Alfred is my friend,
glowing in the windowsill
coughing with karma.

He is a peaceful
lovely little basil plant
but he may be sick--

black spots on leaves tell
that an infestation grew,
but I love him more.

water and quick snips,
coarse lullabies and sunshine
I hope he will live,

because goodness knows
such a lovely companion
can’t forsake my poor nose.

When the summer days were still long
and the nights still smelled sweet
like your sweat laced cologne,
I asked you to strip me
of skin and muscle and bone,
told you to look between my organs
and tell me what it means to be alone.

Your hands felt like warm metal rails
left to bask in the sun for hours
unsteady and loosened at the nails
with peeling polish and rough perfection
like unforgettable fairy tales.

And that’s who we were for too long
entwined and lost in the feeling
of never being so wrong.

You could dance to the word “lovely”
slip into a spin around “beautiful”
cascade giggles to “cute”
and freeze in the presence of “pretty”

but never once
have we thought that “ugly” was worth a second glance
or considered the power of “scary”
respected the thought of “terrible”
or rejoiced at the feet of “unfashionable”

no.

we have forgotten to pay our dues to the murky edges
of sweet serendipity's serenade
to take a slow dance with melancholy,
our inability to stop skipping heart beats
has thrown this whole song
just a little off key

So I propose a toast to all of imperfect
and don't call it any greater
because in the end

that’s all it needed to be.

She gets lost between piano notes and
Champaign bubbles
I swear her eyes are always just a little
Too far away
But she sings that it won’t matter
In a million years
So I forgive her

She still gets lost between piano keys
But forgets to play them these days,
I catch her staring at the notes
And there is something oozing from between knotted heart strings
she whispers that the chords are too tight
so I just nod
There are clinking glasses
And the quiet hum of dishwashers
But I don’t think her smile
Even flickers anymore

Someone told me
She still gets lost sometimes
Forgets which road takes her home
Probably because her Home was between the notes
And there was nothing
Even there to begin with.
Someone told me
she uses beer cans instead of wine glasses
and I didn’t even know she had started drinking
wine on the weekends.

I don’t think her cheekbones
Can stop screaming

But she still washes the dishes
With the bubbles all overflowing
In the cold metal of the sink
I guess there wasn’t much left to
celebrate
after the going away parties ended

She is pretty lost
Sometimes I catch her and beg
But there is no point to her madness anymore
I think she got lost between
Straight ideals
And
Bent chords
Forgotten words
And everlasting thoughts
I catch her in the street sometimes
Singing --

I secretly love the way she says the word music
Because she never speaks
These days
She only sighs
In the warbling mutter of someone
So far away

She is
Just the muse of a hundred musicians
With Champaign bubble eyes and
Track marked heart leading nowhere but hell
I think she begged them to stop
Serenading her sadness
But there’s addiction on her lips

I never kissed her fears away
Sometimes I think I’m sorry
but all the bubbles popped
and it was time
to go

I can count on my left hand
how many boys have had a taste of my lips
I can count on them like I can my pinky in a bar fight
Clipped nails like flightless birds
Nothing to scratch my initials into their flesh
Because most nights
I didn’t belong there

I can count on my right hand
The number of boys that I’ve slept with
Some naked and others fully clothed with the lights on
I used to be afraid of the dark
Until I had too many secrets to hide in the shadows
Sometimes I’d beg them not to look at me
Because my scars were always illuminating stories
I didn’t want to tell
Sometimes I’d beg them to leave me
Because my stories were too long
To begin to tell
Sometimes
I didn’t want to be there
At all

I can count with my eyes closed
The number of times I’ve cried in front of someone
Because of a boy
My eyes have to be closed
Or I won’t let myself remember it
Sometimes I don’t
And I tell myself I have never cried
For such a silly reason
As a boy

I can count on my hips
The number of times I’ve felt like nothing
While lying in a place I didn’t want to be
And counting the sounds a darkened room
Until the sun washed my eyes open
And told me it was better to forget
So I forgot
But every time I lie awake
I remember you like taste of your palm
Against my mouth
And I really
Really
don’t want to

I can count the seconds
Before I fall asleep
Strategically within the first few thousands
So as not to keep listening to the sounds my room makes
Incase our windows creak at the same time of night
I might burst out of the blankets
And run until the sidewalk catches up to me
Or I might lie there
And pretend not to hear it

I can count with my heartbeats
The number of times
I pretended not to hear myself

I can count on my eyelashes
The seconds I spent with my eyes closed

I can count on my body
The number of panic attacks I’ve had

I can count on
Myself
To never speak to you again

It was the beginning of the summer
And life was darker than the underside of frightened eyelids
I told you I needed someone to depend on
You told me to count on you

and I’m sorry that I ever did.

My mother taught me to finish all the food on my plate,
that children in Africa are starving for a taste of it -
and only disrespect leaves crumbs behind
but I never guessed I would be middle-aged at eighteen
         Never thought I’d know exactly what those kids were starving for.

I’m pushing a full plate towards her tight-lipped disgust
slathered in every last drop of stubborn society -
she will always be the epitome of gluttony
in the most frail and forgotten way,
          Always asking for more than I could ever give.

Only those will a full cupboard of snacks
stand before the cool air of refrigerators
discerning the difference between craving and needing
as the hours ticks away like racing dollar bills
I spent every last second stuffing her full with time
          But she told me that her stomach was empty

I am eighteen going on thirty-two
raising a defensive daughter I never gave birth to
and now I know what those kids in Africa starve for -
         Not just food
                    But the taste of having too much
                             Too easy
         so that they can feel hungry again.

and spun until the ground came to meet me
bringing the smell of midnight dew and
soft earth like the embrace
I craved.

There were no flowers
just our faces pressed against each other
fingers entwined with blades of grass
I fell inlove
letting gravity hold me there as I refused to fight the spinning in my head
I was so alone that night

but the stars still twinkled
but the moon still shone
but my lips still brushed against
something important --

come find me
and I’ll show you where we’ll fall in love

I was once too young for exhausted sleep
So I tiptoed to the window for a peek of excited light
Flickering in the solid wall of insufferable darkness
I wanted to hold that tiny pinprick of moonshine
Twinkling and twirling just our of reach

I was once too young to know what forever was
So I grabbed a mason jar,
Coaxed a bemused spark to the secrecy of a sleepless room
And sealed the lid just a twist too tight

In the morning I found my once glowing prize
Dark at the bottom of his suffocated tomb
And in that moment I learned to fear the darkness
Of tomorrow’s dreaded night

Sometimes I'd call her sunshine just so she'd smile
smooth and easy, like it was the natural thing to do -
but we both knew she was rain clouds and tornadoes
heavy hail and broken thunderclaps.
Yes,
she was my storm but I still loved her silly

she'd call me silly
never said "I Love you" or
ask for another kiss or
trust me with any of this -
no,
she just called me silly
so I loved her that way

He was stronger than wax attached to dry skin
tearing into your senses with a cascade
        of sweetness
just to expose the inner layers of guilt.

Fingertips traveled up my hunched back:
bent into submission by a weight
         of ecstasy.
Soft hands like unsure gestures --
time to straighten up.

Whisper to me in the night an idea
like blush to my cheeks
with the ooze of forgotten lullabies
and brighter mornings
like the residue of sleepless-nights
and sticky pillow tears:

surrounded by his simple childish love
I find my softest bones.
Easily corrupted by the twisting of unmade beds,
striving to give the perception
of clean innocence.

I could only shudder in the screeching wind
like a little Flower
in the arms of the strongest Storm;
        nails ripping down my brain stem,
        winds blowing away all my petals
        heavens pity money raining in coins
tainted with human sins;
it’s all rushing down
my pulsing roots--

So pluck my mane of tasteless purity,
with hands coated in goose bumps
and soft beats
of warm
            breathing.

“How can a flower love the hand
that took it from its earth?”
I ask.
but my lips are sealed in a kiss.

You asked me once why I felt safe with you
The answer is simple, really;
you speak to me sweeter
than the southern twang
of lightly painted china cups
twinkling with an old tonic
your great grandmother grew up with -

Peach tea,
more sugar than ice
and the chime of silver spoons
stirring away low hanging sky
in a lazy afternoon haze.

You speak to me with the comfort
of a tea cup
cradled by the saucer
lips meeting gently against each other
so as not to scrape a scar against the fragile cheek
of either companion

Sometimes you even whisper
with the rattles of old age
chiming away at the edges
of sweet forgotten bliss -

You, darling, speak to me sweeter
than any grain of sugar
that rubbed me raw.

I may be a little rougher
than all those other girls:
skipping stones instead of gluing sparkles
rib-cracking laugh instead of lipstick smiles
tree climbing scrapes instead of hair curler burns —
but I’m softer than all of them.

I am your little avocado
dark skin cynicism and hardened core
but really I’m just as easily bruised

So, Sweet Smiled Serendipity,
please remember to kiss my cheek
      my nose
          my finger tips
when we lie together in a blanket of 2am sweat
because even after a night like that
I am more fragile than you’ll ever know.

I wish I may, I wish I might
see him come home to me tonight:
with sandcastles dripping from his shoes
and yearning kisses like an electric fuse;
please let him sweep me off my feet
from the very first second we can meet,
lock me in the embrace of love not lost
and whisper his longing at no cost.

But forsaken feelings held steady our gaze
as you walked, not ran, to my home that day.
kindly and easily you dismissed me as just a phase
claiming your love could not see me that way.

And yet I still hope that you may
and desperately wish that you might
steal me a final kiss tonight.

I once left my heart in the pocket of a saint
blinded by sunset light, drunk from midnight madness,
and falling into the monotony of broken dandelion stems and lost eyelash wishes-
I didn’t think I would need it much longer
The burden of rebirthing beats continuously
stamping out the keys
Of my empty piano chest –
As I held onto the breaths of broken warriors
Sponging the blood off their slashed

double
layered
skin

And praying
they could keep their fight for just

One
More
night

He never noticed the extra beat
added to the twitches of his time-ticking body
deaf from the ringing calls to heroism
only on the odd hours he didn’t have muffled
by the recipes of the women he’d saved
buying out bravery like it could shield his soft tongued love
leaving nothing but the clothes on his back
woven from stardusted bomb shelters
And
left over hopes
selling the silver lining of every breath he took
just to buy the next broken-bar girl a drink

He was a saint after all --

born from the innocent hopes I wish I still had,
tucked in the corners of sun-freckled smiles
and
Mothering seatbealt arms
and
Careless Carnival Food
the kind I know some of my soldiers withered against
writhing their souls from the bodies they had been straight jacketed too
prisoners of war stuck in the memory
of just how many calories a sugared funnel cake could have
did have
will have
add up to the self worth shot out of their chest
from last nights uncontrolled binge
of two apples and a cheerio promise ring

No,
he had never been in the middle of the war
never known the taste of blood
rusting in the rain of covered up skin
drenched in the salt water stings of failure
peeling away the scabs of
addictive adrenaline disadvantages
and mapping the battle plan of tomorrows attack
against an enemy so close
it was breathing the same air your lungs had not finished purifying

No,
his hands had never held the dyeing breaths of a comrade in arms
as they shook from the fears riding up their spine
praying the poison won’t take
praying the stolen bottles didn’t break
and that violent vomiting viguals
might burn just enough of the alcohol mistake
so their blood won’t have to curdle

No,
he had never heard the desperation
of sobbing secretes suddenly swindled
from between the lips of a girl who never wanted to remember
the night that never happened
one year, five months, fourteen days --
and three hours ago
her father had asked her why she never wore skirts anymore
and why she never brought boys over anymore
and why she never left her room anymore
and why her silent cheekbone cry for help never smiled anymore

No.

A saint is never found on the battlefield
never scared by the everlasting burns
of war paint psychiatric wards
and gun powder therapy sessions
sprinkled with the hope against hope moments that maybe
we’ll have a break through --

Like the ****** morning sun rebirthing the beats
of duck taped dreams
and
medicated eyes
and
catatonic lips --

I left my heart in the pocket of a saint
confessing the sins of the hopeless hospital it fueled
between our silent lipped kisses
squeezing out the stories of unnamed soldiers
between our woven fingers
and betraying my fear
in the tremble of my body against his –
I left my heart with him on the one-night-stand whim
that I would grow deaf to the sound
of TAPS played on my piano rib keys
and
blind to the specks of blown dandelion wishes

But I still hear the echoes of them
rattling against the stitching
of his bomb shelter pockets

and I wonder if he’s still searching for me
between the crumpled recites of midnight mass mixers
and
open cathedral whispers

because I still think of him sometimes
absent mindedly pick pocketing saints for smiles
but I’ve only found lint and regret
tucked in the corners of their heroic attempt
to protect the bruised hearts of the saviors
who haven’t quite yet found salvation

It’s the earliest light of today
and the man is walking back from the mail box
his belly round, his posture bad,
carrying the mail in one hand.

Each time his outline is distorted
I notice another imprint of my lips
flawlessly preserved against the glass;
the (un)avoidable reminder of You.

By late evening I’ve noticed three white cars
the windows tinted like shields
against my false-hope stares,
but I know they’re just doppelgangers
turning the corner and driving away.

At midnight I see the fireflies sprinkle my yard,
the streetlights finally put to work;
as the moon glazes my window
with that softly knowing glow.

So I bow to her,
the glass cool against my head
(like the kiss of a never-ending fever)
as I whisper my prayers to the windowpane
hoping the closer I am to God
the faster something will happen.

But by morning, only the man will walk by
his mail in the same hand;
defeated, unchanging, and almost surreal
as I sit by my window
waiting for an answer.