my right brain is damaged from sleeping on the lonely bus windows
going to and coming from places that see-through fists have shaped in
their image
and I want to be warm again like I was when I was younger and I want
to learn how to use my teeth for something other than grinding
when the world is beautiful and I am not
I can't simply hold its hand or sleep in the trees that die and live
and die and live and never do anything but grow stronger from those
bruises and remember the summers that exploded and the winters that
cracked their spines with the weight of ice and they have the patience
to wait for all of it to melt again so they can drink it down and
bloom with the spring and host kids in the branches who carry a dog-
eared book and a granny smith apple and a longing to be someone else
and they all watch the sky grow more dramatic with every autumn
they've known
and the winds trace the wrinkles it takes to finally get to sleep on
the pillows wishing your face was next to mine so I could plant sweet
dreams on your nose in the form of tiny kisses
and it's the canvases I've learned to ignore, because the frames make
so much more sense to me now, how they can hold up the world by just a
little piece of string
and as I lay on the ceiling looking down I reach my roots deep to
touch the top of your beautiful head and as I do, I can finally hear
the ocean.