brush your fingers over these spiderweb bruises and tell me.
tell me there are ladybirds between my teeth
and butterfly dust behind my ears.
trace skin-tight sillymarks, whispering
of violin seas, striped paperclips, and
fresh blueberry laughter.

oxygen plus hydrogen does not equal anything of importance
without lime green sock weight tracing the junctions.

scabby knees from who knows when,
they aren't going away. nothing
goes away here. the sun is
still today, spreading cloudtears
over maddening generic coverings.

piano sighs plus vintage curtains equals insomnia
and bruised retinas, reminiscent of grandfather.

memorize every skin-filled pattern,
giddy, not with touch but memories.
the damned memories. read my braile, french
pakistani, americanized weeping and
blindly fumble for what we never had.

dried chapstick plus empty icing does not equal
happiness; only leftover guilt, traced by your dragging fingers.

snatching at clouds and the balloons you release
as a child, hoping they will never ever pop,
we discovered folk music and iris stars.
i memorized your name and inked it
with jonathan quotes on my wall, but
you never saw because there were eights
waiting to be turned into infinities.

heartstrings do not equal harpstrings.