He guards the door and lays by my feet
and tries to keep me warm.
He watches our one-year-old play in the yard
and doesn't bark unless he means to warn.

And he brought tears to my eyes when you picked him
last Christmas from the pound five blocks away.
But he still looks for your truck and searches for your smell
and wishes you would have stayed.

Come home soon.

I rock to sleep a brown-eyed beauty
and hum a tune you once played for me.
A haunting melody,
intended for harmony,
quiets her tears but unleashes mine.

She may never know the way
a lullaby sounds
as it leaves your lips.

Come home soon.

With a gluttonous obesity that devours love,
spits up lust,
and snacks on a
high-carb
pre-cooked
combination of the two,

we're counting calories consumed
with a track record of lovers,
regurgitating with regret and
binging again anyway when hunger pains strike.

Eventually we'll all suffocate
under the weight of the world.

i lifted my heavy body into the cold
when i heard you at the door

eyes red,
skin white.
you looked apologetic
and i, unforgiving

you stripped to the bone
to hold me close
and let my anger dissolve
one choked-out tear at a time

i yelled
and you listened
i finally
felt forgiven
and we drove away from the pain.

and when we stopped
you bought me a dreamcatcher.

but the irony i found is that,
my dear,
the only dream I'll ever have
is you.

knees bruised from kneeling
on the cold shower floor

you're out getting high,
and i'm pushing a prayer

eyes torn at the edges and
wet from salvation

i'm lost in translation
i am left bare

the hum of the fan, one that refuses to cool any part of the stifling room, is the only sound,
with the constant turn of the blades bearing a likeness to the steady rotation of
words and
sentences and
incomplete thoughts
thrashing about in my skull.

tossing and
turning and
back again.

lying sleepless and increasingly frustrated at the impossibilities I've constructed for myself,
in a fortress,
if you will,
of determined failure.

i've become distracted with false fantasies of adequate replacements.
i've reached for hands to hold to keep mine from interlacing alone.
i've cried out to the walls, to the ceiling, to the emptiness,
but i want to come home.

i miss Your merciful assurance lulling me to sleep.
but i've forgotten the way to You, and i'm terribly lost.

i am
selfish, ungrateful,
and altogether useless,
but i promise to try
if You'll guide me back in.


please.


tossing and
turning and
back again.

The fields of wheat sway to the melody of the wind,
surrounding us in a torrent of ecstasy
as we lie draped in the fallen leaves.
You design a daydream for us to share
and whisper it in my ear,
the thrill of possibility lacing your every word.
As conversations of distant hopes fade to impatient sighs,
Silence falls and begs us to hear
the deep breaths we take in turn.
An enchanting lullaby and a reassurance,
reminding us we'll have the time.
So we'll postpone our longing
until the arriving morning,
once again.

I love waiting with you, my dear.

when your knees fit into their puzzle piece places,
tucked away
into the bends of my legs,

and your fingers rake across the rows of my ribcage,
suddenly stopping
the heart beating beneath,

when your fruit flavored breath,
mixed with faint cigarette,
hovers delicately
between our lips,

and your voice
and your sigh
and your hips
and your eyes
dance circles in my sleep-deprived mind,

I become the witness
to the marks of perfection
being etched throughout the night.

and in our tossing
and turning
and fervent destroying
of any torturous distance
we find,
our souls are colliding,
our hearts intertwining,

and I'm cursing the time
that forces goodbye.

I lost a part of me
on the night that you let me
stare deep into your eyes,

This semblance of control that
I'll lose time and again
with your every whisper and sigh.

And no matter the distance
and no matter the time,
my thoughts are incessantly encompassed in you.

And I can't help but wonder
if as you're pulling me under,
it's precisely what I need you to do.

But the fear of the fall,
despite the beauty of it all,
reminds me of the possible pain.

So you'll have to chip away at my resolve
and gently pull down my shield,
embracing imperfections that remain.

Because in your absence, I've found that I'm absent
of every emotion
indicating that I'm still alive.

And I think I may need you
to revive my whole being,
I may need you just to survive.

With a shining smile
and erupting laughter,
the crowd's engulfed
in my one-liners and easy joy.
We're singing
and swaying,
and I'm participating.

I play along throughout the day.

My award-winning role,
I am
the actress.

So take a seat in front of my stage,
and prepare your hands for a burst of applause

as I fall into fiction.

I will memorize these lines,
I will become my character,
I will forget the reality of
happily never after.

The end.

Your fingers felt their way through my belt loops
And your palms paced slowly on my hips
The warmth of your breath heated my neck
And your lips lingered, in search of a place to rest.
As our legs
and hands
and hearts
intertwined
Sleep took you captive for the night
and I slipped away to settle into the dreams
That never felt quite as real,
and consequently,
not as sweet as you wished me,
so it seems.

small talk and voices abound as
swarms of somebodies walk past.
i tune them out,
allow the words to dissolve to nothing but murmurs.
time passes slowly
sitting in a cold, hard chair,
tapping my toes and sketching stars,
writing and rewriting
the grace that I need
and stenciling it on my skin.
time passes slowly
sorting through files and answering calls and
smiling at strangers with obvious intentions,
but their surface-level adoration
only makes me laugh.
because you love what matters.
time passes slowly
my feet hit the pavement
in steady rhythm,
drops fall down my neck,
and the effort required only strains my muscles,
my mind left free to roam.
time passes slowly

and then,

i see your face,
   hear you laugh,
      touch your skin,
          breathe you in,
              curse the time,

and all too suddenly, say goodnight.

and as i walk away,
again,
time passes slowly.

I may be fragile,
but your forceful fists that
supposedly
promise my "protection"
are only bruising my
beaten,
battered
heart.
This cage you've constructed to
hold me home
is only making me
thirst for escape,
thirst for fingertips
   with different fingerprints,
and thirst for
a breath of different air.

I may be confused,
but your father-figure
illusions
and
delusions
only form frustration
and forsake the fire
we're trying to ignite.

I'm begging you,
release your grip,
if you want me to stay.
And if you don't,
prepare yourself
to watch from a distance,
as I run away.

you are an artist
let my back be your canvas
paint me through the night.

I want to slice through
   the voices
      haunting my head
and suffocate
   the aches
      taunting my heart.

I want to scrape away
   the memories
      burning a hole in my mind
and carve out
   the curiosity
       tormenting my soul.

anger
resonating
through me,
never
sufficiently
released
by any words
that I write.

determination
now rising
through me,
so I'm
strengthening
my resolve
and starting
tonight.

Trapped in rooms with bland, white walls
absently overhearing lessons
supposedly pertinent to life
     “the experience of being torn between two incompatible alternatives”
Sigh of irony.
     “Symptoms of conflict:
     inability to make decisions
     general moral deterioration
     avoidance of responsibility
     taking the path of least resistance”

screw this class.

     I need a change of season,
     a scorching sun,
     a summer rain,
     and roads that stretch for miles.
     I need an escape
     that doesn’t end so soon,

But hours later, I’m stuck in a cold office,
and both you and I know that
data entry and phone calls
will never distract our minds from pain.
And our
cold,
distant
communication,
     if you could even call it that,
brings a violent ache
that floods my entire being.

But I can’t fight
anymore,
so I have to sit back
and wait.
wait.
wait.

every night I go to sleep with you.

you wrap your arms around me,
you pull me closer to your smile,
your eyes await until mine concede, and
you kiss away my uncertainty, inch by inch by inch.
and when my mind collapses from the beautiful exhaustion your simple presence has put me through,
you're there to guide me through my dreams,
and you lay patiently awaiting as I wake.

you're a constant presence.
 where I go, 
you'll be.
No matter the miles,
 you're always 
with me.

I feel how you feel.
Your hatred,
your sorrow,
Your love,
your fear,
Your doubt,
your confusion,

Your desperation
beyond reparation,
I feel how you feel.

Your every emotion
threatening to choke out
the life of me.
Empathy, I'm told,
is a marvelous gift.

Unable to please myself, though,
because your happiness is on the line,
and I'll just keep on telling myself
that I'm fine.

But wedding bells are beginning
to sound like hell,
and I think
there might be something wrong here.

Beautiful faces
in the most unexpected places
remind me that there's more to life
than this.

Each and every one,
a story all their own.
A lifetime of hurt,
of joy,
of perfect imperfection.

All at once
the crowd screams their pain:
   neglect
   abuse
   failure
   loss
   empty homes and
   shattered hopes,
they scream in utter silence.

You are not alone,
their faces whisper.
Their quiet reassurance more musical
than the song playing
in my ears.

Slowing to a stop
we each grab our bags,
exit without a word,
and scatter to follow each of our paths.

Unspoken therapy
at nine in the morning,
Forcing an interesting sense of gratitude
towards a broken down car
and a broken down spirit.