Tell her she's beautiful
Make sure you tell her every day
Even if she's in her sloppiest sweats and her baggiest sweater
Tell her she's beautiful
And mean it
She won't believe you
But never stop reminding her

Do your best to make her laugh
God she's beautiful when she's laughing
The way her nose wrinkles and her eyes squint
And when she shows that smile
You'll wish she'd never stop

Hold her tight when she cries
She hates showing it
When she has no one else be the one to hold her together
Make sure she never breaks
Squeeze her tight
Let her mascara ruin your shirt
Kiss her on the head let her know
It's going to be okay

She'll wake you up from naps
Just because she wants to spend time with you awake
She'll call you when she's drunk
Because she doesn't know whats going on and needs to hear your voice
She's going to love bothering you
All because she thinks it's cute when you're mad

She makes funny noises at the most inappropriate times
And she dances around the house and pretends to know what she's doing
She's a child sometimes I swear
But you'll learn to love it

Pick her up and kiss her
Kiss her
Like it's the last time
Every time
Look into her eyes
God she has gorgeous eyes
When you try she'll look away because she's shy
But should you get the chance
You'll fall deeper every time

Remind her you love her
And show her with every way possible
Sometimes she'll doubt it
But that's never an excuse to stop
Do whatever you can to put the doubts to rest

She can be a handful
Sometimes a bit too much
But never let her go

Sincerely
A painful memory

Even little strokes
open up
great heavens
if you try

just because I like your eyes
or your twisted words that tango
in flashes of crimson and cranberry
with ideas of my own
I refuse to lay down my armor
at your traveling feet

You are a wanderer just like me
the world is not our oyster
but the massive emerald sea
and we hold our breath
as long as we can manage
brushing the sea ****
with our finger tips
and swirling with
the schools of fish
until we are gasping for air
at the surface of the water,
squinting in the sun to see
each other

I may never learn how to
breathe underwater
so don't hold me like you hold your breath--
I am not a temporary exploration

I am the sand and sunshine
where oxygen abounds
I am the quiet storms
and the furious clouds

There is a whole world above the sea
where you can breathe
and in that world,
you'll find me.

I met a girl with flowers in her hair
not a crown or a clip, but cherry blossoms
they bloomed from her ears and her scalp and the hollow of her neck
she was a garden of eden

I met a girl with flowers in her hair
and roots that ran all the way down through her feet
they never held her in place
instead, they made the earth upon which she stood her home

I met a girl with flowers in her hair
who let summer sunbeams catch her eyes
as they glistened among ferny tendrils
until the autumn came

people tell me i’m
lucky because at least i lost
him knowing that he
loved me, at least it wasn’t as painful as a
breakup. if this isn’t
pain then please tell me words for this swallowing
wound in the middle of my
chest, explain how i can’t find my own
hands even in broad
daylight and every time i think i
see him around our
house i know to take it as a
sign that i need to call my shrink back up, tell her
about the ghost at the core of my
life.

i can still feel his
hands in mine, long pianist man
fingers and encompassing
palms, wide open like a
map soaked in
blood.

he was so long
gone by the time that they
found him, his own fragile
mother couldn’t identify the
body, i was the only
one who knew how my hands were supposed to fit his
hips, the only good part of him
left.

my doctor tells me that i’ve passed the threshold for
grief, this isn’t healthy, she
tells me. how am i expected to know the meaning of that
word when the only thing i can
explain is the incessant ringing in my
ear, the sound of the
bullet that went farther than i ever
dared.

we were supposed to get
married, he just didn’t have the
money, but he gave me everything else off his very own
back. at night i stay up repeating the names of the
children we were going to
have, all three of
them. now they seem like more of an
insult to the holy
trinity.

god, how did you feel when satan
fell? i demand you on your
knees, begging me to
believe in you again. do you know how it feels to be in love with a
ghost?

Your eyes were laced
with fatigue induced red lines
that were not unlike
the red lines that laced the world maps I used to obsess over
before I realised
that the world that existed beneath
your fatigue laced eyes
was worth travelling too.