Cactus Honey

The desert will always remind me of you.

A rawbone wasteland
that would make any flower daring to exist
into a siren's song.

The drips from every swollen note would, of course,
seduce the thirsty stranger of the sands that I am.

Hallucinations can make a well out of anything
if you're thirsty enough.

And I made an ocean out of you
with the absence of your touch.
So drunken and drowning off
the sunshine petals of your crackerjack
love

you're only in my head.
and we are out of our minds here.

This desolate ground is no friend to the abandoned.

The sun haunts the lonely into the night.
and the blaze of its rays never leaves my bones.

There is nothing, nothing here to make a home.

I do not know how to survive here.
But then
I see you.

Drawing sheets of silver water
glistening from your pockets
a beautiful unfolding escape
that I nearly swallowed whole.

I found you tucked safely
beneath my scabs
beneath my chest
beneath the darkness
beneath this crowded bed.

You hollowed out stones
I made our bed, you (lied) in it
this was our home
this was our home
this was my home

We played love in an empty house
windows left open while we both crept out
spilling into the neon palate sun
(wish you were still here to kiss my scalded palms)

You are gone.
Gone.
I cannot find my way out of this place.

I have spent too long staring at my own reflection
in the gloss of your eyes.

Too long being a fool for beautiful dreams
and silver linings.

Made me believe there was an endless ocean
at the edge of the burning sands
and I followed them to the very end

but the ending
never seemed long enough
for you to miss me
miss me

I kissed sanctuary at your feet
how much I adored you

Mirages built well enough
to fool the sun
into lending its warmth
to phantom skeletons
The well I've created out of you
swallows all of my wishes
but how comforting the illusion
of everlasting arms

How poisonous hope can be
when your cup runs empty.

I have never known a bud
more placid in hue
more unyielding in bloom

You paint kindness on your petals
but deception was the bitter taste
I found in your nectar

It is you who paints the roses red

Such a blind paradise I found in your sword-filled smile.

You were a whirlwind of
what if's and could be's

my cactus Honey,
you have the most beautiful
bad intentions

My prickly pear cactus
armed to the neck with swords.

you were never my well
never my friend
never mine,
my
hope

just a boy

playing with mirrors in the desert.

my lunita, the silent one.

a flutter.
a stone.
a hollow bullet
into this hummingbird heart.

How graceful you were
in breaking me.
How beautiful your silence.
How kind your goodbyes.

My favorite uncertainty.
My gravest adventure.

a flutter.
a stone.
a hollow bullet.
and we could have never really known

how terrible the water
how reckless the wind
stuck between the crevices
of hearts so uneasy, so eager
to start

My most elegant collapse.
My greatest attempt, my best.

I let you inside of me
before I could hold your ankles
or trace the clouds of your breath.

I called you home
before I could let you love me
or shake inside my secret.

I loved you
before you knew the shape of my palms
or the birdsongs lost in my throat.

I was reckless, a silly broken fool.
A shy balloon, swelling
with every glance, every touch, every thought
of you.

Gliding
ever so uneasy, gliding
Waiting
to burst, to break, to fall.

Such has been my experience in flying.

And you.
My moon, my silent love
only lover,
only, maybe
took hold

And I.
breathtaken and lonely
not belonging to the air
as much as the ocean
dove
as was natural.

Shame on me for not asking
whether or not you could swim.

a flutter.
a sinking stone.

I loved you whole and unknown.
So used to swallowing glass
I couldn't see
the subtle cuts
the missed pass
where hearts slipped from sleeves
and shattered silently.

a flutter.
a stone.
a hollow bullet case.
hidden by the shadows of the moon.

How soothing your lullabies.
How wary your heart.

You drifted
before you could hold the rise of my breath
or taste the curve of my shoulder.

You succumbed to the unknown
before you could fall asleep in the rise of my thighs
or unfold beneath the curtain of my lambent laugh.

You bit the bullet, drank from the black hole.
before you could connect the constellations covering my nose
or name the color of my eyes.

And I.
So brave in my breaking, so impartial to your broken parts.

My somber longing.
My bashful heart.

Lost in the sink of your dimples,
hungry in the pearls of your smile.

How complacent your cradle.
How meager your liking.

I loved you
before the ambiguity
before the quake
before the quiver of our fault
so subtle, so sincere.

My most favorite uncertainty.
My gravest adventure.

a flutter.
a stone.
a hollow bullet.

How reckless we were,
strangers
fickle and flighty by nature,
but how beautiful our fault.