touch me again 

pressure turns rock to magma 

softly transform, transformed

flesh and skin and hair and spit and dirt and teeth 

grinding rocks, rocks to dust 

you can be rough with me

a stone swallowed by a river

feels the water

tumbled and swirling 

inescapable 

pull me under and do not let me go

your touch is written onto me forever

does forever mean something to rock?

how time is carried through stone 

all that came before is held 

before when?

the marks, the form,

tell us the way the earth moved 

well, you move like the earth 

slowly, an inch over a decade

another 

another 

years pass erupting with care

shatter, melt, warp, flow, scrape, topple, shake, crumble, slide, bubble, fall, crack, smoothly, deepen

i’m happy that this rock came before the word woman

i’m tired of hearing that nature is a woman

i am a boulder 

i am a pebble

i am a knife

i am not a woman

you are the river that turns me to nothing, in motion

cling to me, deep inside the crust 

my hair braided to the river

minerals dissolved, erased in the mantle

sludge, gravel

smash into me

pulverized deliciously

we become a soup together, I cry a glowing tear of lava 

how much I love you 

the shards of bangs crystallize, 

cut not short enough

i fuck up your sink drain and your bath tub drain with all these

rocks

fused, surrendered, tectonic, metamorphic, erotic, romantic,

hold me in the heart of the earth

where we can be pressed together so tightly we evaporate

there you will have finally kissed me hard enough to wake me

a rock reveals forever, backwards

we cannot be buried, we can only become

come, again

here is the origin from which the past springs 

the Supreme Court may say we cannot marry, again 

but they cannot keep us from this mighty heart of the earth

joined

melted

turned and ruptured for centuries 

degraded, eroded, soluble for eons

this earth is yours and mine

i hold you in my palm and I touch the inside of the world

sleep with your chin in my hands and I will stop you from grinding your teeth

we may only become sediment together

again