the body is a factory, capable of producing
coal and diamonds and pearls alike,
all encased in flesh and guts.

the liver grinds out copper,
the stomach mercury, the kidneys emeralds:
jewels cavort in the bloodstream.

the body entertains itself,
but also defends and supports itself
and the tender skin it is veiled in.

when the heart is confused,
it lets metal into the bloodstream,
iron ore to supplement the bones

so that when my spine fails me, when my
skeleton crumbles at your slightest pressure,
there will still be resistance.

if older means wiser,
it means mostly that i have learned who i am
and what i can give, the promise
i can actually make to you:
the promise of myself, as i am, whole and wholly.
i can make you a promise of heat and desire,
the way my body aches for you,
the fierce beat of my heart
even on cold nights. i can make you a promise
of strength, and continuity, and fluidity:
where maybe i have lost some resilience,
i have replaced it with iron
and concrete, i am stronger even than stress.
i can promise future:
that the family we make will be beautiful,
and lyrically complicated,
that you will never have an empty house,
that when you are old i will be old with you.
so when i come with empty hands
and stretch for your mouth
and your dark eyes and your solid shoulders,
know that i do not come barren.
i come laden with promise, with proof, with love.

restless and reckless,
fettered and feckless,
desire, overcome, holds no more joy.
retire it, then, prematurely:
keep the flame alive by starving it,
keep the hunger fresh by taunting it.
you are a feast of dreaming,
a host for fantasy and creation.

like summer nights on porch swings,
like the clink of ice cubes in a glass,
like the fire of the sun as it sets,
i reminisce, i miss, i crave you.
like a cold wind that pushed us close,
like eddies of snowflakes in our wake,
like the mist of your breath rising,
i can still taste, feel, sense you.
like morning sun peeking over the sill,
like dim grey dawn and its chill,
like waking rested and close to your weight,
i will chase, and seek, and find you.
like the hours of one deep dark night,
like the plenty we find between dusk and dawn,
like the time to touch or kiss or play,
i will keep, love, adore you.

words are inadequate
for heartbreak, for loss; they offer
some measly approximation of hope or healing,
the verbal reaching-out of helpless hands.
words are inadequate for
the weight of blood as it shoves through veins,
for the heaviness of the heart as it beats
over and over, burdened with knowledge,
desperate for relief.
in heartbreak perhaps the heart itself
is our best reminder:
that life remains, that existence persists
and will not stop for something as paltry as
emotion, or sentiment.
boiled down to physicality, mammalian and insane,
our bodies will still force themselves to breathe
and digest and sleep and wake
no matter the morning we wake to.
the heart will beat,
whether full or empty, burdened or clear,
aching or brimming with peace.
the heart will beat when there are no words left,
when there is only silence
and the sound of the pulse.

already, without you, i am a long dark highway--
a journey, taken alone, at great risk--
a pair of bright lights, climbing and falling among the mountains.
already, without you, i am a sunset
and the path of the sun through the sky and color spectrum,
pale in the morning, full yellow at noon,
cast in rust and purple in dusk.
already, without you, my heart pushes poisoned blood:
poisoned with slowness, oxygen
where it shouldn't be, squeezing through capillaries.
i am one great purple bruise,
a mountaintop straining towards the sun
as it sets in the valley, a long quiet evening of racing
towards home, or peace.
already, i define myself as being without you:
already, i yearn.

to you i could say anything:
i ache, i hurt, i need.
the self-admission takes much more strength.
dear spine, dear stomach,
dear heart that pumps my iron blood:
i need, i need, i need.
i need security, and a chance to catch my breath;
comfort, allowance, plenitude, peace.
whether or not you can save me
or provide any of these things
is up to you:
but at least i have asked.
(self-admission: it is not necessary for me
to do everything on my own,
and my heart won't break for allowing help.)

my soul yearns to write something beautiful,
fingers itching for imagery and tongue
stretching for the honeyed taste of lovely words,
sweetened vocabulary, sugared intentions.
but i am only hopes and dreams right now,
lacking substance, whipped beyond
recognition and starved and flayed and burned:
in my skin the carbon laid footprints,
in my heart the fire still burns.
it is much easier to slather butter, cream, cocoa
over everything and imagine that
the wounds are not lurking behind that layer.

my words could force the very being of you
out of reality: the strength
and the animation of my dreaming could shove
the factuality of you into nothingness:
in wishing, in creating, in hoping,
the you that i imagine is stronger even
than the you that actually is.
i could corner you
into non-existence, replace each day
and each memory of you with aspiration:
since what i have created
can only be conquered by a better actuality,
i pray you are who you say you are,
that you love with the love you say you have.
when i write you,
you are flawless, and flawlessly intentioned.
who you are, and what you mean,
is a decision for me to make.

in the brave glow of a streetlamp in a deep
cold midwestern winter-- the stars shone, and so did i--
snow falling into the orbit of our circle of light,
your hand braided through mine.
i remember you, here, just like this:
warm and solid, admiring, unmoving,
an anchor of appreciation and affection.
our faces cold from the winter wind, my hair
whipped into untameable shapes, bright eyes,
and your lips were cold on mine.
i remember you, here, just like this.

because when we are young, we ought to be—
and when we are old, we have made ourselves that way—
but when we are stuck, barefoot, educated, miserly,
somewhere halfway in between the ages?
what ought we be now? and how shall we make ourselves?

in this city of white limestone and white marble

and white limousines and white crosswalks and white men,

there is an abundance of color:

a laughingstock of tastes, and riches, and glitter.

my babylon of sexuality, tower of languages,

opulent urbanity bedecked in lies and filth and poverty,

and a street for every ethnicity

and a block for every nationality.

my sodom, my zoar, my destination and my journey,

this city of monuments to old dead men

and young dead men and, occasionally, to women;

this city of remembering history,

of commemorating naturalism and politicism,

this city will not remember me, when i'm gone.

gregarious urbanity reaches grubby hands

to my idle hands, the playground of my mind,

offering encouragement, overdose,

an allowance is made for me:

a place to house my fears and foes and fate,

a place to love hard, a place to die young.

the ability to pay the bills is such a blessing. i groan and drag my feet doing it, but how much worse would it be if i couldn't? i forget, amid the ceaseless desire for more and better and deeper, to be thankful for how far i have already come.