as jokingly as I can but
with a still hold on seriousness in the
air I tell you, "I'm the best you'll ever have,"
and to reply
you whisper into my hair almost as if
I really was an answer to the prayers
that quickly passed beneath your eye lids while you slept,
“amen”
Mar 7, 2018
Mar 7, 2018 at 3:24 PM UTC
as simple as it sounds, I want to always remember the way you look at me under the dim awful lighting at my favorite sushi restaurant. and I want to remember the way your voice sounds when you call me a romantic as we fall asleep to Star Wars playing in the background.
Jan 10, 2018
Jan 10, 2018 at 3:57 PM UTC
It rained and rained
Until I was sure
Our hearts had spilled over
Into the night and I couldn’t
Keep my body off yours.
Nov 8, 2017
Nov 8, 2017 at 4:03 PM UTC
We looked at each others hands
and studied the lines
as if they would lead us somewhere.
They almost look identical,
my life line as long as yours.
The arches
and breaks in the
typography of our skin the same,
yet you do not know where I come
from and I
do not yet know you.
Oct 30, 2017
Oct 30, 2017 at 5:54 PM UTC
I'll always have
a romantic idea about you: an
idea that wakes me when the sun rises
and lures me to sleep knowing your
miles out of reach.
I'll always have that hopeless
swept up in a story sort of feeling remembering
how you looked at me.
Always with a smirk full of longing,
the tension between us tight enough
at any moment we were bound to
snap together in a passionate whirlwind.
I remember how a year ago
I was heartbroken over how
much I wanted you to want me.
Remembering the way you sleep
and for that brief night, how I felt
your arms like spider vines
tangling with my heart and my legs.
Sep 18, 2016
Sep 18, 2016 at 4:38 PM UTC
I've realized that I don't want this sadness
to be the biggest thing you've ever given me and
that the sun glows and burns with a heat
that reminds me of when I knew you
didn't see me as the one you were meant to be with.
My fingers felt hollow and it was a sadness that settled in between my
ribs and fingertips.
I felt heavy with the realization that learning about
this type of nostalgia comes
with getting over you.
I should have asked you to sing for me more,
and I should have held you more and kissed you
when I wanted.
I should have made you hold my hands because I am beginning to
forget what your hands felt like.
Your hands were my favorite part of you.
I've learned that a type of sadness comes
with riding in the car with other boys and
that being walked to my front door is something
you should have done.
Jul 27, 2016
Jul 27, 2016 at 10:42 AM UTC
We sleep in beds that aren’t ours
and use pillows formed to the shapes
of other people’s necks.
The curve of their bodies leave
shadows and memories. I feel
them seep into my skin as I sleep
and I wash them clean in the lake
in the dewy morning.
We make beds that aren’t ours
and rest in a sun that feels borrowed.
Blankets and linens smell clean,
but not like us. They are soft and worn
and cradle easily against our bodies.
We notice frames full of photographs
of people who aren’t our family.
Notes left on the fridge and drinking glasses
with fingerprints different from our own
kept in cabinets within our reach.
I eat fruit out of a bowl and wonder how
many others have tasted the iron of an old spoon
on their tongue.
At night, before the sun goes down
we ride bikes with broken seats that sit too low
and use a canoe that is dusty with another family’s story.
Apr 12, 2016
Apr 12, 2016 at 10:47 AM UTC
I imagine you buried
in deep pine.
Lowered into breathing earth.
Does regret expand into a lake
becoming a hole in your chest?
I reach in and all I find are evergreen branches.
Breathless lungs, we are embedded in you skin.
Your heart is a fist,
sand gritty in my teeth and stones
are heavy in our bellies.
I hear your voice over the VCR,
turn away, turn away,
deep,
deep,
deep.
I imagine because
forgiveness needs the morning,
and you were gone with the night.
Gone as the sun came up and
we head whispers of you between
the covers.
turn away, turn away.
I know how to feel nothing small,
and you felt nothing.
We say goodbye in whispers,
and are reminded of you by soft fleshy parts of our hearts
and scratches on VCR tapes,
your voice an endless echo.
This is our past we are still learning.
Mar 15, 2016
Mar 15, 2016 at 11:42 PM UTC
We use the lighthouse to bring us home
resting on the shore of Lake Michigan
as a welcoming beacon,
from the gallery standing
on the hill I can see our lake.
When we leave we bury our hearts
deep in the stones,
far enough under the surface we reach water.
we breathe in lake air and
draw compasses on the side of the lighthouse.
Water so deep,
and so blue, matching the color
of all of the women’s eyes.
We are caught by the water’s attention,
and when we are pulled back
to our everyday life,
we know the lake rests
within us.
Mar 15, 2016
Mar 15, 2016 at 11:42 PM UTC
The evergreens protect us from
the sun, glowing warm.
Our skin is tired.
Our mouths are weary
from talking,
saying the same lies over
until they tumble back over themselves.
Our limbs restless, kicking in the water
at the end of dock,
creating an endless wake.
Watching our towels dry in the night breeze,
and hoping they will be dry enough in the morning.
Long ago we were driven into the
lake by a raging forest fire.
Swimming until we thought we’d choke,
we drowned,
our bodies became islands.
Inlets of moss and forest, sand touched
by ***** feet and berry vines eaten bare,
we cry.
The bluffs our witnesses to all
the yelling and crying,
to all the tears that fell like
lightning bugs in the night.
Glowing softly
when we’d look off the balcony of the house.
The lake reeds wrapping around my ankles,
we search for Petoskey stones hidden
in the sand.
Feb 21, 2016
Feb 21, 2016 at 8:27 PM UTC