In The Empty Orchard Among The Crisp Apples And Softer Pears, Brown And Green, The Apples Red And Yellow,

Tell me why you ban the books Which tell stories of Two male penguins adopting a child, Books that show disabled kids And gender non conforming kids And black kids whose teachers Forget their names?

Tell me why you ban the books That challenge you Because they are written plainly About plain people Who are different from you?

Tell me why books are taken off shelves For being too explicitly queer When you force children to read Passages from the bible about Rape, genocide, slavery, and a hateful god? Why is your book not banned For depicting in detail such things?

What makes your book the exception? You censor children from truths And teach them a god will hate them Because they are different You teach children to hate themselves Because your book holds no space for them

We are so entwined I don't know which love is yours Or which kiss is mine

I envy the orchid For choosing when to perish To go dormant for An eternity that lasts as long As it chooses

I envy the orchid That it might sleep forever Then rise swiftly Like a flowering phoenix Back to life

I was a sculpture made of ice When you put your arms around me And though I lived in a world of winter Your touch was warm and I felt it

Even though I tried to resist Because I was so afraid of you Your body was a home I'd left And the frozen ceiling cracked open

Suddenly you were a torrent of sun Searching for my heart so cold beneath And because I was hardened I couldn't move So you kept me safe as I melted

Into you I became flesh and bone Bits of slush falling off my skin Finally I could move my arms again Around your body I was defrosting

But as the cold body comes inside To the fire inside the hot house The burning becomes too much too soon And it hurt you to touch me that way

My sun went back up to the sky To look at me adoringly from afar Still I am here on the ground in a puddle Naked and alone and shivering

This poem got away from me How cliche It's something all poets will say So am I a poet at all? If I'm just letting the words fall Where they may?

(I wouldn't describe myself that way)

Solitude, How you serenade me With your silence.

The gentle lull of the day, Songs in the night.

Sing to me Your symphony of Rustling leaves And howling winds.

Bring me only The call of the coyote, Close, never near.

Simple solitude, I sleep to the sound Of only you.

A girl I am dating is reading my palm Tracing her finger Over my life line She furrows her brow

"Do you like evergreen trees?" she asks She doesn't look up and I nod "But you are deciduous," she meets my eyes

I shrug, pulling my hand back But she holds my wrist Firmly and keeps tracing I'm staring at her curiously

"You are nineteen?" it's currently January I nod again, February on the horizon "You will be nineteen for a very long time"

I don't like her reading I don't like her mysticism I break up with her later Then I meet you And I am nineteen for the rest of my life

We are all down to earth here Even the birds in the sky Especially the beetles and bees and flies All as one on our mystical sphere We are all down to earth here

We are all part of the dust If we piled it up, what would it be? Would we create a new being entirely? The magic of our world is hushed We are all part of the dust

I am surprised by the softness And the intimacy of this moment I had expected your skin to have Thickened and grown rough with time I am surprised by the way I remember The taste of your lips pressing on mine Taken aback by the way we fit together Again like easily memorized lines

There is a sweetness to the salt Of the sweat that forms at your sides A familiarity to the way you look Lying wanting beneath my body I had expected you to look older But the love in your eyes is just bolder Are you remembering the reason for rhyme?

I had not expected your kiss to claim Not expected any longing to still remain I had not expected you to still be mine I had only imagined you naked and true Covered from head to toe in our rain I have been pouring over you all this time But I had not expected you to still be mine

Kingdoms that we built Inside our neighboring, Rolling, hillside towns Still stand strong and Towering, but only in my Enchanted daydreams, the Night fell fast in yours