Eight wrote this in 2022.

it’s images like this i’d live and die for 
kept securely within my chest, 
a less piercing form of homesickness 
more beautiful - 
you aren’t here and yet i feel - and i want you -
as if you were in the next room 

it’s been years and i am just now telling you 
things that i, before, kept lodged in my throat 
it scares me still but i want you to know 
the same way i did that way in july when i first 
overcame my fear 
so let me find words for the finest kind 
of golden hour within my mind - 

you call me a hurricane, a sea
but what if, for a moment, i was still, 
held, wrists in your hands 
above my head?
i am all angles and curves in all the wrong places 
hard-edged everywhere i should be soft
eyes too dark to be this light 
but what if i was beautiful, something close to gentle,
then, there, to you?
i’ve spent my life as soon as i could 
running, but what if, for once, 
i didn’t want to flee, 
held fast in that early morning light?
then at last, desperation could go unspoken, 
but be known and seen and felt…