i told my therapist about you,
while your lips were still slathered alllll over my body.
i showed her the places we had been,
and all the things we had seen.
i told her what lies underneath that pretty
                                              pretty
skin of yours,
and i told her how i knew.
i spelt out your name as she scribbled it on her cute little clipboard,
i told her about the   first     night
and the      second
and the   fourth
and that time in the closet.
i told her everything,
i really just wanted to   get
                                                  you
                                      out  
of my brain,
it didn't matter if saying these things put me in  sososo  much pain.
because you've  moved   on  so why can't i?
i told my therapist about you,
but i still can't tell you
                                           goodbye.  
i know i'm  s t u p i d,
for holding on this l
                               o
                                n
                             ­    g,
i know it's useless,
for wishing you weren't                              gone.
but my words carry on like a heartbeat
s     l      o      w
steady
                          fast
u   s   e   d
  n    t   a   y
i   keep   keep   keep  breaking and breaking and breaking and
i told my therapist about you.

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 feel the pain of
Words never uttered
Tears never shed
Wounds that don’t bleed
Thirst never quenched
Hands never held

At age 7, I was guilty
when I accepted an invitation
to go into the apartment of a neighbor
He smelled of beer as he groped me.

At age 10, I was guilty
when I walked home too late
because I missed the train
He popped out of the bushes
exposing himself.

At age 12, I was guilty
when my uncle forced
tongue into my mouth
because I could not
get away.

At age 14, I was guilty
when my uncle forced
me to sit on his lap
while in my bathing suit
and I ran away from home.

At age 16, I was guilty
when my uncle convinced
everyone that I was a liar
and I quit school.

At age 18, I was guilty
when I gave birth to
my first child,
because I was ignorant.

At age 20, I was guilty
when I saw the cardiologist
in the reflection of a lamp
*******  and the
police laughed at my report.

At age 30, I was guilty
when my employer
trapped me in the elevator
to ***** me, because I
was his subserviant.

At age 36, I was guilty
when I earned jujitsu honors
but risked going to jail
for defending myself.

At age 70, I was guilty
when a neighbor brought
me fruit and grabbed my
breast, because I was alone.

At age 72, I am guilty
of being a ferule woman
for 50 years and for
NOT be silent!

You deliver torrents of happiness and comfort in my darkest times
And it pains me to know that I can’t do the same for you.
So badly, I want to embrace you;
Not just physically,
But your emotions:
I want to mend them
Fragment by fragment
To perfection.
Till you forget what it feels like to be unhappy.
And you experience only love.

Even though I’d love you to the best of my ability,
I know that it’d never be enough:
You deserve far more than I can give -
But I’d love you with every cell in my body
Ever fiber and nerve ending
Every breath and every syllable of every word I ever spoke.
I’d give you my all.


And I want nothing more than to see you
To memorize your every feature,
To touch and experience you in ways that you or I have never known.
Because you are so wondrous, that I can’t help but want to discover your entirety.

Even the nights are colder and longer since you aren’t here.
And the hours of two, three and four in the morning are no longer my favourite,
Because hearing you breathe before you descend into sleep makes my heart so uneasy
In a way that only you can.
My heart- have I told you about it?
How it takes off and functions irrespective of my body?
The way it soars and keeps climbing and speeding to rapidity that I’d not imagined?
Or perhaps how my breathing becomes irrational and irregular at the sound of those words you whisper
Uneasy.
Because in those moments I want you.
And it makes me feel like telling you:
“Pick me up right now and let’s drive till nowhere”
And have you kiss away the scars on my hips
Just as you would the ones on my wrists and my heart
But only after I mend you.

Do you see how much I want this?
How much I want to become familiar with your actions:
The way your thumb brushes across my cheek on your way to kiss me
The way your fingers trace patterns on my skin
Or simply the way you smile and laugh


I’m so alone without you.
But so in love.

When people ask me about my first love,
I remember the smell of melted crayons.
Not your smile, your golden skin, or the way your face would wrinkle in deep thought.
But about the carelessness of a child in your backseat,
And how with help from the sun,
your car was forever perfumed by a melted, purple Crayola.
I grew to love this scent.
It's an odd thing to even say aloud now.
However, it's permanently imprinted in my mind.
Over summers spent in your car and nights staring into your eyes,
I grew infatuated with this waxy, sweet aroma that filled the air between us.
It became your cologne that stayed with my clothes while you were away,
My comfort when you were near.
It was never sickening or invasive,
But desired and wanted.
So when people ask me about my first love,
I tell them about this boy who always smelled of crayons and how much I miss him.

(explicit)

**** my soul
        with poetry
           scream out my gracious name
             slay me with words
               that peel my layers
                and simultaneously
                                   drive me
                                           insane

finger me slowly, hotly
with just the right rhythm and rhyme
    push me past my
                 tender limits
                       into tongues of syntax,
                                                      sublime

a­lliterate my senses
   (in swift stac
                    c-at
                           o)
until my mind is but blank verse
    mess up my stressed
              and unstressed syllables
in unsung language, versed

I will speak to you in vowels
(the only sound
       I will be able to make)
as you stroke
   my iambic pentameter
             in the heat of frothed-up
                                                     ache

we are this heroic couplet, you see
        even if the meaning seems veiled
           no need for simile or metaphor
               as I feel your chest rise
                              in deep inhale

we are a natural paradox
       so many ironies abound
         discordant harmony
is our synaesthesia
     in visible darkness found

and I love this delicious enjambment
as your aura invisibly slips
                               into mine
our lines have no beginning,
                                 no end
    as we undo
          the boundaries
                      of time

In the floodgates
                of forever
                    I see you standing,
                 arms out, so ready
    the multiple layers
of silky delicious
       that we have created
                           until now
     swirling about us,
a storm of veils
beckoning like sea waifs
     and I am opening up
like never before
       my heart practically
                 out of my chest
                               until it is
                       flying forth,
                        a mythical
             winged creature,
prehistoric birdling
and you,
      with  your strong arms
your third eyelight
turned on
              catch it
                          hold it
                   nuzzle it
            until the rest of me
can reach you
   bursting forward
        through swathes
           of time
           turbulence a mere
                            snippet
and we meld
and merge like oceans
     hearts lit up
in electrical surge
time and place not existing
We are the sea.
We are the Earth.
We are the desert velvet
We are the wonder
in the hallways
of our arteries
We are the bloodflow
                 heartflow
of the universe within us
We reign the
ever changing existence
that keeps us whole
allowing room to breathe
to bloom in mystical
                   wild gardens
                yet binding
through realms
of our light's
endless expansion
our souls embracing
as we dream future visions
upon our tongues
and as I gaze upon you
our eyes a magnet
you ignite my glow,
the king of my citadel
festooned with
             flowerbuds
for your
        queen