SHOUT

HIM

I don’t know if it was his paprika hair

or his cinnamon freckles that intrigued me the most.

His vibrant laughter made heads all around the world turn and listen.

His wink made my cheeks match skins of peaches.

People spied on our lives through cameras and assumed

we were lovesick teenagers. The books predicted our love story

and we were considered a bestseller. Whether it was because he hypnotized

my every thought or because his scent of mangos and caramel

intoxicated my mind, I couldn’t stay away. He became my purple sunrise

and peeked through my bedroom windows. I became his grape lollipop

that healed his pricks of pain. When midnight blue drowned our figures

we let fingertips trace hearts of gold into our empty chests.

FOREIGN DREAMS

Your silence created purple smoke

around a genie’s lamp.

Ice crystals shattered inside of veins

that held disappearing blood.

My shoulders generated tornadoes

that swept away the ink’s black smile.

Clocks ticked on broken ankles.

There was too much anger to hold

inside of the locked Pandora box.