Origins

We were both born on broken promises kissed through bottlenecks

                                           a shaky lullaby to hum in tip-toed tunes

                                                                         I learned from you

                 Generations of grasps confettied injuries

                                                                        we wore like jewelry

                              like sea glass found after being ground in waves

We smile together in the mirror

an uncanny resemblance

both ghosts wearing medals of the dead

Reaching for the other's neck in the dark
hoping to disturb a legacy we only know from outside
looking in

Craving History

drowned early
from days of bobbing for apples
in barbed-wire barrels, never
developed a strong sweet tooth.
avoided forbidden fruit through
sucking salty bone,
tongue tracing questions desperate along
hollowed pores- hungry prayers.
a hunt for meaning clung to
marrow.

to ripened fruit,
flesh full and fragile,
vibrant cores buried under
shields of strange skin,
I wish to witness history firsthand.
to be cast down past's esophagus,
its tributaries of truth, rugged liquor-binge
paved in cement.
dimming lanterns lighting caves
carved by decades-
your very heart hoarded, a fossil
of white headstones cloaking black holes,
a picture-ready rotting
from the inside.

this silent communion, a savoring
starve. a choking of every star
in the universe.

and you, avoiding the core. and I,
spitting its seeds
like a poison.