I don’t know how to desire without loving because I don’t know how to calm the tide —I’ll wrap my whole body around you, my arms around your neck, my legs at your waist—; the one that rises from my lungs as I try to swim toward your hands once more.

Even though you insist on denying the affection you hide inside, it is enough for me to pause in your gaze, and at once I know you return it.

I could see his home-job hair dye around his mouth, around his hairline, black dye dotted like pepper, like a miniature Kusama, like I don’t prefer salt.

Imagine the photograph: a woman alone, on the corner of an island, in the middle of winter, smoking her last cigarette.

Amidst the chaos of my head, I can’t help but imagine how you keep placing poppies in my hair. Let’s lie under this fake aurora borealis with the crisp night air…

I want to smear your face over mine and keep up with your step, pretend we are mushrooms, cursed gargoyles trembling to slow music, two punctured cans, a centerpiece, a set of spoons.

My tongue holds me, and I hold it as my home and my eternal friend. We keep forever the answer to people’s anxious doubt. I show it my cave, I perform an autopsy on myself, and it gives me the word—the sacred word.

Your laughter no longer fits in my nights, it slipped out through windows I never closed.

Dicen que no hay retorno. El invierno llegó, hoy se siente a ocho grados. No sé cuándo voy a volver, pero sí sé lo feliz que puedo ser.

Five springs ago I planted your memory in a tree that dried out, and I am responsible for that; in search of privacy to speak with you, I planted you far from the others.

Muted diminished thirds wobbled over open fifths. She pointed to the center of the guitar and said: the music is there inside, and it comes out on its tippy toes to dance in the light.

On land, your place in it will someday be remembered, and they will cry out who did not save you and hurry out to the sea to cradle you in your rebirth.

Others will come who will keep in their hearts the same useless longings, the same unsatisfied desires, the same foolish ambition that I have.

Pero no puedo evitar preguntarme…¿Alguna vez cruzaré por tu mente cuando no esté cerca? Si alguna vez paso por tu mente… ¿Te importaría, pensar un poco en mí?

No habrá un “no duermas más”, ni el perrito, ni el mercadito, los veinte dedos entrelazados: del lirio al delirio, del lirio al delirio.

I collect age like stones I can’t skip.

The best thing you left behind was your brutal tenderness, and even though we remained two strangers, you were my sigh dressed in dreams.