If I told you I was falling in love, would you stop me

I took the smallest of leaps today & nearly 
catapulted my body into the river afterward. 
Every little act is fireworks on my tongue, an 
unfolding like an origami fortune teller, creased 
paper holding all the answers, never giving you 
a straight path. I haven’t let myself feel this way 
in a while, a body of loosened bones all jangled 
& singing with every step, my spine might as 
well be a xylophone, stacked ivory keys. Won’t 
I come undone if things stay this way?

I want to tie myself up with wire, to the point 
of bursting, so condensed & wound up there’s 
no room for mistakes. No room for flowers to 
bloom in the crevices, & who wouldn’t want 
a field of sunflowers in their rib cage? I worry 
about the bees, the buzzing that can fill you
to the brim, threaten to overtake you, & then 
there are no flowers, only a cramped space
& too much honey. Is there such a thing as 
too much honey?

If I’m just dreaming of you & that is all it takes 
to turn me into a Beyblade, spinning & spinning 
& crashing into the closest edge I can find, is it 
worth it? There’s no way to know, unless I dive 
into the puddle that looks deeper than it is, eyes 
wide open.

Risks these days are much like when I was learning 
to ride a bike, how my parents let me run straight 
into a wall, how my cousins let me scrape my knees.
There’s no payoff without blood, some scarring. It’s 
like a tightrope, if I fall left, there’s a safety net, if I fall 
right, it’s concrete, on both sides there’s fire. But if
I make it to the end, there’s a starlit expanse waiting 
for me, a thousand wishes fluttering through the sky, 
a place to lay in the grass & look up, & up, & up.

Read more from Issue 21.2.