I push my bike up the hill,
The lamplight endlessly underwater
I look down narrow gutted houses
And fit my imagination through them, chipped paint scraping against my skin
I walk to where the lines converge
A single point, a fixed value
I watch spectral dust swim in the fluid
The night is cavernous, like a cage
Behind me, a cemetery sleeps.
Spirits listen as factories churn water from below.
Both surveilling a muddy sky
Windows faintly glow
Amber prophesying oddities, a star-shaped bone
I run my finger over smoothness
Above, stripped wires hang like tinsel
A chemical subdues me,
Digesting dreams and licking wounds
My heart has been a dormant thing,
Like life in the desert.
The alley flickers
Under intoxicating yellow street lamps,
A substance I keep inside
A desert bird is nesting
I remember.
A clean river rushes over me.
I remember.
Clear glass jars in the sink.
I fill them with rain water.
I remember.
Opening the cedar door to coyotes in the night.
I remember.
Lemon balm growing next to the house.
But I remember the switchboard loves.
I go there.
Concrete sets in my bones.
The forest swallows me whole.
Mar 1
Mar 1, 2026 at 12:11 PM UTC
i looked down and my shadow lightened
the moonrise glowed lavender and sage,
saturating the trail like smoke
where stars fell over bodies
they shimmered, dripping under skin
in iridescent ribbons.
we rest at the peak, searching blank clouds
like a seed in winter,
wondering milky-eyed at a coffin's lid
i feel the dampness
the give of my walls
until the earthworms find me.
i look at my hands.
they're here, on the hill. in the meadow.
pathways bleed down the slopes around us.
connecting like a chain
we walk, circling your name in my mouth
tethered to lightless birds
my foot prints echo up the hill
grasses bend, then weave around the sound
wordlessly, i'm already in love
i look at the meadow in the sky:
a moon's halo opens like a doorway
now, your eyes are blue.
the light changes, it's growing under a wine glass
my shadow stretches to meadow's edge
the ground is night colors
it smells like lilac
the winds know
wiped away, but inside
under curling grasses
undulating, lyrical fingers
which close you like a chapter,
bookmarked on a line of red.
a scene of you
the sound of leaves
a night-painted hill
submerged in stars
i bury the moon under soil
tapping the grave with metal trowel
now that we've had ***
the music ends
we're in the ground, too
searching for cloud-covered comets
absently, we wait...
holding hands under weighted dirt.
i know what birth feels like
an almost-death
a bridge, skating a finger across
a sharp metal edge
plunged into earth.
now, i've seen an angel.
my other - it pushes up into me.
we're belonging.
a moon outlined in salt.
i sleep, holding the candle and a string.
Mar 1
Mar 1, 2026 at 12:42 AM UTC
A million moons drape over each leaf,
Multiplying my eye
Fanning over lost laced loves.
Flashlights open hollow caverns of stars
Ivy beckons
My feet float over them,
Breathing rust and yarrow
Coal and clover
Grassy constellations in a myriad of soft blue
Nothing is coming for me here
But the moon watches him
I look over darkened shoulder
And see iridescence, my moon-silhouette,
Gardening the night fruit
Lunar beams crown my head,
I am another moon.
Dark and light, watchful phases
A million raindrops
Invert the sky and earth
And paint with them on the ground
I hold ceramic bowl swirling
A century old stone
Rain presses on me like a thumb sealing a letter
The leaves fall, digital and real, striations of glistening decay
Gingko fans muddle, outlining their mother
Collaging the trees’ scraps into halos
Rain covers concrete cherubs
Their eyes blank, nested in ancient vines
Watching the clouds cleanse their concrete bodies.
Moonset is behind the weeping sky.
The pools ripple.
Leaves shake the wet from their moon drunkenness.
They remember, in cells and membranes
How moonlight rebirths them in the dark.
I look under the source,
and see my sky silken silhouette.
Darker, then lighter.
Eclipsed mind and heart.
The rain fills my empty bowl.
The moon looks into it.
Feb 22
Feb 22, 2026 at 12:50 PM UTC
I put a finger or two into the soil.
It gives.
It smells like healing.
It feels like hope.
I tuck in the little ones, I bury their bony figures in the dirt.
Good night, sweet dreams. I love you. I love you. I love you.
I watch the little ones sleep
I laugh with them and sing to them
I follow the extent of myself down rabbit holes
I give myself tenderly
Because I will always love her
My heart hovers over my body when I think on mothering
Branching canopies over sunlight dappled childhood bed.
Science asserts motherhood - so do the deer in the garden
Each day, the mothers stay and come back. They always come back, I tell them. Mommies come back. Until they don't. When the string is pulled, they will be back, I say. They return in yourself. They never leave.
Hurry! Look! She's grooming her baby.
Watch! They're eating the pears.
Come to the window! The fawns are playing.
First two, then four babies.
They remember me,
In a lantern-lit woods after dark
A red crescent moon over blue-green pine trees
Needles tangle and twist
Cold wind combs your hair,
Woven wool pulls me in, closer to her fingers.
Wax drips on the mirror.
The understory overturns fresh soil,
Ferns and mice play
Waiting for all of us to become them
It will simplify again
Climbing the trees she planted
Cradling and brushing me with leaves
Pink and white mixed together.
I look at a garden window,
My heart taken
My hands hold babies, my womb holds myself
Habitually, I go back in time.
A circular stone ---
It swells.
It flows down my legs.
Feb 22
Feb 22, 2026 at 11:25 AM UTC
at a desk
i remember it was raining, i was 4 years old.
my childhood yard is foggy and gray, muddy and inundated with moss and clover and bittercress. the rabbits love mustard greens and nettle and under the chipped-paint back porch. the swing-set grows lichen, rusted chains and leaf littered platforms. neighborhood kids are scared to play on it, but it remains for the squirrels. plastic windowpanes frame this view, childhood really isn't that bad. there's just a lot i actively try not to remember while experiencing it.
we painted wooden trains because of my mother. we did almost everything because of her. and it was raining, such a good activity to do when we couldn't play outside. what a wonderful problem to have, to have to paint wooden trains with those I love, because the flowers had to grow.
we painted the trains supernova colors or neat orderly lines. now dust collects on them. when are toys forgotten? is it a gradual decline, or a sudden shift one day? do they ever think it was their fault? i need to play with them, move their paint-sealed lips. so they were not created in vain, they can speak and breathe.
in the desk were muddled crayons and pencil shavings, journals i never knew what to do with. everything smelled like those pencil boxes from school, of reforested cedar. sharp and woody, how can i justify learning times tables with a reclaimed forest? shiny gray graphite rubs off on my little hands. i am little, and i am not.
around the desk were my mothers plants, some quietly hanging brass bells in the frosted chandelier. home is always full of glass, colors, rainbows, vintage mohogany and soft white cotton linens. places i want to roll around on, analyze every seam like a fine art piece. or someone in a mental asylum. a historic place, where rabbits and crows and squirrels are buried in the yard. a historic place, where grandfather dogs are sleeping under juniper bushes. i remember their cardboard shoe boxes, the chain dangling from the unfinished basement ceiling's pipes. nothing marks their graves but our memory, what is more beautiful than a mind's image? an untitled art piece?
at that time the carpet was wall-to-wall, before dad ripped it up and we saw old nail holes like constellations under the basement ceiling. the carpet was a ***** cream color i could dig my toes and fingers in. what a good problem to still have baby toys, to have parents 40 years older than me. to have time and to hold. to love other people's children because i chose to explore and make art and make mistakes. the baby toys haven't moved, a lot hasn't. crystallized or petrified, how could i be that special to another person?
the trees were growing in the yard, but you don't realize what is temporary until you outgrow it... it was a hot summer and i was sitting in an old ford 1960 green XL that smelled like old gasoline and mold, decaying basketballs and leather baking in the sun. i love everything about you, old friend. i'm sorry my education cost your life. im sorry i care and i don't make a lot of money, you sacrificed so much. gray and white and black. now we go back.
to the left of the desk, a mahogany cabinet with pinewood derby cars, preserved pink and white wedding flowers float in a glass dome, speckled glass hearts refract light quietly on the shelf, and model cars sit neatly stacked, locked away with an ornate key in the wooden bowl. like my great grandmothers books, margaret, who was my mother's most beloved second mom. i wish i knew when i was younger how much you meant to her. we climbed on your grave where your husband's ashes were hidden. i wish to cook with lots of crisco and live with my sister in a house with a white gravel driveway, alone, playing piano and painting. the shattered kitchen floor linoleum and creaky attic fans in your old kentucky house are all that i have of you. i'm sorry family politics destroyed that house you loved so much. i love it now more than i would have ever guessed.
art crafted by 4 children shimmered on the walls with pencil marks and stickers, ceramic tiles above the fireplace we seldom lit. it feels like a pool being rained on, slowly being added to while losing definition in the picture reflected back. dog fur clouded the periphery of the staircase perpetually, what a good issue to have. he overate and didnt go on enough walks and wasnt in our beds enough, where he wasn't allowed. his ashes are being buried with my mom.
if only there was more time to sit and be bored, waiting to grow. if only quality time was a commodity, not a luxury. if only i unplugged this computer and fell asleep, thinking of nothing but open green trails lined with trillium and wildflowers, being outside and having time.
i sat at my small wooden desk, facing the window where bunnies played. bored and impatient, i made a mental note to remember what it feels like to be 4 years old. i remember thinking about kangaroos, as if that was important. looking back, it really was.
i am now 25 years old. time moves like sunset colors, don't wait an instant. the lines on my face are monet's haystacks he kept going back to, the light constantly in flux. i spend my time with 4 year olds, they play and eat and sleep. i watch their faces, thinking of how old and young they seem. i draw their outlines in crayola pencil for them, soon to be scribbled over. how sweetly they annotate their likeness with my moments. how aware and unaware. i cradle them when they cry, dance with them when they're happy, read to them and sing to them. i don't feel like i'm good at my job. i care and i spend time with them, holding them and their strangeness. i ask them questions and get swept away. i follow stories and am healing. i missed a lot, i tried to fit in and be quiet. when did i start? when do i stop? with them, i can't help but be myself. i have to.
driving on the highway, my father pointed at a break in the clouds, sunlight spilling through onto a distant forested hillside. "grace!" he'd say, full of optimism. i never asked, but is grace the gap in the clouds? the light, or the land receiving the light? i want to weave my body through the ribbons of sunlight, hold them and tie a firm knot. how it feels to feel. to hold and be held, suspended, full of grace. maybe someone went to heaven, maybe someone is being blessed. hearing joy wash over my father's voice, we were definitely blessed. we were already in heaven. i'm already made of light, i come to realize. take a photo, receive it. be taken and given to. my reflection again in your eyes. yours in mine.
i want the mundanity the gory the true the real. i can't live at a desk, i have to write i have to remember i have to feel. i have to save them. i feel no joy looking at screen, tapping keyboard, clicking mouse. i watch a window, hear the pitter patter of rain, and finger-paint the same spot over and over again. tap, tap, tap.
the voices talk to me. (it's glitter paint, by the way. and sisters are singing.)
i cried when my wisdom teeth were taken out piece by piece because my mom took care of me, like i was forgiven. i need my guilt absolved. i need to be held and to cry in a woman's arms. the children fall and repeat their mothers' names. sacred prayers. never once an "our father". i pick yellow flowers from the garden, put them at her place.
i am here because of her. slowly, i become her.
concealed in the desk, the paint colors sit next to each other on the palette. destined to be, inseparable, passing through time.
Apr 12, 2025
Apr 12, 2025 at 11:44 AM UTC
daylight diminishes with each passing day, golden sunlight bathes the early evenings with a subtle scent of warmth. I trust that you are well.
snow begins to fall; it collects over the garden like antique film. memories reorganize like the seasons. i watch the garden through a gap in white curtains and become buried in the hibernation of ferns. my mind can be sleeping and seeing. a withering, muffled underground. december light holds wisps of summer heat, it echoes in blank pastel sky like a church bell.
of all the many things in the little garden, i regard the ferns the most. planted when i was an abstract idea, we watch each other grow. old friend, ancestor, i talk to you in my head about the memory of all things.
coiled in fractal spirals, scenes unfold across the garden in antediluvian spirals. an explosion of twisting green tangles and wisps, a dusting of spores. whispering buds relax their clenched fists in sunken earth and seek the taste of light. they capitulate to nothing but the crumbling red brick walls. you are me, as i am you.
your green captivates me; leaves that glow from within. the colors stretch and soak in the sun. i see them in a clairvoyant crystal gaze, prophecies are being written. the garden book expands and hooks to the fabric of the curtains, flickering from winter to spring.
i have not seen another person in months. i am not in the garden, the garden is me. leaves swell with my breath, growing and shrinking like the stars.
Mar 28, 2025
Mar 28, 2025 at 7:46 PM UTC
The morning air was cold in the forest.
Sweeping black wisps in a microscope lens, her eyelashes outlined an illuminated tapestry reflected back. Sunlight brushed them, the feathery frame changed; from crows taken flight to a gilded insect’s wing. Icy fingers slowly opened the tubes, aquamarine humming with rusty umber. Dawn suddenly unfolded -- a cacophony of colors flowed and collided in dance, like fluids mixing. Interconnected here nor there, alive and dead. Our destinies are prewritten revelations echoed behind a closed door. Fallen asleep, the earth turned. Waiting for wings, to remember or not. Flutes floated in the forest.
Late autumn leaves muddled under footprints as she trailed over dew-beaded clovers, eager for warmth. The canvas stretched and yawned across pillowy mosses, crawling into pastel blue and pink lichens. Rich with abundance, ancient fossils petrified in phthalo and quinacridone. Colors swam like waterfalls in the hum. Water wrapped rounded stones like a gift, carrying the rains to ease the path. Tied root ladders of grandmother trees spoke quietly and whispered secrets.
She wondered who she would love, for how long. Back then, soon. Never at all. All at once. The cells and molecules danced in the sun, exuberant, entirely animate within her. Around her. They all called her name. Her limbs ached with longing and belonging.
The birds fell silent. The whooshing water and gentle wind lulled.
Filaments of starlight filtered through the last tails of fog. The forest was overflowing with love. Colors moved independently of their origins. She could chart all of the comets and meteors, earthworms and beetles. The trees wrapped their boughs around her, reverent and wistful. The art of existence is radical and imminent.
Slowly, she became a tree. Regarding, keeping. No matter how the story ends, she could lay on the mosses and close her eyes. Wild grasses would reclaim her heart. Forest mice would build their nest in the cave of ribs. Love would live.
She whispered her prayer to them, the mice. Shadows crawled closer. Trees bent lower, listening. How could she ever see her friends again.
Her first memory of dirt: gardening with her mother and overturning a stone. Mesmerized, reborn, her land, her hand. Clovers sprouted over her like clouds eclipsing the sun. Something that didn’t hurt. Maybe she would become them, too... warp the light around her body. Become the light. Be the doorway. Reflect it and change it. Make something new. In the night, iridescent on the damp forest floor.
“Are you listening?” Eyes drifted upwards, her painting half-finished. The bristles clouded a glass of river water, clinking against the rim as sediment settled like smoke.
"We held your feet when you were born, bathed in us. We remember."
Irises stretched deep enough to swim in. Cool water trickled over her bare skin. The forest held her hand, brushed her hair, gifted her a name.
Tilted into sunlight. The microscopic mountain ranges in her fingerprints. The freckle on her left hand. The dirt from planting on her fingertips. The body of earth. Twisting like gyroscopes. Like parchment, scraped clean, hung tightly to dry. Waiting for a divine word, charmed lilies proliferating the margins. An illumination, an unveiling, an apocalypse. The word of a god, punctuated by freckles and scars. Dirt and insect wings. Unspoken, eyes closed under dirt. There may not have been twice as many stars, but her book--her body-- felt light on her skin, in her blood.
She could yell or scream or run. She could climb and burrow and fall. She accepted them. To be fossilized, to burn, to decay. A fleeting thing, an embraced verdancy. The moss agate bookends were on the shelf with white painted trim. Collecting dust, written, unwritten. Known, unknown.
Turning the page, her arm swept over the sun, smearing light down to a glowing understory.
Dec 22, 2024
Dec 22, 2024 at 10:50 AM UTC
i want to sit next to my sister - we do not have to say anything --- do I recognize her as a near 30 year old? - i want to stop and curl and curve my body like a little conch shell - i want to hum like the ocean - the songs of infants - the hands of grandparents - i want to laugh on my death bed - surrounded by bugs and bees digging deep into pollen cradles, clawing and rolling in dust, rocking wind.
i want to braid my sister's freshly washed, cool, clean turquoise green hair. it feels like it has been years since i did something so simple, so caring. i want to sit and weave it until there is almost nothing left, but the silk aqua rope i can run my fingers down like water. i want to thread the pieces over and under my heart strings. she is the earth, the sky, the moon - the altars of rocks - the shapes we see in them.
///
i dreamt of a woman sleeping - she was made of sand - she was off the shore of new york city --- before the sky scrapers, streets, pandemonium --- with purple kelp for hair. she was so beautiful - a sand bar, as big as a dune, beneath a thin layer of sun-warmed translucent water as open as day. she was silent, laying like a fetus on her side under the waves. i swam to her, held in on the loose sand like an anemone. \\\
i want to sit on a warm rock in the sun - overlooking the valley, the lake, the blue mountains. i want to be the Appalachian air - i want to do nothing - but to live. i want to listen and dance and run and flow - join a coven, scale a cliff. i want to talk to the night, watch birds and find mushrooms - follow magical, mysterious things. red berry juice runs down my fingers.
filling the bath up to the overflow drain - i want to fix the faucet. spaces became smaller, memories overlap and forage in Michigan forests. they sprawl and creep - moss inches glacially over our backs. the spine remains on the island, the bogs embalm. i sit sweetly, cross legged, twisting my hair around my finger - thinking of pebbles as road systems, sycamore and sumac houses. the quietest, mildest evening sunlit place you could imagine bathed in green and gold, grace - lit and heaven - struck. a place of peace, calm, warm.
i am thinking about the sound of the stream through the house, how we always can choose simpler. i want permeable walls to the sunrise - to rain sounds - to the crickets and cicadas and spiders - to the smoke, the fog, the mountain laurel. wild raspberries are wisps of cadmium red on raw canvas. ducks fade in and out of graphite and watercolor drawings against the sky // buoyant on the pond, hawthorn and mugwort dreaming.
i want to see the flickering rainbow lights, sit on a fairy's wing. sway and jump and spread my arms wide - wide - wider - up - up - and up! iridescent, shining, on a beam of light. i am lighter than air, i am the essence of light. the memory of time.
a copper suncatcher eye, a fragmentation through a lens. i want to sit - i want to rest and run backwards in my mind - upside down and through the channels of plants - tracing each petal of a daisy. the circulatory system of green canopies. i want to turn off and on again, i want to be shocked and taken to the sea.
the patterns take me, the colors soar. i sit and feel the love from everything. it is tangible, weaving itself between my fingers like yarn.
uncover my soul, tell me it is real? i want to make - i want to remember - i want to plant, eat, grow. i sit and revel at it all - my motherhood, my sisterhood, their daughters. the womb, the darkness to light to the peat.
to live in a spiral bound sketchbook, in my great grandmother margaret's wooden, hand-painted pencil box. i would make the memory of her love my home. the piano keys float through open kentucky windows to the garden.
i tighten the knot, the wooden chess pieces move. i live in a place where i am but i am not - the story is told, i put together the pieces differently. the forest shatters, i'm holding a piece of the mirror from 3 years ago. it shimmers, cuts, fades, dissipates the neon jungle throughout the night - i find it all incredibly comforting and dizzying, being here, under the moon, behind the trees at night.
the moon phases - arcs - dips - dives - toward you - through you - glowing, resonant, alive //\\||
Jul 8, 2024
Jul 8, 2024 at 7:54 PM UTC