love is something you taught me
now i do believe it roams this earth, slowly,
perhaps too slowly, is taunting
me with its childish games
that someone like me doesn't understand.
i have been selfish with love: wanting too much,
touching it with greasy hands, disregarding it.
but, somehow, still,
there's always a bed with love waiting at the door
after tucking me in.
perhaps love does care, desires to bandage
my aching wounds, scraped knees, watery eyes.
love isn't some boy at a party i wasn't invited to,
it's the familiar smell of pumpkin pie, the conversations
had at the dinner table that
bring the laughter
and prevent the hunger,
the warm apple cider steaming in a mug,
the fresh laundry done and folded.
love has hidden for so long,
i almost didn't know it still existed
and sang.
in the morning when i wake up
and hear the quiet chatter of my parents in the kitchen,
for some reason, it never feels as if love is absent.

it’s november
time is slower than i remember
but it’s faster and faster.
your body isn’t next to mine anymore,
there are new pains unfamiliar.
somehow i get even sicker
and ache for december or
warmer weather.

everything is nothing new
lose myself in the thought of you.
some rabid cliche in my palms,
awakening the mind that stands on guard.
there is something almost dead
crawling in your neighborhood,
trying to find the most unwelcoming house of all.
and in those walls, you stand tall,
i cower at your sight.

in shallow tides
in open waters
the water slips through every crevice in my hand
nothing is
and do you think the lovers have everything they ever dreamed?
do the lovers themselves lose the meaning of love?
turn it into
something transactional
something found because of loneliness.
sick of being a lover in a loveless world
where the love i reach for is
just beyond
my physical ability to touch.

by nightfall, i am just a creature.
of habit one could say or
of countless wild misgivings.
a creature with her hands clutched at her stomach
that moves up and down
when the breath begins—
she is human
much to her dismay.
she claws at the human form she was
blessed—no, cursed—with.
the pale moon stares with fluttering open eyes.
i wish i could just hide
in the bushes and wait for
some other creature
to lessen the ache
that prances in my bones
like leaping frogs that never tire.
much to my dismay,
there are many nightfalls where
others do not question their positions,
do not wonder why or
pine for
another
body, a warmer climate to indulge themselves in.
i am but a creature
whose body is battered and sick,
where illness spreads throughout.
i regurgitate any satisfaction
that lingers
a bit too long for comfort.
this mouth shuts slowly
but opens again
and all the creatures of habit slip out again
from its opening

and the rest flood from the stomach walls
and i am not human anymore—
rather something purging itself of the danger
of its own grip
from the inside
out.

my sweet girl, you have broken me
in two, in three,
in a thousand shattered pieces
blowing in the wild winds.
i would like to love the impossibility of you
shamelessly diving into the body of water
that is you.

my sweet girl,
there will be no one left out there to
doubt you.
you'll be understood by those you
respect the most,
loved completely by the world that tossed
and turned you
like a bobbing ship on the open seas.

my sweet girl,
you'll be singing up tempo songs,
dreaming broadway dreams.
you'll be happy and without liver disease.
the panic will fall off your bones,
leaking into the clear shallow streams.

why, sweet girl, must you waste such a
beautiful existence hating yourself?
why must you deny yourself the love
you truly deserve?
why worry your mother to death?
oh, sweet girl,
why must you contain yourself for those
you have never met?
oh, sweet girl, when i saw you crawl out
of your cocoon, i wept,
for the change that would only make a greater world,
was finally appearing.

when the wind whistles through,
poking, prodding,
doesn't even see
every minor infraction, even after plentiful inspection
in that it has touched me more than anyone,
has known which direction it would blow my hair
in that in no time has it made assumptions
nor presumed
only moved
about with a firm motion.
that just the other day, anger had gotten the best of me,
wishing the wind would stop reminding me of my existence
in that the bitter cold reminded me of every thought
that had been digging at the surface of my skin
and the wind did not know that i had not wanted
to be understood
in that moment.

i desired to be misunderstood,
a presence as unkempt,
as thoughtless, yet tender,
yet warm,
yet violent,
yet soft,
being able to know
the depth of someone's skin--their hair that stands on edge,
each scar and all its painful attachment,
each memory they've kept hidden,
that for some reason stay dancing on top;
and i stayed dancing
as the wind whistled
and
told me of my reasons
and didn't laugh
at a single one.