vorinthians

[vorinthians]

first love jitters

it's night. the stars are out and the moon is surrounded by a simple halo.

i am beside you, your voice echoes in the silence like the lullaby my mother sang to me when i was four. my breathing slows yet my heartbeat quickens. my palms hold oceans in their creases and my chest now rivals a thunderstorm in its clapping.

you ask me what i fear most in the world; i hesitate to answer. you take the quiet as a cue and spin me a tale of a little boy dressed in your clothes, shaking as you take your first step into a plane.

"i fear flying," you whisper. your words are lost in the humming of the wind, pulling me closer so i could catch them. in the distance, someone plays a piano. "man wasn't made to fly-- our bodies are too frail to fall great distances." i remain the lover of quietude. the piano player reaches his crescendo. you turn to me, your eyes open, welcoming, warm. i shiver despite of it.

you drape your coat over my shoulders, your smell cocoons around me and i force a smile to my lips. i am happy. but my happiness doesn't dwell on the curves of my lips or the arch of my throat when i laugh. it sits on the spaces between my ribs and fills my body with a lightness i could only compare with contentment.

"i fear losing you," i say, voice as hesitant as a first date kiss. "i fear going back to what we were-- before i met you and you met me, before you and i became a we."

your fingers touch mine, as soft as a butterfly's kiss.

in the distance, the pianist concludes his solo.

[vorinthians]

anatomy of a lover

you are my deepest desire.

wind chime melody floating between the seconds of the day, calling to my beating heart the way the moon yearns for the embrace of the ocean waves.

your chest is a ballad of slow escalations and smooth descents, laughter defying gravity in the little core of your body as it floats up. up and up and past your arching throat; dancing with the tones of your voice.

my hands–if ever to touch–will be winter on your skin, killing the blooms of spring he planted between your thighs. i am cave darkness and you are stalagmite. love of my own creation slowly dripping, slipping away until echo drowns warmth and i emrace nothing but air.

we whisper under the restrained thunder of airplanes, voices sweeping over flesh and bone and goosebumps like sea breeze in the eyes of the bleeding sunset.

but sunset doesn’t bleed red for long. it dances with the clouds and burns orange, subdued yellow, building midnight shade. in my eyes, we kiss: neck to chest to pulse to fingertips. my body is a target and you are a lover of guns, shooting blanks just for the thrill of it. i am practice grounds, you are trigger happy, all for the sound. and i am downed, i am ruined. loving, losing, and hellbound.

[vorinthians]

succumb

And i say lover, let's go on like this forever finger gun hellos while your engine turns over. darling, it's beautiful: this rhythm in my chest beats staccato i'm a boy of small mercies trying to be a man, pulling lion courage to poise on my lips but darling, do you know the power you hold at your fingertips? it maps my skin like treasure down my arm, around my neck, between my thighs i welcome pleasure. and under moonlight, under satin breathing, we lay to rest your seeking fingers creep up and lay a mark on my beating chest-- for lust is a fleeting eagle, but love builds its nest. and maybe one day i'll hear your voice say: lover, let's go on like this forever. let's tell the world we found each other, because things like this don't come whenever-- and you'll kneel and i'll feel lips on mine and a ring on my finger. and i don't care that people say loving is beauty but loving is danger, i'll take the risk, just to wake up next to you as we grow old together.

[vorinthians]

marooning man

burgundy boy with knives for a tongue

don’t nick yourself apologizing--

blaze the fire that burns inside you

and keep your silver cutting.

your heartbeat is your confession,

beating melodic, beating urgent--

don’t kill the rumbling of your ocean loving

just so he can keep his cave heart silent.

burgundy boy, listen closely--

you are moon magic: seen by most, had by few.

don’t let his whispers keep you grounded;

defy gravity, darling-- let your phoenix burn through.

[vorinthians]

-phobic

Don't teach me about fear, darling. Don't spin me tales about it. I know it better than the curves of my fingers, better than the lilt of my voice, better than the tilt of my stance. Don't teach me about fear, darling, because I've bid farewell to too many moons since we started this dance. Don't teach me about fear, darling. Because it's been lurking over my shoulder since I was thirteen and telling my friends that I wanted to be married by twenty-five. Now, it grips my hips and shakes my arms, snaking between my ribs pulling smiles and laughter apart, wrapping around my threadbare heart, killing its beating; it's beating, beating I'm beaten. Don't teach me about fear, darling. Because I once saw it as the shadows of the moon, clouds in the night, a dark mass of no-shaped objects, blocking the light. Now, it looms over me across the dinner table, the silhouette of my mom against fluorescent, her face, her body, her voice but a foreign noise, a distant poise, And I nod, keep nodding, downtrodden. Don't teach me about fear, darling. Because it was once heights, dog bites, crashing flights; all happenings of without. Now, it is a shallow cut from collar to coccyx, bones seeking warmth not offered by the sun, all things within-- and I am left sitting here, not angry, not lonely, but aching. Creaking like wood board underneath your feet every time I move, though I try my best to not make a sound, but that doesn't matter, I am bound to love you, left hurting whenever you're not around. Spellbound. Don't teach me about fear, darling. Because I know its names, both first and last, the ones it carries now, and the ones it went by in the past, Love, guilt, courage, surrender. All these words became sparks, then burning ember, wildfire of the body, kindling for the soul-- Fear, darling, is not a fleeting touch; it is what makes us whole.

[vorinthians]

blood ballet

He told me he loved me the third day of June; Uranus kissing Gaea with the fervor of the hurricanes and Monsoons he had building in his throat. He had the body of Apollo, deep contours on marble skin and I was No stranger to the depthless pull of the shoreline tide. I grew secrets like plants underneath my tongue-- Mistletoe urging me to kiss then to tell, but these weeds grew to be a garden--a forest-- Majestic, Unruly, Nimble; embedded deep into the cracks Of my teeth, little midnight clattering keeping me awake until Daybreak. Early mornings are spent dancing away From his lunar hands, moonstone fingers following my every turn. I pull my lips thin smiling through his Curiosity, as if I do not have a cross burning through my skin, through paper I keep permanently hidden in my back pocket. Every kiss I give him is a heartfelt apology, the veins under my skin are Nothing more than little root letters Carving sentences I cannot bring myself to say. Yellow has become my favorite color. Voir dire is a foreign concept to me so I dance with Iridescence as it accompanies me in greeting Venus of the dusk; Retrograde revolution reeling me back to the Umbra of your legs under silk sheets and sweaty skin, but no matter how I want to, I cannot let myself Surrender.

[vorinthians]

mirrored

I may be found engulfed by laughter in the middle of a crowd On days where its harmony is our chosen language. But on nights like these-- where solitude is a breeze-- I am no lonelier than a desert's raincloud.

[vorinthians]

voir dire

love is never just love.

it’s pain and despair and above

all else,

it’s happiness and hearing bells--

be it as warning or for marriage,

all it does is pillage

through my heart, through art,

through winning and losing--

it’s being used and using.

[vorinthians]

symphony for the lonely

the sun keeps on rising, chasing away the moon,

never asking, never thinking,

that maybe she doesn’t want to leave so soon.

darling i ask this in times of trouble

when i am alone listening to the rain, feeling no pain

feeling nothing and feeling more, feeling double.

heart keeps on beating for someone blind

music for the quiet, for those that’d hurt for it,

beating, beating, beaten. i don’t mind.

i’ve kissed smoke instead of lips,

on nights where eyes are more lidden than wide open

and i’ve ached to touch with shaking fingertips.

hit once again with lightning, burning me inside out.

i blaze with fire, i feel desire,

i just don’t know if it is what life’s all about.

[vorinthians]

i sing a sing of solitude on repeat in my head, i pride myself with knowing what i should and should not be showing.

— self-awareness: tip #3 (4.30.17)  // n.j.txra 

[vorinthians]

hopeful

“I guess I won’t be the last one here.”

He writes me love letters with the callouses

Of his hands, his seed spilling ink onto flesh.

Plum and faint salmon have yet to swallow the sky and this short

Epoch of ours is already a dreamt eternity in his eyes. We were

Figurines in that moment—wood, sand, ice. I told him so, and hoped he

Understood that our frolics are only for the craters of the moon and not for the

Leisure of the sun. I was, after all, just a ghost left from lovers past.

“You’re not that naïve to ask.”

[vorinthians]

the waiting game

Let me tell you a story about a girl named Grace. She had a ballerina body and an angelic face, Eyes that spoke volumes and lips that, quite frankly, Had girls writing letters and boys going unruly. She wanted love, as do most-- And she hides it well (at least that's what she boasts). But after years of scrambling in the dark, She met a man-- let's call him... Clark. He was a boy of gentle flame, embers of a bonfire; A fluent tongue, an expert eye, the youngest of an empire. He gave his heart freely, as if love is everyone's right-- Gliding off his calloused fingers like pigeons taking flight. Grace, now adept at catching several things-- From her mother's accusations to the way her pulse sings-- Told Clark that he, with his ocean loving and his seaglass heart, Won't find her Luna solitude a beautiful work of art. "So, don't bother," said she, as her heart begins to race Behind her chest, within her ribs, and beating out of pace. "I'm not ready for commitment, and I'm not looking for a fling. Don't offer me lewd suggestions or, God forbid, a promise ring." But, he insisted, "I'll wait. I'll wait until the sun sets. I'll stay hoping to be loved by you until Sol gets his rest. Don't think of the sunset here, in case you misunderstand, Nor there, nor two countries over, but in all of the land. It has to be simultaneous, not a second off the mark, If you can take me to that moment, to where light turns to dark, I will slip away silently, like a shadow in the night, And leave only kindness, a whisper, without a tantrum or a fight." "That's impossible," said she. "That's against the laws of science." He flashed a debonair grin, replied, "Tell that to nature, I've formed with her an alliance." "And Father Time?" She questioned, a growing smile on her lips. "He was my mentor," he joked. "Gave me a few tips." Her face went a pale crimson, a light scarlet, a dark blush-- She listened to the winds of the night, and the moon bidding hush, She thought of her years, how they've come and how they've gone, How her days flew past her, but finding Clark only took one. And she mulled it over, what could she possibly lose? She had a chest full of loving--of longing-- might as well put it to use. Grace looked and found honesty dancing with moonlight in his eyes, She thought, to let go, free falling, that must be nice. "Okay, I concede, you win in this battle of the wills. You can try to woo me, to court, or throw rocks at my windowsill. But, don't forget, my body is my own-- and my heart, the same; Don't push it into wanting to spell out your name." On that night, when Grace and Clark went their different ways, You can see, if the light hits right, the gentle smile on each's face. And there begun the waiting game of two lovers, both unaware That love isn't a thing you can hope to happen--it's already there.

[vorinthians]

matrimony

there was an altar in the far distance with our footprints on its marble tiles and a cake with a topper miming our smiles, and my father and his mother wiping tears out of their eyes and a heavy weight on one ring finger of mine.

he held me in his arms under the glass chandelier showering us with yellow light and asked me how i knew how to dance so beautifully.

i told him, “my mom excelled at throwing things-- from a tantrum to a glass vase to her unpredictable mood swings-- and i guess with a woman like a comet living with you in your house, you learn far too young how to keep quiet. i won’t lie and say the ocean taught me grace or that the fading moon taught me beauty-- i just took a few hits to the face and then forced myself to make it something pretty.”

and he smiled. and kept quiet. and continued to sway me in the middle of the dance floor in the middle of the pavilion in the middle of the country in the middle of the world. and kept me close so i could hear his beating heart, and know that lying wasn’t his mastered art, when he spoke his words of love to me,  and told me i was finally free

and that i could dance with the sun as my spotlight or in the middle of our bedroom in the apex of night-- and that he can’t promise not to snap or get mad or argue, "but you should know, i will always love you”

and that i shouldn’t rely on myself to keep on living, because “we have each other now, and our love to keep us breathing, and darling i tell you your mother may have kept you down, but you slayed those dragons and lost that frown, and i don’t care if the moon didn’t grant you beauty or the ocean, grace-- i know in my heart, and in my aching soul-- that bravery and courage wears your face.”

[vorinthians]

“of course, i had shackles were my courage was supposed to be and a zipper where my mouth usually lies.”

— first date jitters (3.10.17)   // n.j.txra

[vorinthians]

celestial

I was the rolling clouds and you were lunar tones peeking through me on days we shroud the moon with our embrace. We didn't sleep during nighttime, we were nighttime; beautiful and curious and contrasting.

We threw constellations on each other like snowballs; Cygnus on my forehead (swan beauty blooming), Orion spreading on the wide expanse of your back (hunting heartfelt wishes), Ursa Minor on my collarbones (dipping low to catch your kisses).

I hid Virgo in the nape of my neck, where I traced it with blushing cheeks and shaking fingertips, rapid heatbeats and bitten lips.

Gemini danced in the mazes of your palms, drawing closer to mine like magnetic poles we had no control over, twins burning in your hands like campfire flames until I satisfied it with the stories of my lonely days.

You smiled at me through the curtain of your lashes, and I felt Leo burning in my chest, whispering, "yes, lover. This is what pride feels like."

[vorinthians]

introduction to adolescence

Love stood beside each other, standing under desultory luminescence,

Lips rarely apart,

Eyes never apart,

Hearts almost a part of the other, beating to the cadence of the stars.

Lust sits across, gazing at the couple—

(Jealous?) Smirking, recalling, reminiscing,

Silken sheets on skin, sweat shining,

And mouths silently singing, composing hidden notes,

Except for those that seek its loveless touch.

Heartbreak whimpers, whispers, and youth soothes it;

Pulling laughter out of their own ribcage, saying,

“Darling, we are moonlight, don’t let darkness drag you down.”

Assurances fall on deaf ears, as

Tears fall on deaf hearts. 

Wrapped in an ocean of denial in the middle of land,

Swinging and swimming, eyes blurry;

Refraining from accepting, from

Seeing reason.

“Idiots, open your eyes,”

Smoke says, standing outside, blowing rings out of clouds.

“Gravity never apologizes for pulling,

so don’t apologize for falling.

The night is young.

And so are we.”

[vorinthians]

contrast

This man I fell for, he had a compass for a heart and everyone knew I wasn't one for electro gravity. This man I fell for, his hands were parachuting soldiers and my palms were one of the seven seas not really good for landing on. This man I fell for, he nursed candles on the roof of his mouth and my mom always told me I speak fast enough to birth a hurricane.

This man I longed for, he housed the sun in the brightness of his eyes and mine were desperate sunflowers seeking them out each time he turns. This man I longed for, he had oceans hidden in the corals of his ears and my voice was a heartbreaking whale song too loud, too raw, too real to be contained in echoes. This man I longed for, he taught Icarus how to climb the ladders of his ribcage and all I had dotted on my flesh were moon dust and lunar craters.

This man I breathed for, he let go of balloons in his laughter while I kept roseless thorns and heavy sighs resting on my diaphragm. This man I breathed for, he filled his pockets with freshwater pools for his goldfish hands to swim in and my fingers held the grace of the shark. This man I breathed for, he gave her kisses with the day as their audience and ours were well acquainted with the dark.