In my dreams the spirits float far and fast ahead,
Delivering all the souls of the deceased in trips,
Carried to the one abyss their bones still hide the red,
Keep the truth when they are dead, so they are torn as sticks.
These bones carry the truth till they meet one with life,
Reach the fields and the dead part all their fear
With a silence that is deft they use a hatchet or a knife,
So that none can tell that death's dark spirit is quite near.
In the meadow none can see that foot prints have been made,
They walk until dawn is come, so they all must roam.
Misty and translucent, above the earth of wet brown clay,
They shall keep walking until they've found deaths home.

I am the in between
The middle
The line
The bridge
The limbo
The paleness
The fence
The open
The link
The connection
The break
I am the in between

The first to be forgotten
The last to be seen

a trembling reaction
to every way you fought to keep my hands in yours
a fickle name to how your eyelids only leaked promises
and how i only ever met your lips with broken glass
you tried to pry the answers from my cigarette but you forgot that I buried your baby teeth in the backyard last summer
one, two,
count my fingers out the window like your swans almost in flight
every creature passed under your embrace learned how to curve their wings up like forged protection
from your spitfire

our teeth leak venom and motor oil, it tastes like how your fists feel against your children's skin
when you wrap the women in chains made of expensive gifts and shattered promises, sometimes they clean their teeth and fight back.

maybe i won't remember to draw the curtains after you leave

but i'll always leave a key under your pillow.

it has been one year, eleven months, and four days since i last saw your face
since i watched your hand raise to your lips like a nun in silent prayer in a farewell
just for me
through the ***** window
as i held the folded up note in my hand like my heart that was drawn with the words i needed to explain to you that I was scared I would forget how to breathe with you gone
that i still needed you
and then you were gone, your body disappeared out sight
it has been one year, eleven months, and four days since you left
and now i have something to say
i was sixteen years old, and my eyes were bright
i was sixteen and the way you dragged your fingertips across my back as you walked by like mice scurrying across the floor made me feel more than i ever thought it was possible to feel
how naive of me
i was sixteen and when your rough lips grazed my ear like an animal stalking its prey my heart exploded for every single possibility that your words held
i was sixteen and every time my father struck me i could feel it reverberating through my bones because my tender mind hadn’t caught up with my aching body yet and i knew  i knew that you were wrong
but when you stroked my hair and kissed my fingertips and your hands grasped my waist like you were holding on for dear life the only truth i could hear above the frantic beating of my heart was that you wanted me
that you validated me
you weaved your hands between my ribs and slipped your fingers around my heart and when you left YOU RIPPED OUT MY HEART AND TOOK IT WITH YOU
YOU SHATTERED EVERY WAY IN WHICH I THOUGHT I WAS WORTHWHILE

i’m not sixteen anymore
and i spent one year, eleven months, and four days trying to make the pieces of my broken self fit together in the same way that they did before your eyes become the reason that i smiled every day
i’ve spent all this time trying to tell myself that it wasn’t my fault, wasn’t my fault, wasn’t my fault WASN’T MY FAULT
I DON’T CARE WHAT THEY SAY BECAUSE YOU CAN’T TELL ME IM WISE FOR MY AGE WHEN I LET A MONSTER REDEFINE THE TRUTHS I THOUGHT I KNEW ABOUT MYSELF
it has been one year, eleven months, and four days
I want my heart back

once again,
curved fists and clenched eyebrows and your words are venom in my mouth
MY LIPS ARE BLEEDING, BROKEN THAT I'M ONLY TRYING TO HELP
little baby, little boy curled up in your accusations
he reaches a single finger, gnarled and unsure
your violence and insults and broken hands are turning him from boy to
m o n s t e r.

"you're the only one who understands me"
watch as my heart crumbles and falls into the ocean  in every single
way i've ever wanted to save you

i'm sorry
the telescope lens is still cloudy
i have to cut my knees and crawl back through the ******* dungeon
find my way through the bramble and glass and barbed wire
I'M TIRED OF GOING BACK GOING BACK GOING BACK
i want the safety
of the muted nest and momma's lemon tree
i promise
i won't eat all the broccoli
if you'll let me come home.

easy visions of hopeful future days
boys with dark scarves and fingertips and
tongues carved like needles

unwound with blue lace
smoke like curling paper scraps

the sky is violet
yellow and gray and aching
the trees are paintbrush silhouettes

home stock draining roots
i caress your ball-bearing palms
like drawing lilies from water's edge
inside the sunbeam we cannot see

dreams of once upon a time late nights
held between bitten fingernails and chapped lips
of fourteen years old
a smoke hazy and ***** loss of consciousness

of movement
of loss