it feels like for a brief moment, we slipped into another dimension in which that was our life, a parallel world existing simultaneously as the one we are currently living here

we were those people and we are also these people which I guess means that we are so many different people living somewhere else right at this very moment

like the life I have here and the person I am here is just one beautiful version but now that I've peeked in through a window into this alternate life, it has swung open the door to a million other lives and avenues and dreams and desires

like some part of me is still there and hasn't made it back yet

like this isn't the me that's supposed to be here and the me that's there is the wrong one
maybe we are both mourning the other "right" life

like I should be sitting dizzy along the Boston harbor, a cool breeze and soft hazy light washing over me, my hands in my coat pockets and your head on my shoulder, a small smile at the corner of my lips, laughs loaded in the chamber, because everything feels so perfect that there is no way any other place in the world exists outside of that moment

and she should be sitting here, along the bay, watching the red sun set over the gulf, listening to the familiar song of the water lapping the rocks below, taking her ritual stroll of coming back into herself, and her home is quiet but not for long because she's counting down the minutes until the moment he walks in the door with open arms and an excited hello

both of these people exist but they can't together, and to accept one is to deny the other and neither feels fair or good or
right

and in that realization it is impossible to not think about all of the decisions that led to this life and not that one or any other one and how by chance, I ended up here but could have just as easily ended up anywhere else and that discovery is too big to settle into over a three hour flight and fourteen hundred miles because

somewhere I am sitting in a park in Rome, fingers sticky from eating peaches next to my best friend in the grass, and somewhere,

I am dancing on a frozen lake in Bar Harbor with rosy cheeks and bright eyes, and somewhere

I am back home, wandering the streets of the french quarter after a few glasses of red wine and a soft saxophone fills the silence in the distance and my parents are only an hour away and somewhere,

I am riding a bike through the cemetery as spring brings pink blossoms to the trees in Tallahassee and I never left

and I never met any of you

and these are the people that I always have been, always will be, never was, and never will be again

I have never been held quite like that
like that day in the ocean
you held me how the ocean held me
how it let me float clung to my skin molded around us
the hold the ocean has holds up

you kept saying the waves had hands every time they crashed into us
white foam clouding the way my legs wrapped around your waist when we went too far for my toes to touch
you held me and I felt light
my heart was weightless and my head was heavy dropping back over and over again
laughing up at the sky
looking into your eyes
the setting sun glistening off your skin and turning your brown eyes golden
the way I know these days are
golden

we pressed our whole bodies on the sand right next to the water and let the waves wash up over us and laughed each time we had to resign farther and farther up the shore because they were up to our ears
we pressed our whole bodies on the floor of the tub, my back against your chest against the white ceramic and your head falling back to rest against the blue tile your brown eyes closed chin up towards the ceiling
I felt so held when we pressed our bodies flat against white fitted sheets hands on each other’s cheeks your thumbs rubbing my hair out of my face staring at each other in silence still the waves crashing over us my comforter clouding the way my legs draped over your waist
wish I could hold onto those moments forever the way you held me that day in the ocean

'Souvenir' comes from the french word meaning remembrance. It is an almost universal behavior to collect tiny mementos while traveling, some tangible object that holds all of the intangible memories and joy that came with the moment. Souvenirs are a quite lovely sentiment when you really think about it - before the plastic and mass-production and tourism industry come into the picture. In Japan, souvenirs are called omiyage, which travelers bring back home to loved ones and friends as a sort of apology for their absence, a way of saying "sorry you couldn't make it" or "wish you were here."
Today, the top ten most popular souvenirs are ornaments, t-shirts, postcards, shot glasses, tattoos, sand in a bottle, fridge magnets, tea towels, key rings, and random gifts. My mother has chosen to cherish the seventh most popular form of souvenir: fridge magnets. Manmade refrigerator magnets were popularized in the 1960's for educational and functional purposes but very quickly evolved into fun and inexpensive decor. She has so many state shaped magnets from all around the US, and a few from outside of it.
The thing with my mother though, is that she has always been a self-proclaimed homebody. I sometimes worry that she has agoraphobia but I think most of it is just that she never really had the opportunity to explore the world outside of the dead end street she grew up on (and still lives on to this day). She was raised by her grandfather who was a merchant marine and traveled often during her childhood, but she married and had kids at a young age and never really had the time or money to go on her own adventures. She was a stay-at-home mom to my four siblings and I, as well as to all of the neighborhood kids. Her door and arms and ears were always open for them. Now those neighborhood kids are all grown and so am I and they're off having their own kids and I'm off having my own adventures, but we all make a point to bring her back a magnet from the places we visit.

The wide variety of magnets you can find in a single gift shop in every city surprised me at first. There is now an art to choosing the perfect one for my mom - I went to four different shops in Portland, Oregon trying to find the perfect one. I never found the perfect one but still, that's dedication. I stray away from the boring traditional ones with the state name and shape (although this type is one of the less creative neighborhood kids go-to) and try to find ones that will make her laugh or show her some of the culture or sights from the city instead.
A green-eyed squirrel from North Carolina, a candy skull from Cancun, the mysterious Bigfoot from Washington, a sailboat from Maryland, a front porch with a lamppost from Puerto Rico, manatees from Central Florida, and entirely too many Los Angeles cityscapes and Smoky Mountain bottle openers adorn the kitchen. So many, in fact, that she ran out of room on the refrigerator and had my dad mount a magnetic board in the kitchen hallway to fit them all.

I know it makes her happy to see all of her children having these experiences and seeing the world but most of the time it just makes me sad that she couldn't be there with me. I hate to think that she ever looks at them and feels like she's missed out on too much or that we held her back in any way, though I know she would never admit that. We bring her souvenirs so she can live vicariously through us, so that she can cherish our memories in place of her own. Even now that I've moved away, I mail her magnets from Florida as an apology for my absence.  
I rate them three out of five stars.

I am so afraid that the longer I stay in one place the more people around me will come to know and understand me and the thought paralyzes me

Am I pushing them away because I can’t stomach that level of vulnerability or does it really take just a few quick months for people to learn to love and then get sick of me

I want to run away and start again but I’ve already done that twice and both times it’s taken less than a year to start to feel that way again

Is that empty weight in my chest really called loneliness and why is it that heavy and how long do I have to carry this around for
how far across the world do I need to drive and how long do I need to disappear to remind myself to stop packing these insecurities at the bottom of my suitcase when I go

the sticky taste of metal,
lime,
cholula, and eventually
beer
hits my chapped lips as I hide a tender smile
watching you fight back tears and laugh at how silly you must be for it while talking about your past, thinking about your future,
how hard your dad was on you,
the internal war going on in your head telling you to make him proud by surrendering your own happiness.

your vulnerability pierced my HEART in that moment,
choked me up a little bit;
it's been a while since i've seen that level of sincerity in another person.
I wanted to freeze time and the people talking around us,
reach out a hand, and tell you:

you are safe to cry with me.

I have a habit of overthinking
hard as I try I cannot stop the growth of a thought
once the seed has been planted

(I remember driving to the city once
we wanted to take my niece and his nephew to the aquarium
the kids asked about the blanket of vines and leaves that formed wall-like structures on both sides of the interstate
we told them about how it was an invasive species from Asia, and that it spread all across the south and engulfed whatever plants and trees that originally stood there
the whole hour ride they sat in the backseat,
shouting "kudzu!" every time they spotted it out the window)

kudzu
kudzu
kudzu
kudzu
kudzu
kudzu

some places beg to be written about
the lighthouse at what feels to be the edge of the world
has always been one of those places.
the desolate trees stretching up to a gray sky, a birds nest resting, teetering at the top of a bare branch
the clouded water revealing nothing of its depths
the fog so heavy - it doesn't linger, it lives there
forcing quiet introspection
demanding stillness
from those who squint through the gloom

at other times, astonishingly, the landscape transforms
monarch butterflies migrate en masse and flutter on the milkweeds
the sun sets, a tangerine looming over the saltwater marsh
tiny ***** dart into their holes in the sand and slowly poke their way back out when the coast is clear

In my memories of this place
I am always looking down at myself, on my bike,
small,
coasting down the winding road that leads to the tower for miles,
keeping up with the kid on his rollerblades weaving across dotted yellow lines
All-seeing, in the act of storytelling,
As if I'm one of the woodpeckers perched in the pines

remember the poem i always said
i'd write about that light
house well here it goes
ten months later
and certainly not as romantic as id
hoped

ok ok so
i'm the lighthouse
(of course, you should've predicted that one)
oh oh and
you're the boat thats never coming home
(of course i should've predicted that one)
some days its sunny and if i squint
reeeeal hard -
hand over my brow and thumb on my temple

i can see the shore!

other days the fog is so
thick
so grey
so heavy
i cant see the hands reaching out to hold me

but frankly, i'm not sure they're even there anymore

I tried to be strong for you when your mom died
We cried in the car in the driveway next door with all of the lights off
I held your hand up to my mouth and kissed it
We sat in silence and sobs for a long while before we were ready to go into my own moms house
I hug her tighter now
I wonder if you wish it were the other way around
I know I would find it hard not to

I see her in your stubbornness
Your silliness
Your vices
Your voice
Losing her is like losing a big part of you
Like losing a big part of myself

I wanted more years with her
But for now I’ll water her ivy and always wear patchouli and watch my mouth when I want to say “god ******” and maybe dance a little more in her honor and make grilled cheeses with mayonnaise instead of butter and sit outside on my porch more often and make sure you sweep up your crumbs that I know you are tired of hearing about

We can’t gang up on you anymore like you always claimed we did, I laughed every time you told me I acted like her in little ways, I just liked being on her side
I liked her being on my side

I’ve never felt more special in my life than knowing and feeling her approval and love for me

I want to be the woman she saw in me. I want to prove her right, that she knew all along there was no one else out there for you, besides me,
for me, besides you.

I know in my heart that there was not a more special woman in this world.
I wanted more years with you.

when you bump me in the kitchen I want to cry at your touch
and I don't even know what I want when you look me in the eyes
I watch your back as you walk past me, tears welling while you grab another beer
I wish I could make you laugh but frankly I hate the sound of it now, knowing I only hear it booming from rooms I'm not in
I sit in the dark rooms of this unfamiliar home waiting for you to turn the light on, open the blinds, to sit next to me.
Maybe just us this time,
maybe just my words filling your time.
Is it wrong to crave hands, any hands, any eyes, wanting to be on mine?

I told you that everything you touched turn to ash.
I saw layers forming, soot, embers, and flurries burying all of the things I treasured.
I was afraid I'd get buried beneath them, too.
I blamed you for the tightness in my chest, my inability to breathe, my crawling skin, and scattered mind.

but a few equations and excavated truths later,
I realized all along it was me.
Like a slow leak, going mostly unnoticed, except for a few small signs, that eventually would lead to an explosion that would take thousands of years to recover from,
I spread this, this disease, seeped into your lungs and skin,
stole your good days and pleasant thoughts,
filled them with my fears and malice that I didn't know were possible to feel anymore,
didn't know were hiding, fragile and waiting to be triggered, inside of me.

if we're talking Chernobyl, maybe you're the fire but I'm the core.

It all starts to get a little heavy the longer you hold it.
I'd like to set some things down, free my hands.
Little by little.
Trivial first, then the troubles.

He wore a name tag, which just so happened to rhyme with mine, and after handing him his coffee, he asked what it was.
What compels a stranger to ask for your name?


I feel so vulnerable with my hair pulled up
Exposed..
Like people are peaking at the back of my earlobes through the blinds and I can feel the warmth setting on the nape of my neck like the sun shining through them
I want to wrap my curls around myself and hide..
Fade..



Did you hear the one about the school teacher who won the sweepstakes to be on the space shuttle Challenger, the one that exploded seventy three seconds after take off and disintegrated, littering the ocean with built up promises and reminders, palms holding faces whispering
"don't let fear hold ya back"




Every January people pray that this year, this year!, will be better than the last, and I feel good admitting that none of mine will ever be as bad as the year the girl broke my heart, my parents broke up, and my first semester of college left me broke. Rock bottom was eighteen years old and wishing they would stop coming.





I'm know you still have fantasies about the girl with eyes the color of the plants she nurtures, how maybe she was the one that got away, how you wish she still wrote to you. It's getting easier to brush off as the time grows. I guess everyone has that person, the idea of them never leaves your heart even if the opportunity has.






I have twenty one voicemails I haven't yet listened to and I'm just - not.
I know somewhere at the very bottom, your voice is waiting for me, asking questions you never really cared to hear the answers for.







I have stored memories that I have never once shared with any one because of how badly they hurt me. I try not to carry the repercussions around with me. I try not to worry my future self by sharing the past with my present myself.








I've always been a collector,
of wine corks,
grocery lists,
small cut outs from magazines,
of sparse compliments you give in passing,
I hold on to every one and still wonder if you think I'm pretty.
I'm still trying to figure out
why I don't accept them in the moment,
how to.










Words come as easily as sleep these days,
usually not at all.
I try to quiet my breath and stop the sniffles so that you don't worry about me, mostly unsuccessfully.
I am always curious as to why sometimes, you'd rather not know what troubles my mind.
Don't ask, don't tell.










I'll let you quietly love, if that's the language you know.











Do you check up on me like you do with her?
Search for my name,
hear my name
with the same ring to it.
I know I said earlier that it's getting easier to deal with the fact that you still have this looming ******* love for her but you know what, it's not.
Not at all.









Sometimes I feel like I'm seventy three seconds away from exploding, disintegrating, littering the world with my broken promises,
the reminder of my failure to survive the pressure.









But don't feel bad.
and don't ask, I won't tell.
I'll let you love silently, if that's the language you know.

Tonight I will kneel down and pray
for four leaf clovers to plant
myself in a windy city,
and fear that in the sea of tiny greens,
my little fingers will fumble upon one,
and wash me away from the level below it.

You see, I want more than anything to leave,
but I'm used to the low altitude,
got water in my lungs and I'm just so scared
that up there, there's just too much air.

Some nights I can’t cope with the fact that one day
I
And everyone I love
Will someday
Die

There is no way to put it nicely, the sobbing that comes from the already mourning of the soon to be skeletons walking and hugging and loving

I can’t sleep at night knowing one day I won’t wake up
I can’t breathe when I think about it and sometimes that makes me think I’ll be taking my last one gasping for air
Which makes the air even harder to catch

I can’t believe there were days where I wanted nothing more than to just not wake up
And today that fear is what keeps me up

I forgot to tell my mother goodnight before I retreated back to my bedroom and I don’t think I checked to make sure the back door was locked

Who created an existence so fragile
So miserable
Who gives us the pleasure of feeling such intense emotions and love for others and is okay with ripping that all away in an instant for some and allowing the grief for everyone else to linger until another loss distracts them

I don’t ever want to pick out funeral flowers for my father.

Lately I feel
Tethered
Tethered to the things that distract my thoughts like twiddling and texting and

T
E
T
H
E
R
E
D

To the time it takes for you to get home
The hands on the clock rotating round and round day after day, waiting for the sun to set and the headlights to shine through the blinds of my bedroom
Tethered
to the springs inside my mattress
Bouncing back and forth with each toss and turn like a ball on a string
The momentum slowing as it winds down but
Never once touching
The ground

Train cars are just mobile gallery walls
Telling urban stories of silent voices
Shouting out that someone!
Someone! Is here! Is alive!
The tracks rattle and the crossing arm lowers
Sit back and watch as the colors shift and change into a kaleidoscope of existence
Someone is here and knows you’ve been here, too.

I thought the nineties saw the last of leaving voicemails
I thought we left that mess of feelings back at the apartment on that bed
I thought I left your mind as well
I always felt we left too many things unsaid
You toggle back and forth between opening up and closing that chapter
You probably think the same of me
There’s an unparalleled sadness in getting rid of a book you didn’t get to read

the books of poetry I’ve found on coffee tables and book shelves disappoint me
young adult white boys writing about kissing and oxygen like no ones ever had a drag of a cigarette or thought about a girl or looked at the stars before
they’ve reduced poetry to single thoughts that they pretend are important
And the twenty something year old girls who took a creative writing class congratulate them with a poem of their own
Broken into
Small stanzas
With few words
That mean
Nothing

...

The dramatics are too much.
There is more to human emotion than cliches and empty romantic lines that maybe you should just tweet out instead of, I don’t know, trying to publish a book.

But the funny thing is, oh the curious little thing is, they are published in books. Everywhere.
And where do my rants about childhood trauma or abandoned hospitals or ecstatic adventures get me?

writing poetry in private waiting for someone to ask me if I ever like to write, and I’ll say, I dabble, and never show them a word.

Why is it so easy to find reasons to hate yourself but so impossible to find those that make you love yourself?
I look back on all of the mistakes I’ve made and decisions I should not have chosen and I feel like those parts of me dictate the kind of person I am today, regardless of how much I’ve changed.
It’s not so easy conjuring memories of all of the nice things I’ve done for others and for myself or all of the redeeming qualities that I know I have but refuse to remember.
I can never be sorry enough
I am so sorry
I wish I could take it all back
And be better
Better

My whole life I’ve been striving for better

the muchness of people only starts to bother me when I don’t feel like enough
And I wish I could honestly say it was all your fault the way I sometimes act like it is
but I know my agression and annoyance is only a response to the emptiness
A need to feel something and it comes out as attacking and I belittle you and make you feel small knowing it won’t make me feel bigger or better only more bitter at the way
that you love.
The way that you look at me through soft eyes when I’m ******* you
The way you feed me when I take and take and purge it all back up and say it’s not good enough to appease me
Your patience when I’ve pushed you away with rolled eyes and locked jaws
I can hear you silently standing up for yourself
Knowing you deserve better
Kinder
Softer

I know my soul does too

These clenched teeth have snarled and growled
I hope I’ve never bitten you
But your hands are so giving
and so forgiving
So long and gracious and always outstretched towards my cheek
as you turn the other one
away from me

The sweet Venus fly trap of life

in these words I hope you find wings
or tenderness
I would open my jaws and set you free if you ever asked
but you are the sweet flypaper in my life and if the roles were reversed,
I wouldn’t have a reason for leaving

I'm not much of a woman anymore
sometimes just a corpse lying in the dark while the sound of video games drown out my thoughts
sometimes I laugh with my teeth showing
sometimes
I want to be whole for you
to remind you why you fell in love with those shoe laces in the first place
to remind you how pretty I can be dressed up in lace
but those were the days before we had to be quiet
before I lost the words to say and the will to speak

hand on your shoulders
dark curls get caught in my fingers
eye contact used to make me nervous
in the dark it makes me smile
want to pluck the strings of your soul
find out what you’re made of
what you sound like
in the darkness
swaying to the voices
swirling in the ballroom
singing me to sleep

in dreams we hold hands like we know better this time but the lines in our palms will never change
I have to keep reminding myself of that

We can't ever snap on beat
We started drinking chianti
I've been having beautiful dreams
And today snow filled our Louisiana streets
We're on the upbeat of swings
And there are people I want to meet
and things I want to see
"And miles to go before I sleep"
And love to give before I leave

What's the point of keeping on?
A few glasses of wine will open up your eyes sometimes
It did mine.
I used to believe the dark days would dim my life for decades, and it did for two of them. After that, I started to see the light.
The light in everything,
In people around me, in their sheepish smiles when they push their buggees past me,
and their drunk texts at 2am when they're up way past their bed time and sleep is singing their favorite soothing tunes, Yet the story in their minds is too specialized to pass up
Like if I don't say it now it will expire and lose its significance in the morning
and that significance is significant
Enough to keep me up past my bed time

The smell of wine at night and coffee in the morning to cure the hangover
The headaches hurt but the memories make me feel alive

The spontaneous conversations that occur every three years when you run into an old friend and thoughts spill like the drinks when you've had too much

Mimosas in the morning and toast with peanut butter and bananas

Alcohol makes living a little easier to be frank

But apart from that

The sound of piano keys is magical
And the sunsets are enough to keep me alive at least for the next few hours

The potential of falling in love, the opportunity to travel the world, to hear Crane Your Neck for the first time again, in a different set of notes

The feeling of fingers through your hair and a plate made for you of your favorite Italian food
And the plate washed because you're tired from the wine
That's what I live for

And if you don't have these reasons yet
You will soon
You will someday
You have to believe that

part of me hated the kids who called me a lesbian before I knew I was one, part of me applauded them for seeing beneath the surface when I couldn’t
they turned the light on before my eyes could adjust and I turned it off just as quick before I knew it made sense

I'm not afraid to throw away the past few years for the sake of the next
I'll never truly know how I feel or how you do
or if the choice I made was the best
Sometimes it's so easy to say those words in my head
All I know is sometimes I know I won't settle for less
Other times I just deal with what I got handed
and hope you don't feel the same way

I bought a new typewriter today
found it sitting on a table made of plywood at our local flea market
the case is falling apart
and it doesn't actually work
but it was cheap
and its an antique and I guess the rust gives it character

The irony is that even if it did work,
I still wouldn't have any words.

The irony is writing a poem about writers block.

The irony is that I already have one that does work, I just hoped that maybe the previous hands would have left a message on the keys that would inspire me to make my own.

But today I am the broken keys and the missing ribbon.

I know I don't tell you ever so I know I don't say it nearly enough,
but the way you touch me is unlike any other being has or could-
the softness your hands hold make me feel like a flower, and you're the bee, stopping by for a quick moment to kiss me.
I wish you wouldn't fly away in the evening and I didn't have to wait until the morning to be kissed goodbye.

tonight's one of those nights where I'd like to sit on a rooftop and smoke cigarettes and speak poetically with strangers

except I never do because I'm afraid of climbing onto roofs because you never know if you might fall through
and don't worry I don't actually talk to strangers either,
each new pair of eyes like snakes when you roll the dice...
and of course I don't smoke cigarettes, I stopped when my niece found out and it crushed her innocent little view of me in her world,

but it just seems like the thing to do in times like those, don't it?

My hands were shaking when I saw you
the blood, dried up and masking your face,
your lips looked soft against the harsh black scabs
and your eyes looked full beneath the stitches on your brow
with bands on your wrists and
the little white clip on your finger measuring your pulse,
you looked so fragile, so small
I wanted to pick you up
stick you on a little orange wand and blow you into a bubble
so that you could float around unharmed and small
and I could make sure nothing popped you, and if it did,
I could catch you. and put you in another one.
Anything to keep you safe.

my hands were shaking when your mother told me you were in the hospital
my hands were shaking on the way to visit you in the icu
I couldn't shake the vision of a boy laying in a casket
I wondered what shirt they'd put you in
I know you're okay now and that is getting me by
but the anxiety of it all comes back each time I close my eyes
it comes pouring out of me like the blood from your head
and I can't find the medicine to clot them

I wish I could wipe the blood without reopening wounds
But your face still looks nice with gashes across it
you even look a little brave
like you fought wolves all afternoon
i'm just glad you won

When my father looked down at me,
half-jokingly asked if he'd be
checking me into rehab
within the next few years,
a part of me I didn't know I harbored
hit the back of my throat,
wanted me to
bark back remarks that
I hadn't known would ever grow
from years of watching him destroy his body
from tears from watching him,
his eyes half-closed, his head half-nodding,
half-listening to the stories of a little girl
who wanted not to be forgotten
who wanted one less memory of a door
ripped half way off the hinges
who wanted one more memory of
the stillness of a mug on our glass table
not earthquakes in louisiana and
heartbreak from ceramic shards laying in
coffee and powdered xanax
How I wished the word rehab
wouldn't have made you more mad
would have crossed your mind
would have been a solution to
the problem you never thought we would find
out about you kept your secret hidden
at the expense of her image
We burned her name to keep you lifted
you never apologized you never got help
you did it all by yourself
after years of watching you destroy your body,
how dare you look at me and question
if my glass of wine is too full
if my bottles are piling up
I think my organs are fine, thank you,
it runs in our family not to want help.


Of course, that side of me stayed silent,
and will never be exposed,
at least not face to face,
only in anonymously written prose.

So I laughed and not knowing what to say
masking the feelings I wouldn't show,
I looked at him in his tired run down eyes
and I half-jokingly replied with "No."

The most groundbreaking moments in my life have mostly been the minute connections I have made with other mortals, the ones that made me feel small while making my heart feel like it was growing inside of my tiny chest, like my organs were running around, making way, like my rib cage disconnected, tried to move, and eventually would break, like my veins were stems of flowers, and I could see the petals growing in the pinks of cheeks and across my pale chest, I felt the stitches, long gone now, from my twenty year old scar would rip my torso open right down the center and expose the heart inside, honest.

But my heart doesn't swell the way it used to, and my rib cage fells like its sinking in on itself, like the my organs are running and squeezing themselves into dark corners to avoid being attacked by the shards of ivory.

When I look into the eyes of a girl I know I'd have been enamored by, if I had met her at an earlier time, I only see the glare in her glasses. I sigh at her misfortunes but check the clock, noticing how slowly time passes
when you're unable to understand someone
looking at their palms, the way their fingers move,
wondering why my mind is feeling so numb...
My heart feels like an empty rim, missing the face of the drum.

I have not been to the cardiologist in six years,
I'm afraid he will tell me the stickers on my skin told him my secret,
when I smile they see my skeleton,
when I sing they see my gums,
that's why I listen with my mouth closed and protect the illusion with a hum.

I have not flossed for a long time either, afraid they will find the plaque in the trash, pull it out and reveal inside this furnace is only ash.

Maybe it wasn't the drugs, or the red headed devil dancing on your spine that convinced you I was no good.
Maybe it was just my delivery, the way desperation spilled out of my ears, a little too dedicated to understanding, that made me seem less delicate.
I saw it coming, it was just a matter of time until desolation sunk in again and forced my aesthetic to be destruction.
There's a disconnect, sometimes, the sound waves don't hit eardrums quite right.
And sometimes, they're just a little too loud.
It's okay to turn the volume down.
But the music doesn't cease just because it's softer.
And it doesn't any hurt less just because it happens more often.

I miss the poetry of it all
not just reading it, of course that too,
but feeling it, the romance of a paper cut from the opening of a bottle of red wine called "california dreams"
showering and the light switch turning off, a thoughtful gesture, sending waves of comfort and oblivion
watching hands conducting folk songs  in the front seat
laying on roof tops, recreating ideas from Tar Beach
I'm yearning for that youthful prose I used to write about all the time
feels like ages ago

I forgot what it was like to be around her, i'm so used to being in the company of lighter souls.
The heaviness is starting to sink back into my bones.
The day turns to darkness, and back to dawn soon, and sleep still hasn't come because the battle between eyelids scanning screens and the inside of themselves proved to be easier than you'd think.

You made me forget that I didn't have a green thumb
You were the green thumb, you are the green thumb
and you're still around, you're still here, but not in the dark,
only when i've got the sunshine anyway, because you are the sunshine
and **** i'm not a flower when I'm alone and looking in the mirror at a single silhouette

I knew I was ****** when I started looking for my skeleton again

The truth is you hardly know these bones, you helped to hide them, heal them.

But every moment I spend with my thoughts brings them out more

They aren't necessarily bad, but I don't know who I am
I know what I want, who I want, who I want to be,
but who am I at one in the morning when I slip back into watching
dramas about people with OCD and anorexia and I find myself crying and wishing there was another skeleton for me hold on to...
one thats not mine.


****, I'm even writing again... That's a sign too.

This morning I watched a tiny baby bird take its last little breath, his chest puff out and then settle, his feathers lay flat and his head tilted back and his feet curled up underneath himself
a fatal game of cat and mouse, and the mouse chirped from under the kitchen table and with every yell the clench of the felines jaw tightened and if I could bring anyone back from the dead, it would be that little bird.
so soft and vulnerable, sleeping black and white in my pale palms.
I know its in his nature to hunt, but its in my nature to love, and this bird was so worthy, worthy of flying and seeing the sky and finding worms and maybe in the mornings he would have sang me awake and come to perch on my bird feeder, but war is an age old tale that continues on and nature has a way of being cruel
I can't stop picturing his little body, his tiny heart that probably loved as much as a baby bird could
I can't stop creating metaphors out of this scenario
where sometimes i'm the baby bird, and sometimes, i'm the cat.
and I hope that my foolish games and tendency to play never takes away the opportunity for happiness from anyone
I never want to be the cat, but I also never want to be the baby bird.
But I'll never want to be happy off the backs of another, and that's enough to make me choose the bird if the tables were turned.

He called me his little orchid, and I pictured him admiring me, all of my colors and twists, my petals and my stem, exclaiming "look at this one! look how beautiful it is! look at the inside, do you see how amazing that is?" and I smiled and swooned and swayed like the little orchids would in the wind and I blushed so hard you'd think I lost my chlorophyll, or that summer was coming to an end, and I wanted to sing like an orchestra of brass and wood winds because the thought of you thinking of me and still seeing me as precious as a flower after all these winters we've seen makes my heart beat and plucks my strings.
I want you to know that you're still sun, my air, my water, and the soil that my roots are planted in. Even in the winter, I only think of the times you shone brightest and eagerly wait for you to smile again.
I know it feels like winter for you right now, but it's spring baby, and I'm growing!
I'm not a bean stalk, I can't take you to the top, but I'm your little orchid, and hopefully,
you'll look over at the one on your window sill and smile knowing that some part of me is growing right there next to you, breathing and taking in everything you're giving me.

So when you're bored, water me, and talk to me, and it might help you breathe a little lighter too.

From one flower to another, I love you.

I drink the quickest when I'm alone
Coincidentally that's also when I love the hardest
Wishing you were all here to listen to your hearts and
I still get waves of missing you
when I play songs on the guitar and
nostalgia makes me smile but in the morning my heart will harden

Things are changing for me, although the seasons this year seemed to not have.
The city of New Orleans will soon have my heart wandering in her streets, and I'll be miles away trying to determine where they lead.
My mistakes are catching up with me and I'll be forced to face the consequences I once always seemed to retread from.
I'm unsure of which the way the wind is blowing, I could never use my thumb to tell,
but I hope it's in the uplifting direction,
dancing in women's skirts, playing leap frog with the leaves, rolling through the sails of some small ship floating out at sea, humming in the giant chimes of city park's oak tree.

I just hope that when you leave, you take the wind inside my soul and carry it into spring.

People often make themselves feel better in times of despair by quoting that there must be darkness to see the light.
I suppose I see things a little differently, without darkness, I have nothing.
And by that I mean that by ridding my life of negative influences and hostility, I have realized that I have nothing left.
I am an empty carcass, cracked down the spine with no light inside to leak out into the black room.
I am looking to replace the bulbs in my organs if I can find the right ones, but I don't know the difference between halogen and fluorescent and the sparks in my brain are starting to dull as well, there are also cracks in my skull, but that's not the only way I can tell..

So,
CLASSIFIED ADS:
- looking for a bulb that might fit, please call if you're interested
please call..

Things have been feeling very off for me.
I wake up and stare at the light coming in my window and wish I could live in a timelapse and watch the sun set and rise and set again within seconds that I didn't have to be truly present for.
I'm searching for life's purpose and the little joys in between but I'm tired of looking so it's not very thorough.
I don't want to read books, or play piano, or paint flowers, or talk to friends (not that I have any, anyway) and I don't even have the desire to drink wine all night or try to impress you.
My heart feels heavy and my brain feels empty and really I think the problem is that I haven't been feeling anything lately.
The numbness has taken over and turned me into some sort of zombie that doesn't even have the energy to eat.

there are always those people that you can never abandon your affinity for, the very first poem I was proud enough of to share with people is about the same person i'm writing about tonight.
the one soul I was so close to learning and yet, never got the chance to.
I don't think I'll ever stop trying, however, these days I hear from you on days far and in between.
and that's the way it will be and it's the way it's always been and now it has to be that way but i never wanted it to be.

some nights i have dreams of ventriloquist dummies leaking ink and tsunamis washing over me and some nights i have dreams of you leaving me and sometimes i wake up crying hysterically but never because of the dolls or waves

I look back at those words and wonder if they meant anything, and convince myself they weren't ever written for me anyway.
It's not very hard to do that anyway because of the words later spoken that overshadow and contradict the previous ones.
I have always been in denial, despite the opinions of others, that they were ever there for me.
But after accepting that it's a possibilty, I wonder even more so how you could say such lovely things, then turn around and **** me.

I hope you can write that sweetly again one day and mean it.

December 31st, 2016
Sometime around 10:40pm
On a balcony in the closest thing to a mansion I've ever been in
The weather was the worst weather for a New Years Eve party I'd ever seen and yet, there we both were, on that balcony overlooking a dark and foggy field under electric blue lights shining upon red solo cups.
I first noticed your sweater, where a hypothetical pocket would be, a little girl in a yellow dress holding a purple umbrella, standing in the rain. Salt?
Salt.
I then noticed how you looked European, only to find out you're from Florida, but living in New York. I didn't get that information from you, your cousin filled me on who you were.
At some point, I was in conversation with some friends sitting under the blue lights, with a small plastic pastel pink cup filled with chardonnay, and as you walked past me, you quickly tapped the tip of your beer bottle on the rim of my cup, a tiny toast, without even looking at me, and you just kept walking to wherever you were walking to on the balcony. I'm not sure what about that exact clink intrigued me, but I looked down and smiled at my cup in thought for a few moments. I ended up observing your mannerisms for the rest of night.
You had a cigarette tucked behind your ear, a sinister but pristine set of white teeth behind pink lips. The bags under your eyes complimented the blue in a way that when I looked into them I could see the nights spent awake, probably at a skate park, or some ***** New York alley, smoking *** with girls with septum rings and stiletto nails.
I moved closer to the table to see who was winning the game, like I always do when I don't feel like engaging in small talk with old acquaintances. You mocked me for my black and mild and asked to have a hit. You offered to share your behind-the-ear cigarette with me and I accepted, and lit it with my flannel pocket lighter.
We passed it back and forth while you tossed a ping pong ball back and forth across the table.
At 11:40, I left without saying goodbye to run towards my midnight kiss, and made it just in time. I'm not sure if you got a midnight kiss.
I hope you did, under the fireworks. But something about you makes me feel like you didn't deserve one. You looked like trouble. But I don't know anything about you except that you said you were twenty one which I'm almost sure was a lie, off about five years, give or take.
Our meeting was brief and both pleasant and bizarre.
The fact that we met in Louisiana was a lucky happenstance.
I'm not sure if I'd even say lucky. Our chance meeting has had no true effect on me, except perhaps, maybe next time I pull out the salt from the top shelf of my pantry, I'll think of you and smile in that weird sinister way you do.

January 3rd, 2017
9:05 pm**
I was closing the coffee shop after a long downtempo day. I had almost everything done when my boss texted saying he had some things to do, and that he'd be there soon. He told me he brought a friend, named Elif (which I later secretly googled in the office to learn the origin of) that he would like me to meet. "You'll like her."
And I think I have just laid eyes on possibly the most beautiful girl I've ever seen.
I shielded my irritated pink eye behind my hair, along with rosy cheeks at the sight of her.
There she stood, tanned skin, long brown hair with blonde tips, a soft smile, softer brown eyes, natural thick eyebrows, a septum ring, green socks over stockings with flats, a mustard yellow cardigan, her own handmade crystal beaded bracelets up her arm.
God, where did he find this girl?

He made us lattes, and we talked about my tattoo that she inquired about, but she'd never heard of Shel Silverstein and I was afraid to make a fool of myself and say something dumb so I kept the explanation short and sweet.
She held a peppermint mocha latte with whipped cream up to her lips and inhaled with a soft smile, and I wish I could've captured that moment forever, it was so sweet and heartwarming, to look at her small figure like her core was gravitating up into the cup, her shoulders right below her ears, her fingers wrapped around the red paper mug.
As he pulled a shot of espresso for me, steaming whole milk even though I mentioned I'd rather almond milk ("it's better for latte art"; showoff) he mocked me for always showing up late, but she thanked me because the way things worked out, he was able to leave early to spend more time with her because of my mistake, and I claimed it was what the universe wanted to happen, and she laughed. And that felt nice, to hear how she laughed.
She was so soft, but also genuinely easy to talk to, and thrilled to talk to me, and she was just so cool. so so cool.
She leaves tomorrow morning to return home to Georgia, not Turkey, like I thought, which we both agreed would have been sad.
I wish I did not get introduced to her the night before she leaves, but I am glad that he knows me well enough to know that I would greatly enjoy her presence, even if only for a short while.

I will add that he had little love marks on his throat, I'm sure which were from her, and that makes me very very happy to know that he has found someone that I think is almost as interesting and dynamic as he is.

I hope to see her again. She said she'd make me a crystal bracelet and gave me her email.
Maybe one day I could email her and maybe if I ever happened to end up in Georgia, or her, back here, we could have a cup of coffee together and I could read her The Light in The Attic.

sometimes i want to scream at the top of my lungs
the way you do in the car randomly
i bet it feels exhilarating when ya need it
but those walls were thin and these are too
so I'm forever left to sob in silence

Sometimes I wish that you had chosen her.
Or I suppose, really, that she had chosen you.
So that you'd be with her, the girl that, in hindsight,
now that I'm thinking about it, probably would be really good for you.
Maybe she would take care of you, do everything for you, and not mind or complain the way I sometimes do that bothers you. I'm sorry I do that, I don't mean to make you feel like a burden, it's just heavy sometimes to carry the weight of another and I'm strong but my endurance isn't impeccable.
Maybe she would stay quiet and inside her head, the way you do, so you could both go about your day talking about how ****** the world is but never how ****** you feel, the way I try to do but sometimes can't.
Maybe she'd be okay with being passive, maybe none of her friends would tell her to be more confrontational, maybe you'd consider her courage when she tried to be regardless.
Maybe she wouldn't accuse you of anything because she had every reason to trust you and the world around her. 
Maybe you could trust her enough to let her in your head for a second. 
Maybe she'd do anything for you, like I try to do, and maybe you just might fight to do the same, not so much like you try to do with me.

And I just kept thinking, and repeating to myself,
"God we think we're all invincible.
God, we think we're invincible.
God we think we're invincible."
And if there really were a god, he surely would have made us so.