I fell in love with the North Woods
where snow and I dissolved
seeping in between the cobblestones
with belonging.
They held my secrets
and ancient history,
like forbidden sorcery
only the earth can practice.
I imagine my name whispered by velveteen moss,
stubbornly clinging
to old row house bricks with defiant faith.
But I'm just remnants of a ghost there,
my own heart haunted.
So I tried to love the ocean,
but she kept getting in her own way,
with her non-committal sway,
and everything that stayed
was tide-pool shallow.
I tried to love foreign lands,
wrap myself in different tongues -
Alpine lace was never warm enough.  
Exiled to the desert,
I floated like a feather,
fallen from a crow
who never learned that she could sing.
I've retreated to the mountains,
where the stone walls and I
have become kindred,
torn between the pulling chain
of a heart that longs to love
and no longer believes.

He always came in the night,
shining hands touching every inch
of my pains,
softly breaking through the beveled glass,
filtering the dark
into tangible shades of gray,
illuminating my dreams
with bouquets of hand-picked stars.
He longed for the solidity
of my rustic wooden beams,
hand carved, stained mahogany,
the velvet richness seeped into
the deepest of knots within my ribs,
Hungering for my hearth
ever teeming with embers,
glowing.
He wove his platinum fingers
through my southward facing vines,
braiding the wisteria with the ivy
until they crowned my door,
whispering silver tongued sonnets
of his belonging.
Then one night he waned,
called back to the water
that danced with his teasing,
filling the shore
with constant waves
of disappointment
frothed with crescents of fear.
And I remained, atop this blue mountain,
forgotten,
frames shuttered to his gaze.
Names of others came and went,
carved into my bones,
just tattoos of memory,
the floors collecting the ashes of them,
residue piling in the crevices,
ever longing
for pewter caresses
that would make pale these shadows again.
I etch his name upon my door,
shape it out of the dust,
trace it amid the fog on every mirror,
so that, shall he return,
he will remember this
is where he once belonged.

Do not let her take root
in the silt,
where her budding beauty
is tendrilled to the inky black
that hides her depths.
Her fate is stillness.
Her purpose:
polite, delicate existence,
until she withers,
wilting,
never knowing that blooming
is not belonging.
Teach her to float
like dandelion fluff,
an untamed wish that dances
with the vines of the willows.
Teach her to sway
in the saw grass,
strumming the cattails
like a harp.
Teach her to burn
with the light
that breaks through the pines
in  golden beams
that can make
even the tiniest gnats
and particles of dirt
into stardust.
Let her unlearn the hush
of expected tranquility.
Teach her to howl
with conviction,
not to fear baring her teeth,
or leaving her mark.
Teach her to become
the heartbeat of the forest
where the water lilies only dream.

Crush the raw cubed sweetness,
in the bottom of a glass.
Wet it with a tincture of sorrows,
fashioned from the brine of your grief.
Gently part the rind,
slipping the skin away from its ember heart.
Twist it,
demanding its fragrant perfume.
Drop in a crowning crimson gem,
just one.
Flood the glass in firewater,
force it to dance with ice's glacial grip,
as you swirl the crystal highball,
chasing the spiral of your thoughts.
Imbibe deeply,
as a thirsty earth would drink the rain.
Repeat when empty.
Then repeat again,
until your vision
and the edges of your soul both blur,
'til your heart is replaced with fog,
every feeling reduced to vapor-thin voices,
and even your memory
is swallowed whole into the black.
Repeat until the world dissipates
and you evaporate into the ether.

I never believed
what the blue mountains said of me,
that I was luminary.
I listened
to beige pebbles,
that played inside trickling streams,
longing to conform
within the shallow depths
of those crystalline springs.
But my lightness carried me to the sea.
-
I never understood
what the cardinals sang of me,
that I called the wild.
I listened
to the orange fire,
that scorched what I had begun to grow,
longing to dance
like the floating golden embers,
but the burning hardened me to steel.
-
I never dreamed
that the Dogwood bloomed for me,
but she declared I was worthy.
And I listened
to her ruby petals,
that whispered truth upon misty morning fog,
longing to again be made soft,
for my forged ferrum bones to melt,
but she cradled me in her branches,
humming verity,
"iron is still stardust
if you let yourself come home."

In the velvet hush
of tangerine light,
thoughts creep like mycelium,
trendrilling through synapses,
until fingertips tingle,
and the leading edge,
of a tender red lip
is self-bitten.
She tucks a brunette ribbon
behind the mauve flush
that has crept past her cheeks.
A twinkle, the way glints
dance atop water,
like mischievous nymphs,
plays in her soul's windows.
Her sighs caress
even the candle flames,
sending a shiver through
the playful gray smoke,
until it longs to be made
colorful.
Desire pools in her palms,
warm and ready.
She reaches,
delicate hands enveloping
the peak's obsidian bounty.
The soft yielding flesh
surrenders
to her mouth,
juices staining twilight,
leaving a vibrant crimson
where flesh touched flesh,
the heart of summer
devoured.
She smirks,
tossing away the pit,
"and if there's no body,
there's no crime".

Tap - Tap - Tap - Tap - Tap

The herald of the morning breaks
through the deep ink
of needle-pricked indigo,
scented sharp, angular,
amid the spherical savor
of deep rooted, red, earth.

Tap - Tap - Tap - Tap - Tap

The roots twined into your name,
shielded by the golden hush of dawn,
dancing through komorebi,
a Renoir from another land...
another time.

Tap - Tap - Tap - Tap - Tap

Kitsutsuki is knocking...
the call of a whisp?
fate? no...
expectance...
begging yet another errand
of a girl
who 'happily ever after'
left in rags.  

Tap...

Tap...

crack...

Glass shatters.
She will never sleep under ceilings
again.