these days i dine alone. the world

is at the other side, staring through a

wet window. somewhere between we

still do not meet, but for poems.

but for birds that fly into your throat 

when you fall asleep. 

i wrote all of those poems

& made them fly. 

because i’m here, and i want 

to wish you one of

these lone stars. 

the stenographer wrote your

name on the cover page of his

diary, we almost missed it. 

that day all we needed was 

someone to push us into the wind, 

& call us freedom. 

see how glass doors make us

write these sad poems? 

see how rain comes & knows

the softest part of two bodies? 

the rain will remind us of days

& slow dances, how to move lightning 

from a lover’s eyes to their tongue.

today i’m awake and something seams

a rising sun to my window. 

i am sorry we all

die sometime.

let’s make a map of thirst & young. 

let’s see where we stop being thirteen. 

let us tune this body out &

feel the whole world

break free for us. 

the signs will only come for the 

flesh, not us. 

let’s sow our knees

to the hands of a clock. 

why do we only laugh sometimes? 

have you asked why a 

clown will choose your happiness

over theirs?

i want to be a clown &

eat up the butter in your hair. 

call me names, dreams

you try to imagine,

i promise to know you

final notes of the song. 

i will hear of birds hours after

you sing the walls to sleep. 

we can be voyagers, you see. 

i will keep throwing 

stones into a river till

i’m old. 

this way there is a castle

at the bottom of 

the ocean for us. 

there will be sand, salt

and hunger; you being

a soloist filled with 

names of [   ].

Source: From the Isolation Issue (September 2020)