I don’t know cold, I know heat.
I know desert dunes and rattlesnakes.
I know how to beat the wind, how to light a match.

You tell me, “be yourself.”
But that is not enough,
as big as I feel.
I am not as epic,
as big as I feel.

Today, and yesterday,
I have swallowed truths and mirrors, and none of them cut,
just swam to my guts,
made a stained glass refuge,

a refugee, a mimicry
a bird caught on fire,
a bird caught in a fire

Sweet nothing wings, a flap of flames
But the key is to fly, to cease, to end in a vultures mouth;
shit back into the earth,
this soil,
this kiss,
it’s all the same

You say, “be yourself.”
I’ve always been just that, and look,
see this heart,
these lungs
look!

see these eyes,
these hearts,
so many
they’re yours, they’re his, it’s hers
it’s mine

no mountain, no garden, no shelter,

flame body warming you, come 1 a.m.

A heater, he calls me,
a heater

some plugged hearth that smells of sex and sandalwood

you’re a whole colony, you are your own language, he says

I don’t know cold, I know distance, I know heat,
I know sex and smiles
I know words saying one thing and actions fucking another

It’s me on top of you, and you with me, not there
where would you send me off to?
Where would you aim?
some other cloud, some other sun

I swallowed the moon for you
and you covered me with clouds,

the cloud, that other’s cloud,

I’m a cloud,

an accumulation of water,

a rain you covered

some other language

some other face

some other

some other

where am i?

where was i?

Why do my voids spill light?

Here I am.

Here I am.

Here I am.