you’re so beautiful, even the people you disrespect love you anyway.
by Meghan Tennison

oh dear
my jaw is acting up, it’s so excited to
speak with you

i love burrowing to the heart of your matter
you’re sanctifying, like a holy statue
burning through space

it must be 30 degrees
bird couplets tweeting across the mud
a nightmare of geese attacking a child
my teeth glow with yours, knowing
everything that happened was
well worth our time

let’s strip away our values and fears until
all that’s left are dreams
forgetting everything we’ve ever said
demolishing borders,
the sun screams
brighter

walls grow eyes and
stomp out our shadows
so let’s be as open as the sky
sticky syrup secrets smothering our flat tires
collecting dust like
thirsty troublemakers

peanut gallery ghosts
spying from shy corners
spilling ink all over our plans
solve it:
burn everything

quarrels degenerate into tunnel-vision and
there’s too much to think about so
i give up

nothing can upset me
i’m dreaming, undisturbed
in the warm cottage of your heart

your love confounds me, slowly
eating away my skin. maybe
resistance is a symptom of the
worry-disease. i might go nuts and
want you so bad that,
if i can’t yet inhale the layers of your stardust,
purpose-broken,
i’ll starve

feelin’ like a flea in lamb’s wool
livin’ the crazy life
and maybe your breath leaks into my skin and that’s why
my insides are storming