I want to read the words that flow from your tongue,
catching on your bottom lip, like a drop of wine
trembling, hanging on by a lick and a prayer—
and I’m hoping to God that it’s transformed into water
because rivers flow from your fingertips, released by your teeth
and I am holding on through the flood, grasping
at your body, like it’s the last thing anchoring me for miles.

I haven’t written in months, years, eternities and universes-
but I want to write odes that make your blood sing, opening,
drowning you, me, her, them.
because drowning doesn’t mean the end,

after you sweep me away, tossing me, caressing me, holding me,
I want to float in your vast seas
enveloped, flying
through your spaces, and you through mine.
I want to go to your depths
and come back more whole than I was before
the pressure fusing me together
until we explode outwards, inwards,
creating galaxies from our eyes-
muscles forming new land masses,
our cells new star-lit beings.

Last night at 2am I saw a street dog
jumping for the garbage hanging off the
pole by the side of the road-
salivating for the remains of our previous
fish feast.
My mother told me not to feed the street dogs.
They’ll follow you home, she said,
stand outside your apartment and howl,
but she never told me about the quiet ones.
the worst ones are quiet, they follow you like a shadow
never intruding, always hopeful, that one day
you’ll invite them inside to live.

Somedays I feel like the street dog, whose pain can only be
expressed through silences- waiting for you
to let me in.

The eucalyptus trees that caress
each side of routa F noventa on the way
to el quisco norte remind my sister
of our troubled childhood
or perhaps they only bring trouble for me
as she shrieks in excitement and speaks rapidly
in her newly acquired Spanish.
As she learned, I forgot
as if there is a limit of tongues
for each language—
and I’m the casualty by my own choice
of choosing academics
over blood.

There is a volcano named Visviri
that borders Chile, Argentina and Bolivia
next to the salt flats called Tara
The colors reaching to Visviri are something out of a dream
I think if I reached up high enough
I could touch the sky

The silence is only broken by
my sister scratching her name into the rocks
impermanently permanent
she throws them over the side of the mountain
hoping that one day a future self will
discover one of them while gazing at Visviri

I dream of flying over Tara, my reflection
in the salty still water, reflecting everything
above, and nothing below.

Every salt flat north of San Pedro
stretches into the Andes with
hundreds of colors striped between
here and there

My family walks one hundred meters away
to the edge of the cliff—
I stay back because I think,
that if I got too close I would try to fly,
over the edge to the mountains, above the canyon

Volcanic ash beneath me,
empty blue sky above, I’ve never seen these pinks in reality
(am I dreaming?)

The Corsicans jump by the edge
as if they believe they can fly too
held aloft only by the flag they carry
and the wind whipping across the flats

Is this all just a dream?
Can I really fly to the mountains?

Hidden in the volcanic ash are
flecks of obsidian – reminding me
that beauty is found when you open yourself
to it,

in destruction, there is beauty.

The land stretches for miles
and I can’t see without the
dark glasses
My mother posits that my sister is a flamingo,
constantly staring at herself in the water
we’ve traveled over 1300 km to the
salt flats at Lake Chaxa in the Atacama
and all I can think of is the silence

The Andes are covered in the snow
from the rain that only falls in the desert once every two years
my feet muddy from salt and sand
I touch the earth beneath me
wondering at my mother’s religious experience
as she opens herself up to the energy of this place
all I can think is melting into the ground
and becoming one with the earth

The water flows into the desert at a steady rate
away from the Andes revealing the pinks and blues
I thought only possible from the sky
the three clouds that exist in the desert hang low
over the salt flats in the distance,
deceivingly close

A bird my mother refers to as a “pip-pip”
uses its long beak to drill into the mud
searching for life
finding none, it flies away
as if taunting me
waiting for my turn to touch the sky

I’ve been looking through your tumblr
desperately searching for the thing that
I see in you each time we fuck.
That glowing ember, lit behind your eyes
perhaps reflected from the pipe in your hands,
as you blow smoke into my mouth, I can feel
our cells rise together, sharing, tonguing, I—

We have become creatures of the internet
hiding ourselves behind blue screens, hoping
that the space between us will inch closer until
we are virtually sitting on each others laps
never touching, but our minds reaching out
across code and wifi waves, I realize that
I miss touching you, I miss dragging my fingernails
across your breast, going lower, lower, lower…

tonight I looked at your OkCupid account, trying
to figure out if we were more compatible than when
we fucked in the library, uncaring at the windows behind us
I slammed you against the stacks, wondering if that noise I heard
were the books rustling, or if it was that one student
who also uses the carrells regularly, I am still not sure what I heard.
Maybe it was just the movement of your lungs, expelling a single
expletive which is almost as sweet as my name on your tongue.

Every night I lay in my bed across the college we call home,
I wonder how your skin would taste in my mouth, leaving
tracks down to your belly button, a turtle on your ribs,
teeth marks on your hip until you are gasping for breath,
little moans escaping from behind your clenched jaw.
Each time I touch you I break another thing,
a necklace here, a mug there,
I don’t want to break you but I’m afraid I will
but you are not delicate, you are the fire
burning bright behind your eyes
rampaging through you, and I wonder if I will
be the one left burnt, molting, into myself.

Tonight, I want to write poetry down your back.
write odes to each divot and crevice- to each vertebrate.
I want to trace your skin with my lips, know
all the secrets that you’ve written with your fingertips.
Your hands- rough between mine-
share a lifetime of sensory images
colors that I cannot process or imagine.
does your skin prickle like mine when you moan?

I’m not a morning person but I
would wake up every day to watch
the sunrise spill across your tiny motions
dust motes gently caressing
the air around your form

Brush your finger pads across my already flushed skin.
The scent of your hair calls me
like the draw of the sun to the blooming flower.
Your skin tastes of fresh sun-warmed strawberries and heavy-whipping cream—
consumed under the fluorescent light bulb at eleven o’clock at night,
while you and I dance in the almost-silence-
in tandem to the rhythm of the leaves rustling in the trees.

You are the opposite of me,
your toes tap a beat I cannot place.
Your crooked smile and ready laugh are soothing to my ears.
Like the moon brushes the tips of the trees:
I want to brush your hair aside.
trail my fingers down your arm;
resting.
You hands within mine
your bright eyes burning behind my closed eyelids.
Lover-
the orange pads of your carrot-dyed fingers
make you appear to be more cunning then you already are.
Bark at the moon:
fox-boy-man-child-kit.