---

I still remember the first time you stated
that you weren't afraid to hit a woman.
I can sympathize with the reasons you might fear to;
we are made out of back-breaking steel
forged in the factories of Heaven
so that we could bear the burdens of patriarchy.

It's ironic how I found the same kind of love
in the way your fingers caressed my face
the same way that your iron-clad fist
struck my jaw with your upbringing,
but there is a tongue that I will never quit preaching
beaten out of aurum hiding in my mouth,
and I will never stop speaking.

The Destructor

I am not your foundation.
The last time we tried to build forever,
you tore down the walls of our home
and replaced them with Graham Greene.

Destruction was written
all over the floorboards
as if you had a love affair
with the inverse of creating optimism.

I wonder if you realize that someday,
your anger will pave the road straight to nowhere
the same way good intentions
pave the road to perdition.

jot down streams of consciousness

Baby, all our souls hail from small towns
that God made somewhere up in the heavens.
He summoned Norman Rockwell to paint in the outlines
of your homely jawline, but there is nothing
but beauty in the worn-down, farmer's tan
body build that He carved out of perseverance.

(Your diction is amazing.
You could change my descriptive word choice
in a second from "stubborn" to "determined".)

Sometimes, I find myself terrified to ponder
the concept of eternity and the Holy Trinity
when I trace the lines God carved so deeply
into your trembling hands (you always told me
how nervous being around me made you.)

I remember the night we ran out all the way to nowhere
so you could take me "real stargazing". You mocked me
for being a country girl, and promised me the moon.
Next time, you said, we'd need to go when it had waned
so you could paint the night sky better
in my star struck irises, but much like eternity,
next time has not quite come yet. I retain hope
in your ability to keep your word like time;
since punctuality was always the middle name
you inscribed right next to "Owen" so proudly.
It's one of the few things you can call your own
that your parents didn't forcibly shape, but even so,
I can still see the remnants of their pedagogy.

The first time we broke out of your monotony,
we dared ourselves to climb the fire escape
all the way up to God's front doorstep.
I reached up for your hand in good faith,
and you grasped my fingers between yours
and kissed the tips so I could always remember
how it felt to be loved by you.

and baby, I still find myself nostalgic.

Dating a Catholic

"Who are you, God, to make me [Catherine]?"
I lost paradise long before you ended the relationship,
but we will never be done wandering the moors of our souls.

The first time I met you, you wore moonshine for irises
and even then, I could see how bleached-white-washed your morals were.
Heaven rode in right behind the words we exchanged,
and your diction is still so beautiful it breaks my heart.

You keep my phone number in your back pocket,
and underneath it, you wrote down:
"accountability, punctuality, and perseverance"
as if those three words that outlined your lifestyle
could somehow redeem your hatefulness in my eyes.

Sometimes, it worries me, because you hold others
to such unrealistically high standards, I become concerned
you will fall off your perch the same way you found
religious doctrine harder to follow when my body
was caught underneath yours.
I remember you pinning down my arms
the same way you crucified my friends on your false cross;
burdens too heavy for you to carry that you externalized
because you believe intolerance is a Thompson virtue.

I must admit I have days where I want to build your character;
because the foundation of our relationship paints prejudice
all over your face as if the the color of our skins blended in our kisses
could redeem your judgment of others, and baby,
I know you try so hard, but I can't stress enough how painful it is
to be in love with someone who hates the core of my being.

I can see you straining my soul through your constricting pupils,
as if there was some pedagogy I missed out in childhood,
and it sears my soul to see you try to accept me despite my flaws.
My pain is not beautiful, and I make no claims to martyr myself
at your hands, because all I can do is try to kiss away your hate.

They say tolerance isn't acceptance; it's simply bearing
the weight of the guilt you feel every time you hold me in your arms.

john the savage

I never thought that God could shake my soul
like a back-breaking sob rattling through my chest
as if the sacred heart of the yet-unborn Savior
touched the insides of all my veins and traveled
through the labyrinths of my capillaries.

I have fallen before,
and I know I will fall again.
My conscience birthed itself
into a life of original sin,
and sometimes, my breath
is too short to reach for redemption.
I am weak, and I must admit that
there are days where the feeling of duty
weighs down heavily like a calling
I cannot answer.

It's late at night.
I have found myself restlessly
re-reading Job 6:11
because babe, I swear;
I know am not perfect,
and I know that will fail you,
but the Lord knows how hard I try,
so it makes me question
why you still put me on trial.

It makes me want to ask Him
why He disfigured your beautiful soul with skepticism;
marred it with pessimism worthy of atheists,
because every time I see your jaded stormy morning irises
contracting around my optimism, all I can bring myself to do
is desperately try to kiss away your negativity.

There is no greater tragedy in this world
than attempting to bring hope to a cynic
irreversibly set in his ways;
someone who claims the right to be unhappy.

Sometimes, I wonder if you know the reason
I run my fingers gently over your shoulderblades.
There are feathertips on your back,

and gorgeous,
I know your wings are as broken,
but all I want God to do with my life
is make me your splints so I can watch you fly again.

a country boy and a city girl

They say there are some
who are born with a silver spoon in my mouth.

I grew up with platinum-plated teeth,
dreaming about grandeur
and breaking down your amino acids
in the same way I catch your ear between my lips;

nibbling softly on the edges of redemption
coyly just in case you listen too closely
and you can hear my enamel
chipping away at your moral standards.

I love the way my mouth can lock to your neck
when we're gazing at harvest blue moons so stoic
I can see your reflection in the skies
where God painted the feeling we have
when we gaze at each other.

I can feel the skepticism etched
in the grooves of your callused hands,
but I am proud to love them anyways;
those digits tempered by blue-collar labor
raised deep in the soul of Texas
blessing my eyelashes with your butterfly kisses.
I wonder if we can catch the etymology
of our entomological makeouts,
because I will continue to rest my eyelids
next to the sparkle of your old worn out navy irises.

this is not a tale of star crossed lovers.

Heathcliff, I tire of using allusions to describe
how the chill of your wind haunts me at night
and sends shivers down my vertebrae
when you breathe on my neck,

but I tire of Linton's feeble advances,
and his blandness makes me miss the wilderness
of the rooftops we ran around on top of;
tangled limbs woven together
with whatever our souls are made of.

Somewhere, I know you are out there
and even if you are on the other side of my aura,
I can feel you conquering my heart so hard
I swoon and can't help but be reminded
how spineless he is by comparison.

I miss your chivalry; being wound up
in our antagonistic arguments that echoed
the same way that your gasps resound in the canals
of my aural sensitivities like a synesthetic high so elevated
I can hear your lips nibbling on the edges of my ears.

There are moments where I despair,
watching how you are caught so desperately
in the death throes of your fervent addiction
to the denomination that grips your throat so tightly
you can't help but stray from faithfulness to me,
so I remain choked-up on nights like this
where I paint your face with my words
so I can see you when I dream.

bonfire

I love the smell of Bonfire in the morning.
There is not much like the feeling of running your dirt-caked fingertips
over wired camaraderie stacked together near 6 in the morning
as the sun rises. I worry that someday, Aggies like us
will become a lost cultural relic, buried beneath a diversity
that sacrifices unity at the price of tradition. There are days
when I pass by the skeletons in Sul Ross' closet and wonder
if political correctness is not a little overrated in favor of
the genuine nature of the 12th Man's family.

I miss his word choice.

I remember you draping rose petals over my shoulders one night
when I complained of being chilly. Our feet hung off the ledges of
roofs as if our souls were too big for the buildings we climbed,
and your fingers shyly found mine interlocked between your calluses.
You grew up a working man. I can tell from the creases
on your forehead that I trace so gently with kisses,
and your hands are worn down and tired in the same way
that I can tell how your boots loved the Earth by the dirt on them.
There are libraries in your cerebral cortex I explore at night;
dancing through your synapses as if your mellifluous diction
could somehow sing my poor insomniac soul to sleep,
but nowadays, all your aura does is haunt me like a ghost
filtering through the slats of my blinds like blue moonlight.