons and retreats and emerges and carries and climbs and searches and smiles and sighs,

you smile and sigh at its sound.

as i stretch out an outstretched arm
i find that already i have reached too far, for here you are, and here, and neverwhere.

have i mentioned the steady footprint of your thoughts?
measured and arranged.

like a bouquet for me.

— the end burns brightly and the air evaporates. i am struggling to breathe but it was always meant to be this way, you give me each breath, a precious gift you like to unwrap, stop struggling love. each day the air gets thinner and each day we get closer to one another's faces, i can't wait for you to see mine, i can barely stand to wait. let the air stream down your throat and remember that as the end burns more brightly, the air must dissipate, hold tight, i am yours until the last split second of time.

Jetstream.

You're a jetstream.
No one really knows what you carry
We don't know where you're going or why
but when we look to the sky
there's your trail, —
unmistakable, —
scintillating
with the light that bursts along the way;

Then time passes, like it almost always does
and your tracks dissipate across the canvas
They scatter, —
traverse, —
breach, —
touch
But those of us who knew you know
they know —
no, that's no ordinary cloud.

Objectivity.

And you ask, how am I doing?
This letter is for all of you,
and especially for me
it's about time I heard —

Can't count the words I've tried to scratch out
going in with glass and scalpel
but I never get further than a title —

(ours is in the trying);
so I'll settle for saying "I" time to time —

(for to gain light on things imperceptible we must use the evidence of sensible things);

Here goes —

Summer winds still get to me
rushing through my bones faster than my fingers can fly across the keys
Suddenly you're not here?
and yet you are, and you all are, and you are
Feet on the ground
let's kill this fear together, you and me —

It's just you and me.
always, and always, and always
and this is where the human language will infallibly fail
to follow the grand strokes of a soul's paintbrush
For skyscrapers finger the clouds, but they can't know
and skaters circling the lake can't know
and the sun breaking over us as we lie on the pier can't know
and old movies can't know
and sketches of silhouettes can't know
and astronomy professors can't know —

Sometimes dead leaves and dead artists get close
sometimes a tree bed leaning over a river gets close
sometimes the sky is just right
but they can't know you and me —

So I'll be your watchman until the end of time
that's where I'll be if they need me
black light on a star-littered bedroom
bare feet studying the touch of concrete, of grass
flowering tea and flowering love
taking careful notes of it all
riding the waves with souls that bleed indie music and indie coffee
a sister in the floodlights
a brother biking through the rain
watching jetstreams split the dusk
albums on repeat
sitting hidden behind an open window
hearing humans talk about what they think they mean
i'll be here, writing my novel —

All hail the defeat of words.