I miss the old winters
That warmed up my soul
As a kid, I'd drink cocoa
Coming in from the cold

I could sit by the fire
Mittens drying nearby
I'd watch my brothers sleep
As I made up lullabies

Papa would tell us stories
Like how his cat once flew to mars,
Or how he stole our grand mama
When fighting in a bar

I'd then make up an adventure
Of when we would be all grown
How we'd be the best of friends
And together we'd share a big home

I miss those old heartfelt winters
That held nothing but beautiful glow
But the fire has long turned to ashes
And the house is empty and cold

I place my gloves on the table
Boiling a warm *** of tea
The radio blasts to cover the sound
Of the silence that always haunts me

If you think the moon has a soul
And the trees are whispering your name
If you can feel the pulse of a mountain
And see advancing armies in the clouds
Start writing, you're thinking like a poet

The snow is thin and pale today
like that girl –
you thought –
from the Home Depot –
the palette of an empty day

I think, instead
to smooth my hand along your arm
extend dominion 'cross your chest
To till the damp ***** of your shoulder
in surging heat
of earthen tones
to find in winter flames
your brow, your cheek, your neck

...your mouth that way...

This is the braille I'm all about
being far-sighted
and just too close
to even focus on you –
your eyes –
and all
the loss
these days

I long to see you already,
Even if the time of our separation—
The distance of a second
Which felt like a lifetime—
Was so short.

my favorite dance step of yours
is when your fingers
start to play the piano.

and because you,
who speaks little with strangers,
suddenly become the talk

of everyone
when you let your hands
speak for you.

You are a novel
gathering dust on my shelf
but not because I don’t want to read
but because I’m afraid
to turn the page,
afraid of how you’ll end

You know the type.
She's probably called something like
Isabella. Rosalie. Ginevra.
and you find her in the sort of novel where
she's outdone by someone called something like
Jane. Agnes. Lucy.
She's remembered in criticism as
Trivial. Silly. Foolish.
She's defined as Shallow. Vain. False gold.
She's analysed as the mirror, the contrast or the foil
and you're supposed to vaguely dislike her.
She'll reaffirm to the reader that the heroine,
whether she be plain or beautiful, is always, in the end,
Rational. Independent. Brave.
She reaffirms the heroine as someone who
learns and grows
while the silly girl is left looking at herself in the mirror.

The thing is sometimes I feel more like the silly girl,
the girl who needs a hand, the girl who reads books
and wants to believe the stories.
Sometimes, I'm looking in the mirror,
chest deep in my own trivial, silly little worries,
looking at the puddles not the lake, and I know.
I know I'd be one of the silly girls,
not the heroine, out there, just surviving.
I'd be one of those silly girls and I hate it - and yet
- what's so wrong with the silly girls?

What's so wrong with the girls who love themselves,
or love the wrong people or love their clothes?
What's wrong with the girls who are
brave but not rational,
independent but trivial,
selfish but practical?

What's wrong with those girls,
because I always find myself preferring
the Ginevras and the Isabellas anyway.

"You look like love,"
she said one night,
cold with the
whispers of winds
on old cobblestone
and hushed
footsteps
of snow-covered
boots.

He stopped
in his tracks,
the cherry of
his cigarette
pulsing
like the colors
of a spinning
satellite
lightyears away
from their newly-found
lives.

"What does love
look like?"
he asked,
syllables hanging
close to his face,
blue eyes
darting
from her lips
to her hands
and back again.

But he knew.
He knew from the first
time he shook her hand
and saw the
sweat glisten off her
brow,
and listened to her
listless stories
of how summer
never truly loved her,
that one day
he truly would.

She smiled,
lips cracking
from the dry air,

"It looks like an
overflowing sink,
fresh with bubbles
from soapy dishwater
left unattended
to waltz in the kitchen.

It looks like ice
cracking
to the sweet smoke
of scotch
and the divot
on the couch that
sinks our thighs
and the thought
of any afternoon plans
deep
in crevasses
we're both too sleepy
to crawl out of.

It looks like all
the things
the world
took from me
and promised
it would never give back,
but instead packaged
in a
candle
bright enough
to illuminate
all the dark places
and remind me
that even though
others have treated me
like a
flicker,
I'm truly a
flame."