Home Sweet Home

Sometimes I cease to exist.
I stare ahead and my fingers seem to disappear,
my body goes numb
my eyes go blurred
my heart slows
and I wonder
is this when I truly exist?

My body is not a temple.
I’ve broken my bones and
torn at my skin
there are bite marks on my thighs
and I take pictures of the
bruises
because I want to remember
all the times the blood inside my
body fused to the surface.

I am abstract,
an idea,
a cluster of thoughts,
a cobweb of emotions
and hormones
and caffeine
and dreams
and fears
and all the intangible love.

My body is not a temple,
but it is a
home
and that holds the greatest
sacrifice
of all.

Incense

Every house has it’s own smell,
but we are never aware of our own because it
is constantly welcoming us when we enter the door.
If you asked me what your house smelled like, I
would tell you it smelled like alcohol and cigarettes.
Your bed sheets smelled like my lipstick and pizza
oil. I’d walk into your house and the incense of your
t-shirt when pressed against me would fill my nostrils
until there was nothing left to inhale. When I entered
your house, I smelled home. 

When You Asked Me Where I Wanted to Travel

I have met enough people on this planet,
to know that each person is their own world, but you
are a universe. I’ve found a way to put the
ocean in a bottle and that is your eyes, blues and
greens that swirl together and create waves
on days when the weather’s a bit stormy. I know
I can look into the oceans and I will find
you, and when I stare into your eyes I have found
home. I’ve discovered an echoing cave
with walls that breathe and ache, and when I press
my ear against it I’m amazed that I can
hear and feel the very thing that keeps you alive.
I’ve talked to the solar systems that
expand in your mind, and I’m slowly learning
all the supernovas and black holes
that make you who you are. My fingertips have traced
over the road lines and rivers of the veins
on your palms because I wanted to learn of your origins
as they learned the landscape of my own body.
I have kissed the constellations that are burned onto
your skin, and I will kiss every one of
those stars like they are push pins on a atlas map until
our entire bodies are covered, because
I have finally learned that I can travel the universe
just by staying in bed with you.

You are Love

You are who you are for a lot of reasons. 
You are not your test scores, your knowledge 
is not defined by a letter on a piece of paper. 
You are not your mother’s faults or your father’s regrets. 
You are not a glass of alcohol with blurred vision 
and with a heart half blood, half vodka.
You are human, and you are you.
You are the music you listen to and the books you read.
You are your favorite movies and the lines of poetry
highlighted on your bedside table. 
You are your favorite food on lazy Sunday mornings, and 
you are your favorite places that your heart screams of travel.
You are home.

I do not know you, but I know you are beautiful, and I 
know that I am jealous of your bedsheets that caress you every night,
You are the universe inside of physical beauty, and inside are the 
depths of wonder and happiness that all try to hold. 
You are you, and I love every bit. 

House of Bones

and I knew that if we took apart
your bones, we’d find flowers in your 
ribcage, sand dollars in your knees,
and four-leaf clovers in your fingertips;
and we’d find that every bone, the color
of milk and sugar, could be arranged into 
a house, strong and safe, and this explains
why whenever I’m with you, 
I feel home. 

Home to House

The house just wasn’t the same to her anymore. Somewhere between the midst of losing her sister, and her parents divorce, the place she once called home became a simple house. A place with a roof and rooms to enclose herself in day and night. It no longer felt of love, or smelled of her mother’s sweet perfume, but now it reeked of alcohol and felt of sadness. She felt as empty as the house sounded.