Sail Home

I miss you in the silence between heartbeats,

In the lonely moment where the morning star appears,

Between the beating of the waves against the shore at sundown,

And most of all, between my shaky breaths.

I reach for you before I close my eyes and hope,

Hope against hope, night after night

That you'll return my tug, my pull, my insistent howling...

And join me once more between the sandman grains. 

I hope your war's won, your bounty collected,

Your ships on their way back home to my shores

And please know, as your eyes flutter shut and you sail west,

I'll stand on the cliffs to summon you home. 

Waiting

I watched time trickle through the hourglass

One grain at a time. Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock.

Seasons came and left, each with their marks,

Constellations danced across the sky

And yet- the silence stretched

And all was deafening and hollow simultaneously. 

No you. No me. Just empty words of a forever

That would never come. 

Lifetimes of chasing each other through blood

Came to a standstill here for once. 

No tears. No commemorative placard. 

I painted over all our nothings and watched 

The shine dry on our memories. 

Time's coming to an end, my dear,

And at its completion I'll stand atop Troy once again,

Eyes glued to that endless horizon,

My hand no longer empty, my eyes perpetually dry.

Where have you gone my Menelaus? 

Has time stood still for you?

How long should I?

Like Yesterday

 It's been 9 years and change.

I'm floating on a raft in outer space,

Tears cascading down my cheeks--

I was okay until now. 

Now I miss you. 

Time stood still and I shattered 

Into a kaleidoscope of misery--

Into a mosaic of despair...

You're still dead.

It's been 9 years and change

And I'm charcoal in this fucking flame. 

Intact

I scream your name, and when I close my eyes

I see galaxies behind my eyelids. 

I float about Everest's peak,

My hands skimming the milky way in my travel 

Around the world in 80 milliseconds. 

And there you are, nonchalantly staring back

As if you did not shatter who I am

And reassembled me with one deep breath,

Hand in mine, your breath - mine. 

I scream your name, and when my eyes fly open

I'm filled with gratitude. My knees unbruissed. 

My head unbowed. My soul intact. 

8 years

8 long years down the drain

And countless others since I last saw your smile.

Years without color. White and black. 

Drained of all that should have been. 

Could be but never was. 

Years with the occasional dream 

Punctuated by a man I barely recognize. 

When did you grow so tall, you vagabond? 

Sometimes you're happy and my heart is raw,

And I convince myself that you escaped. You're free. 

Sometimes you're broken and deal must be made.

What can I sell? What can I sacrifice 

To promise you the perfect afterlife? 

Seamstress

Needle in hand, I'm pleased to help. 

Mending hearts I didn't break

For men that will not love me,

Worse yet, for men that will abuse me. 

I love to serve at the altar of your

Greatness. My knowledge is a serviette 

For which to wipe your mouth on. 

I am the keeper of knowledge on how to undo

Your trauma. Your brokenness. 

I mend hearts and trauma and find glue

For all of the jagged pieces that others'

Carelessness has left behind.

Scars on my fingertips from holding the

Stitches. I've lost feeling and count of all

Of the sacrifices I've made. Time lost. 

Pieces of my soul that were woven into 

All of the broken hearts I picked up along the way. 

I mend. I play seamstress to the throwaway

Lovers that women better than me couldn't stand,

I bloody my hands trying to prove that

The shadow of doubt behind your ribs is a lie.

And what do I get? I confetti my heart

For your entertainment. 

For your satisfaction. 

Come closer, amore. Give me the scraps,

Open your chest and allow me some time

To mend you. To hold your regard

Until you believe me that you're all that I want. 

Allow me to heal you, through love, lies, and lips,

And once you're all better, you can forget. 

Ti Sento

Like a bloodhound, in my quest for joy,

I came across your scent, your memories

And I have sensed in you a similar longing 

To the one that seems to live inside my chest. 

You pulled me into the sweetness of your fantasies,

Wrapped me in dreams so soft I can't escape,

And on your lips, my name,

And in your dreams, my touch,

As I envelop and caress the loneliness away. 

I caught your scent and I wish you could see

Through my eyes, my lens, my poetry,

The cifer to the anecdote inside yourself,

The beating heart inside that lovely chest. 

One Last

I would like to write you from my soul,

Dip the nib inside my veins and pour

Every memory, every wish, and hope, and dream

Into existence. Into the record of the universe 

So that Time itself may know the depths 

Of what I've cared for you. 

I would spend the last drop of life within me,

To convince Fate to give me one more moment,

One more brush of sinners lips against each others'

So I can drown you in the depth of my absurdity. 

I would sell away my soul and everlasting essence

For just one touch of you my Menelaus,

So that the last heartbeat my chest will sound

Is the despair I've kept within me all along. 

Per Favore

Please don't look at me like that. 

As if you're drowning, lost at sea

And I'm the only raft for miles,

The stars you planned your courses by,

The northern lights you've 

Pinned your hopes into. 

Please, I beg of you, 

Like I've begged no man before,

Don't look at me like you've been searching

Centuries to find me again,

Like you have traveled the whole world over

For the chance to taste the hope

That's on my skin. 

Please, don't look at me like drowning men,

Don't throw your hands to gather me

Unless you mean to hold the raft. 

Unless you mean to give the truth

That I require as recompense

For saving you.  

Please.  I will believe you when your eyes

Meet mine, pupils dilated, lips parted,

And I can feel your heartbeat in my chest

Each time you look at me like this will be the last. 

Ti Penso

Which one of us is leading this dance?

Do I think of you because I miss the way

My heart beats faster in your presence,

Or do I miss the way you look at me,

Like I'm the battle raging on between your ribs?

Do I itch to feel the brush of your fingertips

Against the soft skin of my lips,

Is that what this feeling is? The need? The desire?

Or do I think of you because you think of me

And pull me into your inner monologue?

Do I dance for you, do I lay still in your arms?

Do you run those soft fingertips across my naked skin?

Do I want you because you're everything,

Or do I want you because you thirst for me?

Mercutio

When I am still I can feel you tugging at my seams,

Your expert thoughts fingering the stitches

Of my self control, of my self respect...

And I promised myself I'd be done with this game

But when all is still, when the world stops moving,

All I can feel are your hands tugging me forward. 

Will you be brave for me, my Mercutio,

And tell me that dreamers often lie?

Or will you wish a Pox so sweet upon our houses 

Both, that I can't help but be drawn forth,

That you can then collect me in your warm embrace,

And draw "shivers of pleasures" from our happy place? 

Questions

I have so many questions and each of them is outlined in your preference. Each of them is sent out like a little prayer into the universe and I expect an answer on a nightingale's wings. I want the universe to hand deliver you into my waiting palms.  I will not drop you. I have follow up questions to my originals. And additional questions that follow those. I want to understand your composition as if you've always been a part of me. I want to know the way you drink your coffee in the morning with the same certainty with which I know the way you blush when you think of me. I want to know those thoughts that dance inside your mind. I want to understand what brought you on your journey and pull you from your pedestal, turn you into a mere mortal like me. I want an offering of all your flaws and thoughts and dreams and hopes and fears. You are a puzzle for which I'd trade so much just for the chance to touch your pieces. I have so many questions and I'd like you to answer them all. 

I wonder

I wonder what you taste like with Blue Label on your breath, 

Are you a better kisser when the ethics are blurred?

I wonder what your cologne smells like at the end of the day 

When you strip from the day and let me unbutton your buttons... 

I would like my lips pressed against that spot on your neck

That makes your body tremble with each breath and each kiss. 

I wonder what your hair feels like between my fingers

As I shampoo your scalp at the end of the day,

With you nestled between my legs in the tub,

With your hands absentmindedly touching my skin. 

I wonder how warm your body is when pressed against mine,

Are we tangled in whose sheets and blankets? 

How do you look when you're wrapped in your dreams,

When youre soft and pressed into my sins. 

I want to unwrap you one mystery at a time

Until I've memorized you like a favorite book,

But now with the glass in my hand and laid on my bed,

I wonder what you taste like with Blue on your tongue. 

Convocami

 It's 6 and we are as we should be when the alarm goes off: 

My head on your chest, your hand in my hair, both content. 

The sleepy smile on your face and the kiss to my forehead,

Do we delay the inevitable wake up?

My devious hands playing under the hem of your shirt...

Absent-minded.  Warm. In our element. 

Do we rouse and dare disturb the universe? 

All is as it should be. Slow. Safe.

At noon I'm too wrapped up in my spreadsheets again, 

I have no time between emails to think of the press of your lips

Against mine, or the tickle that your voice summons in me,

And the same deft fingers that played with your hair

Now write memos and summons and homework again. 

I'm too busy in meetings to remember that I shouldn't be 

Talking about you and how you make me laugh,

And yet I revert to your phrases and blush like a fool. 

At 5 I'm already on my way to see you in your ivory tower,

Too fidgety at every red light that keeps me away longer,

That delays the moment where your lips caress the underside of my jaw

And I've been waiting all week to see you again. 

I keep searching your face for an answer to everything,

And "the curves of your lips rewrite histories" amore,

In the front row of your pew, patiently waiting 

For you to make the decision and summon me to you. 

At 11 we're where we needed to be for the evening,

You on the couch with your brain shut off for the night

And I, wrapped up with sweet thoughts of you, waiting

For the tug of your hand summoning me to bed,

For the grind of your hips and bruise of your lips on my skin,

For those deft fingerprints on my hips 

And all can be as it should be, mio caro

If you dare summon me to your side. 

Peccato

There are too many miles, too many days, too many boundaries
Between where we are and where we ought to be,

Wrapped in each other's arms, and thoughts, and sins,

Basking in the quiet of Los Angeles. 

There are too many words I'd like to string together,

And whisper in the dark as you lay asleep

Nestled between my arms, my legs, my fantasies

Laid bare at those well-traveled feet. 

There are too many questions we'd have to answer, dear,

If we gave in on what you pulled in me,

What you awakened, what I can freely give,

As long as you ask for everything in me. 

I'd like to say that this is your mess to clean up.

And put the responsibility of this goddamn string on you. 

I think I need you to close the gap between us,

And tangle those fingers in my fiery hair.

I need you to pull me against you and dance in my breast

Like the smoke of a last cigarette post-dessert. 

I don't want to worship. I don't want to beg,

I don't want to be someone that just lays in your bed,

I'd like to be equal, I'd like to be brave

For once, I'd like to be selfish and make the request

That you surrender all that you are, all that you've ever been,

Between my parted lips, and share in my sin. 

Adorarti

You are all-consuming. 

You pulled the string, and now 

Nothing is as it was, as it should be. 

You shattered all rituals and 

Ruined the engravings of my temple,

You woke a force that slumbered peacefully,

For once - in so many years.

But you are a fool

As I no longer worship at the altar

Of mortal men. 

But I would worship you.

Posso io?

Would you like to be immortalized in poetry,

Dip the nip into my veins and write you out of me?

Would you rather my doctorate thesis to be about you,

How your lips feel on my neck, how I don't know what to do?

Would you prefer I moan your name into the night sky,

Wrapped around your little finger as I'm soaring high?

Would you enjoy the taste of sin on that devilish mouth,

Waltz with me, my pet, let me ignite your truth?

Would you let me feed you heaven until your voice is raw,

Have you moan my name, and feel my skin, or none of it at all?

Would you believe it if I whispered that I was meant for you,

And would you let me immortalize you in everything I do?

Come

Come. 

Whisper in my ear your darkest fantasies. 

Tell me all the things you're too afraid to tell the universe 

And I will shield you from the repercussions of your honesty. 

Show me the darkest crevice of your soul,

The thing you hide beneath the shadow of your broken hopes,

And give me the chance to undo the damage

Of the careless lips that came before mine.

Come. 

Show me on your skin your sweetest maladies. 

Point out all the spots my lips should heal for you, 

With tongue, or mouth, or fingers cold or warm. 

Trace on me the places that have wounds on you

And hold my hand against all that has ached or hurt.

Give me the chance to put you back together,

To help rebuild all that you thought you lost. 

Come. 

Breathe onto me all that you want in life,

What I should summon from your mouth

In terms if moans and whispers, pleas and bargaining. 

I'll give you all you ask for and not a molecule more. 

Knot your hand in my hair and pull me into you,

Let my perfume consume your every waking thought,

And trust that I will catch you as you fall. 

Il Mio Destino

I shouldn't write you from my veins. 

I've spent so much of my time these last few years 

A prisoner to my own beliefs of love. 

Of what was mine. Of what was meant to be. 

And in you walk, a roman statue among men,

A silent force behind those turbulent eyes. 

What plagues you, darling?

Do you see my demise? 

My gentle unraveling, 

The hope in my lies?

Did it jolt you awake? 

The string between us going taut,

And you could hang the night sky

On my last hope. Did you feel it too?

The stars aligning, words colliding,

And all the while we stand apart. 

Philosophies. Ethics. Boundaries. 

Who would have thought

That kismet can be tamed?

I shouldn't write you into life, my sweet. 

Although I feel it coming, barreling towards me,

And you shall be my new collateral,

The gift the universe delivers me. 

And I have resurrected 

All the pieces of my mended soul,

To lay at your feet

If you conquer me. 

You're legions ahead, my sweet,

You are the new one gifted to me... 

Mine to unravel, mine to taste. 

Your scent on my skin, 

A kiss to seal fate. 

Do we dare? 

You've summoned me, sweetheart, 

That storm came from me,

And through me you'll get all you deserve. 

Just, let me in; 

I exist to serve... 

Voglio

I want you. 

There. I've said it. 

I've put it forth into the universe

And all that's left to do is wait. 

You're a mystery. 

A brand new hazel box Pandora gifted me

And you are... dangerous, my pet. 

I want you. 

I feel the longing in my blood,

The tiny symphony that plays inside your eyes,

In tune with mine.

Voglio te.