As we are sitting still, summer goes by,
And you and I are by the water. Here
We mostly think of how we fell in love.
Portside, by wave, and sun, and drink, and sweet.

The chill grows heavy. I drawl you to me
And think small winter thoughts, and you are calm.

Steady lover, soft roots grown deep and strong,
And far from me. I’m prone to flight for  fear.
Yet still, I’ve read maps long enough to know,
The river opens where we met. So wings
Turn to follow different paths. You've gone

Back home, to valleys higher than my own
Naive to the design of the river
Or how it made convenient paths. On Which
They built the freeways I would fly to reach
Your door, again, every new moon or so.

It's five am, and there's a slow soaking rain.
It came with a single clap of thunder.
It carries
not only the washed clean smell
of falling water,
but also flowers,
Red maple bark,
and autumn leaves.
There's not an ounce of light yet,
but I swear I feel the warmth
just below the horizon
like love that has yet to blossom.
Its echo whispers. Give it time.

After years,
You kiss me goodbye each morning.
You tell me, “Have a good day pretty girl.”
And though I stopped feeling like a girl years ago,
in that moment,
I am something sweet and beautiful and innocent.

I don't know how I summoned you
from the ether
To know my heart so perfectly.
When you touch me I am transmogrified
Into a cat in a sunbeam,
Stretching into contentment

Last year for Christmas you bought
A witchcraft kit,
And though I've never cast a spell
It enchants me
That you, who believe in nothing,
Believe I am magic.

You are a slow lava flow
hard rock over a
flowing magma heart.

The catch of your breath
feels like a mountain shaking.
You are a calm surface,
a gentle heat,
and every mineral I need.

you may never explode,
but any good geologist would agree
a volcano is the best way to go.

let me die
still studying
the very heart of you,
in 50 years or so.

Cover me beneath the earth.
Hide me in the warm darkness
Counting each little death until spring.

Keep me safe all winter
curled up in you.
Remind me, when the dark brings sadness,

I still like winter best.
the gentle magic
the hearth fires
Playing in the snow
with you.

I will write happy
I am resigned to it.
It is hard in some ways,
Not throwing gut punches in ink.
Not entreating with the stars to make something of passing passions.
I used to be so filled with longing.
Well, I still am
But now it is ever satisfied.

And you deserve love poems,
The top shelf kind.
Because you make me feel love
not wish for it
or pine.

I don't feel the need to abstract you.
But  I have you.
You have me, and it's the happiest thing I can think of.
And all my friends are tired of hearing it.
So I have to write happy.
So I can write about you.

I don't want to go outside, not ever.
I want to stay in here with you.
I don't like the outside pressures.
I like our cocoon.

People ask if we are chafing.
Growing quarrelsome or cross.
And I laugh until I am shaking.
If ever I am frustrated, you are not the cause.

I have loved you for three years and will forever.
And, no matter what, all I see,
Is that I will never
be prepared for you to go from me.

I was thinking, if you live to be 80
It would only give me 45 years to spend with you
and though that is longer than we've lived already.
I still think it would be too soon.

I am stupidly in love with your smile
and the way we dance from room to room.
So, I'm fine if we don't go outside for a while
I like our cocoon.

I want you for your voice is a quiet rumble,
a crackling fire's song.
And when you speak my fears, all crumble.
I cannot part from you for long.

I want you for your dark eyes are warm spring soil
nurturing pale first leaves.
Your personality for mine, a perfect foil,
each action meeting a secret need.

I want you for ******* you my dear, is essential;
it is part and parcel and key.
Do not think me un-sentimental;
for you mean all this and more to me.

You're each direction on my compass: North, South, East, and West.
You are where I find my laughter, my passion, and my rest.

The leaves dance in their forest fire pallet
above the shifting mists.
This riot of color
fragile and lovely in its temporal struggle.
Autumn will wander away as her dress goes to pieces
Like so much ash
to be washed over by bright snows.
Still, I am sure this is her home, and she will return
because she is loveliest here.

You don't wear jealousy well.
Its raised hackles bring out the green of your eyes
and the dark, animalistic way they've been lit lately.
You foam desire,
claws empty.
You are peeking through the key hole.
While I'm trying to peel my back from the door frame.
Where I've been slumped since you walked out,
tail tucked but shoulders certain.
Now, I hear your frantic scratches and whining.
Wild dog, I know you'd go running
in the other direction
if I even placed my hand on the door ***.
I feel you just want to know there's a bowl for you
and a warm place by the fire.
Fine, you have it,
but my heart cant hang
by the leash on the coat rack
unused but hopeful.
That's too much to ask.

I met your easy laugh on the ocean
where fire beings seem to love to be.
We like flirting with impossible unions.
We came together to the sound of wave crash
sizzling like water on a stove top
spilled out by shaking hands.
bright beings lost in fever for each other.
I couldn't leave you in the ocean
the last day found my hands shaking around paper
pushed light int your pocket
I know you've kept it safe  
so i wonder if the way we walked on the islands
is burned into your memory.
I wonder if i am new in the place of your sweet tooth
you are new in my list of addictions
under the label
"not bad for you"
I wonder if I'm filed under
girl who laughs and loves like a teenager
free and unguarded
for the first time sense the first time
I'm not a warning at the port mouth
pecked apart by crows and groaning
this is a pirates love affair
you've amnesty or the map to the treasure
all that's left is the choosing.

I'm gonna break
I miss being able to call you up
I wonder if your home tonight...
I've no right to wonder
or to call.
still...silent...space
abounds.

Recovery days are necessary
but I cannot get away from you long enough
For my tongue to stop turning to ash
In my throat
And for food to taste like food
I'm glad I can make my coffee have calories
Because every time I eat I *****
Brave face starts today
With a run
And a smile

For 3 months I've been
60 percent of a girlfriend
There are 3 hearts involved
And that's about 2 tons of emotional carnage
I cried myself to sleep 3 times last night
You sent 5 text messages
There is 1 person who can fix this
I'm 100 percent done spending time on you
Because my heart is 100 percent broken
I haven't broke like this
since i was young
Screaming into my 2 pillows
But you've 3 years of history
And I'm sure even more of being miserable
But my 10 fingers
1 mouth
And 2 eyes
Must be closed to the subject

Everything burst
And my heart feels like a water main
Bled onto main street
Nothings ever hurt this bad
I'm older now and I wanna scream till I'm horse
Like the first time my heart ever broke
I'm older now and I do not break like that

The out breaks
Like porcelain when she makes you make
A real choice
When the words
We can't hang out cross her lips
It feels like she's exercising her heart
With a rusty razor blade
Like the kind you pull along your jaw
She loves you and knows
Looking in your eyes you can never say it
You will never be free to
You cannot grow like that
You crumble

I just wanna pull my heart out
I just wanna pull my heart out
I just wanna pull my heart out
And leave it back in your pocket
In your cold and silent chest
Where you keep all your emotions locked
Like your Sunday best
You never go to churches
So you'll never say my name
Like a reverent Sunday prayer
So ill never be the same

You're smiley I'm silent
You look concerned
I know I just cannot help anymore

Your girl smacked me
It was play and also a warning
"I hate your perfect baby skin"
And a sting that lasted the evening
I was already wary
She warned me about a game
I'd already stopped playing.
*****, believe me
I know this would come to no good.

The ice-queen is okay being alone
I miss you sometimes
not necessarily you laying beside me,
or anything like that,
just the way we could talk.
The ice-queen can do what's right
I can leave a boy who loves me
because she lives in my veins
and knows what's best for us both
though not what was easy.
The ice-queen surrounds a heart of fire
she protects it,
but sometimes the ice queen melts
and I peer out,
the ice-queen and I are both sorry

The ice queen melted for one moment,
the second time you said you loved me
I was a fire in your arms.
she came back, avalanche, to carry me
the next moment
when you said you didn’t mean it.
my heart broke the first moment you had it.
I couldn’t make her go again.

You are red flowers
you are the red leaf off the tree on the hard brown mulch
you are the red blood that flutters through the mitral valve prolapse
in my jackrabbit heart

Mind-reader wanted!
In bold face type
Where you will never see it
I've gotten drunk to long
On being understood
I don't think I can survive
Without it.

I know the static hangs in the air
like bully thrown shoes
on a power line
And electricity cast
like searching fingers
from silent beings
you've got your rubber gloves
And I've got mine

I'm sorry I'm now a careful thing
that I play in the shallows
eyes high to the trees.
Around the edges:
Where I can say I love you
and mean it and still be able to flee.
Because the last time the storm came
I nearly drowned.
So now I know every water safe bolt-hole
and how to run.
But I wish I still cliff-dived
into the deep of the lake
instead of staying
close and safe.

There is no Bacchus
watching our coming together
there is no excess,
there is passion, and hunger,
there is no feasting
there is some giving in
too little to get drunk on
I love you
in the strong silent way,
I love your person
I have trouble knowing that you love
I need your passion to break
before me
I need to be drunk on it
pour the wine
and i will stay at your table
speak my name
with love on your tongue
lay out the feast.
and i'll lay my love on the table
if you'll do the same.

I'm a ******* in the certain way
we all mostly are
in which the pain with passion is an inseparable thing
it is left over in bite marks and scratches
the illicit passion
but also in a look
and the way the air hangs
too heavy between glances.
and wonders at failed love
in all directions
and the impossibilities the brain makes
in what cannot be known
this form is less safe
and more poison.
it's the voice that reminds
make art or die
and suggests that you intrench yourself
in solitude.
and pain.

Virginity is meaningless
but since you asked
I lost mine to a boy in a green sweater
two years ago I would have described
that sweater as ocean depths
now it is bile, thick and heavy
his eyes would have been a blue storm
now they are remembered as watery and weak.
He was growing sick at parting
trusted to keep me safe.
I learned to late that possession
was all he wanted of me,
that he would rip the "I" from my body
and replace it with "His".

I'm so grateful to know you
don't pay attention
so I can say I love you
too much
when you're looking away
i know you've been loosing your hearing
since before you met me  
i'm so glad I'm loud
but i try not to say it too much
because i've seen it change meaning
upon repetition
i fear it will fade
or you're saying it in other ways

How do we know each other
so well?
we pay attention
we see more, than anyone else.

My childhood was spent reading books
in shade trees
and lips stained
by the blood of cool sweet blackberries
found in deep shade
and acquired by masochistic tendencies
which said the scrapes left by thorns
were nothing to the pleasure of cool berry burst
in southern sun

this summer will be spent reading books
in his cool arms
lips stained
by the sweat off his winter white skin
becoming bright red
from a known masochistic tendency
which says artists like to be bruised by kisses
this is nothing to the pleasure of being intertwined
on hot summer nights.

Now I sleep with my windows open
the world smells sweeter
because you exist

I mean I'm sure its the same
corruption and shame
it's always been

but you
make something new
of the moon.

My brain likes to auto destruct
And feed poison thoughts
I know you are better
than the rest

It's getting harder to wake up alone
I know we don't sleep so well
in each others beds
But for every moment
I wake up to you smiling at me
as you do in the morning
when the sun strike our faces
I'd give all my sleep
just to feel that precious

Im wearing the dress I wore
That day
Behind that box office window.
I remember you looking at your hands
Like they were suddenly to big for your body
And the words you said to me
"Is there any way I can get to know you better"
Ill tell you everything
Inside my soul

Laboto ackarine foto
Eone solaeih
I think when my childhood found me
Beneath trees
Building homes for faeries
And praying in ficticious tongues
The forest gods came through
Because you came from somewhere else.

loving you is a punk show
Passion so unbridaled
It leaves the participants
Comparing bruises
Not the kind left by pain
But extacsy

I am nervous
every time you speak to me
Every time I  know your face
is on the horizon
its been six months
my heart should not be a jack hammer,
or humming bird wings
or 128th beats
But
it still hasn't learned
how to be steady
when my name spills from your lips
like music.
only to keep the time
which is to fast and too slow
in your presence

It makes more sense to give men flowers,
when you think about it.
After all some love women
and women are floral in nature
some men rush quick to pick
but crush in their hands
or neglect until they go dry from want.
you said your favorite flower is a spider lily
i know where you came to know those blooms
i run by the viewing station 3 days a week
they grow in the middle of the river
where an island of rocks makes the water slow
and a few guardian trees grow
you love flowers that take getting your feet wet to touch
and that you can never posses
by cutting, only by growth.

Beautiful girls who write sad poetry
are dangerous things
we've come to the conclusion
that love is not always a force for positive good
and in a woman
who's been taught love is all.
This is a displacement of identity.
Which changes the soul.
From malleable object,
to unstoppable force.

It is actually possible
to  fight Fire with Fire.
Its a process by which
One's fuel is consumed by the Other.

I want to be a villanelle
two repeating lines you see
over and over
and they stick in your brain
i want to be your rule of threes
but the sort that repeats everyday
something that strikes you as you wonder why
you've seen it a thousand times
i wanna be the book of poems
on your bed side table
the one with the flowers on the cover
that you read before bed
i want to be the songs inside your head
I just want to be something
you cannot loose

Intensity in a writer is easy to spot
its in the callus on the finger that braces the pen
Its in the way she cannot breathe
when she looks at you
or until she finishes that line.
It's in the way you lose her for hours
as she writes, or reads, or paints you in poetry.
Its the way she tries to find words
that work better than I love you
Its that her love letters are 4 pages long
its the way she laments not being able to convey
exactly how she feels
its that sometimes her words don't seem to be constructed of ink
but life blood.
and that she is not flesh and bone
but paper and ink
She'll leave bruises with teeth
scratches with too short nails
because for just a moment she wants to consume you
we are all like that
we just want to be in your blood
to infiltrate your mind only for a moment.
It's in that she'll always remember the things that hurt you
every scar you've ever shown.
but not what she had for breakfast
it's her propensity for addiction
she'll say you make her want to be better
do not doubt her
you are the sky, the ink well, the page...
you are every beautiful passage
she doesn't love anything the way she loves words
you are words.... you are the thing itself.
you are the only thing even close in beauty
to the page.

It took me so long to learn
that being in love doesn't mean
holding tight to each others hands
so you both drown
its letting go so you can both swim to the surface
you are so light
like air for breathing.

Last night I told you I loved you
because the feelings built too high
And I
had been trying to let you say it first
So it wouldn't hurt if you didn't reply
But as I was laying in my bed
my heart was beating fast in my chest
And i could no longer swallow
my esophagus was full up
to the brink
and you were already asleep so
I wrote
All the reasons why
and that i didn't expect you to reply in kind
and i pressed send
i cant remember exactly when
you became the keeper of my heart beat
but i felt you should know
it rest in your hands

I was made to run from this
I've always preferred swift flowing rivers
to ocean fronts
the waves crash in the same place every day
i cant take the repetition
I'm afraid of these things
I don't wanna forget the way your name
feels like truth on my tongue
I'm suggesting that maybe I love you
but with shoes laced
and one hand on the door
you and I are much the same
we are not made to be with other people
so we see each other well.

The sky, last night as if fell asleep, was the wrong color
i know whats just how light pollution goes
But still i just huddled in my sheets
unsteady breathing
today the sky is silver grey
and the birds are singing their winter songs
I always wonder how the key is never wrong
they are always in harmony.

I am always happy
when I'm with you
I Love you like I'm not,
Which is to say
I've always known
love as congruent to pain.
smiles lasting only moments
Melting like snow
loving you is not like that
you are endless evergreen
your laughter is a bubbling happiness
magic is a concrete thing
our play is immortal childhood
it's believing in the triumph of good
And I don't know
how to do things like that.