secret garden (my love)

Artwork by Tina Lin, staff artist

my mother tells me I’ve turned my love inside out &

I should bury this organic appetite back into the soil

if hearts pick their bearers like fruits off these trees

how do some of us choke on the pits of our thirst

marred & strange: my chin dribbling with pulp

I wipe off because mostly I try to forget about

the shape of sugar. the boughs hang low with

you, sprawled on the grass, glass petals used

to love-me-love-me-nots. my love teeths & then

hardens into bitten nails, the blunt end of a kiss

flushed like the sun, upside-down. my love billows

at the brim of this poem. pockmarked by burnt

air, I watched you swallow so easily so I’ll try

to chew up my hunger, I want to love & love &

my love pours salt over stupid dreams, repeats

a dry slogan: what do we we know other than

to slip—than to scald, like that

slow descent into boiling water