i crave the taste of red nails
staying up late & long first dates
i’ll take a slice of life not lies

where is my lotus flower? 
is it lost in the mail 
along with love letters i’ll never send?
does later bring sinks
with short bangs & pen tattoos that live on my hands?

now i just lie on my bed
like salt in a soup
getting cold, waiting for better news
because i can’t sit straight
& i can’t even kiss a freckled face

i’ll just let the walls 
cry when i can’t
water the flowers 
so my peony soul won’t die & dry out
from brain-malfunction
or heat exhaustion

i need to recover from this 
this angelic ache 
my future half-baked 
they call it chaos 
i call it fate 

boys never notice perfectly painted nails
but girls do & always tell me
it’s you and i for the rest of our lives

i will never forget all
the people that stayed
between then and now that i loved
friends partners and strangers
in my apartment & we’re laughing at rachel’s bad tattoo

i often try to just sit still
a leaf on a stalk
growing older, wanting less from others
& taking deep measured breaths 
because i know i won’t see you again

it takes more than time
to feel you won’t
need to bleed
for a life you can cherish & trust that
it’s self-fulfilling
with some dumb luck

it’s always late in the afternoon 
the stale fortune cookie 
from my take-out says
by virtue of the present
there is no set fate