Alight

Pink Punisher butterfly birthday skateboard with fine-tuned wheels, asphalt burn like a meteor impact, tears as briny as Fire Island’s ocean, a phoenix sunset,

Blazing sugar by embers that redden the forest, caught between graham crackers, granite benches,

an inferno in the rib cage, beneath the eyes, in the hands that guide the torch

Over the obsidian-fuschia metal, a ram forged from salt and smoke

Awake

Petrichor from the oribe green ferns, fallen yellow peaches among shamrocks,

Memorized banana bread with 85% dark chocolate and sweet walnuts,

as warm as dawn parting cherry leaves and mist,

A solemn yet sunny French song—naïvité, crinkled notebooks tattooed with grammar rules,

dark purple figs outside four window panes in the paws of a raccoon, beneath a velvet navy sky

Afloat

Koi fish dancing beneath lily pads, sipping on green sunlight,

goddess dress by golden grass, by roaring seafoam

Rain that drenches and pulls laughter from our bellies beneath the starlight

Hot lemon ginger tea in a hand-painted dragon cup, the cool night

Pistachio matcha by the sepia photographs, a lullaby of longing, of lost love

Aware

Wire and paper maché molded into a bust with metal fingers and a single paper eye, unseeing,

an unintelligible poem of musings never to be sent, unleashed,

An almost smile, half-moon marks on the palm, freed like dragonflies in the dusk dust,

a hummingbird heart in front of him, the golden hair that captivates—the inexplicable allure

An excited, quiet, contained cheer, unremembered but not unfelt