"you really are beautiful,
in your own kind of way",
he says
     as he spits through his teeth

in what way is that,
i wonder?

in a way that can't be crammed into a size five dress?
in a way that isn't actually aesthetically appealing?
in a way that's too intelligent to find your misogynistic outburst colored flattery?

he pushes the wire-like hair away from my face
and wipes an angry tear from my freckled cheek
     "see, all you have to do is try."

oh, boy
try
yeah,
     that's what i'll do
so i can catch another in a long line of "men" who think i COULD be beautiful

as if beauty is only one color
     one size
     one shape
as if it can truly be measured with a bathroom scale and a hand-held mirror
and can be purchased at a costly brand-name outlet in a shopping mall near you

my mother's mother has an affinity for referring to my twenty-three extra pounds
in a way that one refers to the neighbor's busted-down ford that needs towed away
"oh, catrina, you really could be so gorgeous,
     if you'd just get rid of some of your fluff."

she pinches at my sides
     and the backs of my arms
     and the little curve at the tops of my thighs
          just below my ***
like i'm an over-stuffed pillow on her antique love-seat
that's about to burst at the seems
     should the seemstress not pull out the threads with her teeth
and remove the unsightly over-fill like black-heads from a slender nose

everything she buys me comes from a plus sized store
     and wears a fat filthy double XL on it's tag

considering that i factually only need a large
i fight back my plump tears and wear a cheap smile
as i give thanks i don't mean
and kiss her on her heavily perfumed cheek
     "oh, such lovely lips
     why not a splash of lipstick?"

as soon as i'm out of her home state
i take the clothes back to the "big-girl" store
and trade them in for pizza and beer money

the girl behind the counter ironically weighs ninety-two pounds soaking wet
and that's only if she's still got on her padded bra
     slender
     starved
     sickly
     and supposedly ****
since when were curves a curse?
and who the **** decided it was a good idea to pattent worth with a lipstick shade, anyway?

no
     no way

i am beautiful without having to paint myself that way
my existence is not defined by the shape i take
my flaws and imperfections can't be remidied with any myriad of poking and plucking
     nipping and tucking
and all of my greatness and wonder sure as **** outweigh a tiny bleach-blonde *****

oh
*******
     and that pretty little pony you rode in on

i refuse to be pressed against a rubric and graded like a show-dog whose owner will only settle for best-in-show
     and kicks his failure of a companion sharply in the ribs when he doesn't bring home another ribbon

this obsession of society's is making us sick
  
we don't teach our children compassion and empathy
     we instead instill their heads with talk of thread count
     and color schemes
     how to brush on blush
     and how to pick a suit
cute won't save the world

i beg you sisters
     please
let us not give this disease to our daughters
let us not allow our sons to carry the gene

together
     let's put to rest the ill-concieved notion of our beauty residing without us
          rather than within

let us never again bow down to the revlon gods of vanity

together
we are Woman
     and we deserve to finally soar

i used to cradle her bleach-cracked hands in mine
and decode the stardust resting within her fingerprints
     up until the day that i lost touch with the art of reading braille
     and she stopped slinging tall-tales for me to fetch
and rest the plot-twist at her feet

often in the post-script
i'd find my train of thought highjacked by the sunlight illuminating the rainbow of earth-tones ablaze
in her frizz-ridden curls
as if she'd been washing her hair with the damaged case of beer
she'd gotten for half-price at liqour depot
     she never did quit drinking
          but neither did i

at least we tried

though sometimes
in the middle of the night when nothing was alright
and we'd barely survived another fight
her face would catch my glance
cast aglow by a flood of lava-lamp light
    
     the sea of freckles resting at the crest of her cheeks
     rose lips perma-pursed in half tilt
     her resting heart-rate so high that i could almost see it
          pirouetting within her chest

it was then that i'd love her best
     amidst the ruins of who we were
     just moments before

i share my name with a hurricane
how fitting

a set of bruised shins in running tights
who can't get much of anything right
and still hasn't remembered where she set her drink

that's me

i sometimes think they should've named me tiffany
or brittany
or stephany
something pretty and normal

maybe then i would have been a ballerina
instead of just a mess
in a second-hand dress

sometimes i swear
the wind calms when i laugh
and the thunder cracks
when i finally let go
and let myself fade
back into the sky that shaped me

i make it rain


some things never change
not names
or headstones
or birthdays

and some things always do


the sky shifts slightly
setting a yellow kite to sail
and a pair of hawks to soar

maybe they named the storm after me
so that i could see
how beautiful turbulence can be

maybe i just wasn't looking right

besides
a rose by any other name
wouldn't seem as special

i've spent my entire lifetime running
running away
running in circles
running myself into the ground

it isn't fun, anymore
my feet have gotten heavy

i remember that night you drove **** near 100 miles
so we could go to the park and play lava-monster
i didn't know the rules
you were patient

there
in the decaying fall air
with your news-boy cap pulled down over my eyes and my arms stretched out into the darkness
searching for you
i felt right
for the first time in my life i felt fine

i haven't feld good, since

i wish i knew then what i know now

that i may likely never see you again
that you were leaving
that you're a runner too

i guess it is true
you get what you give

my feet have become granite
stones not meant to be resurrected from the earth
my globe's nothing but a paper-weight, now
the atlas is never cracked
because i can't find you on a map
and your arms are the one place that i long to be

silly, really
the way the head and the heart are incapable of speaking to each other honestly

now and then
the wind rests
for just a moment
and through the dry wyoming air
i catch your scent trail
like a glimpse of heat-lightning in the far horizon
but just like you
it's gone in an off-set heartbeat

the tumble weeds sing your name as they slink across the plains
stirring my insomnia into a craze
that can only be calmed by night-sky air
i search for your face in the shadows of the moon
as my calls to you rise with my steam-heated breath
and disappear into the stars

i wonder if you lay awake all night
swearing that the constellations are all begining to align
with the sole purpose of pointing you towards me

with well worked hands
he pulls on the sea
     like the hem of a pale skirt dancing 'round his lovers hips

it's what she loves about him most

the way that the tide ebbs and flows
     with the rise and fall of his sun-stained chest

seashells
and gull feathers
and bits of fishing net
     woven into his hair
like the threads of canvas sails

aqueous thunder-head eyes
look like they've seen the fall of every empire
      and soon
they'll witness the fall of ours

he smells of salt-cured wood and the sun
and it's the kind of smell you'll never forget
nor properly describe

he moves like magic

     like waves
          lapping at the shoreline in the calm of dusk

with an anxious tongue
and an appetite that's never satisfied
     he licks the wounds of any heart
he's strong enough to bare the weight of any burden
          of any trash barge or sea ferry

ear pressed to his chest
     like a conch-shaped vessle
          the labor of his heart valves plays like sailor songs
in an empty cabaret

     nerve-wrackingly beautiful

in her dreams
she sprouts like fresh seeds pressed into fertile dirt
she's constantly stretching farther and farther
in a futile attempt to finally reach the sun

she closes her eyes
and sees rows and rows of lemon trees and strawberries
mango groves and avocados

she loves to feed the earth
to give birth to something living that's incapable of denying
or betraying
her love
she wants to feed almost everyone she meets
set them down and wash their feet
fill their cups and watch them leave

she hopes that one day
someone will ask to stay
a boy whose heart is in need of mending
or a man with hands that could move mountains
maybe
one day

she wants a farm
a limitless garden to stretch as far as her eyes will let her see
maybe just a bohdi tree to sit beneath
a place to stay and wait to be buried by the leaves
just for now
anyway

she needs a home where she can be by herself without feeling alone
she needs somewhere that she's meant to be

supposedly
dreams are things we chase down dark alley ways
only to watch them escape us

she damns every man who says so

she's determined to catch up with every one of her dreams
yeah
a dream catcher of sorts
she puts on her gloves and steps out in the mud
ready to catch whatever the universe tosses her way
or even just the ripe fruit falling from the trees in her dreams

mooshed up stubs of cigarettes swell in flooded ashtrays,
like fishies who gave up swimming to skim the surface,
belly first.
everything looks ancient when the sunlight is a muted grey.
this is not my home.
clouds part momentarily,
and a slice of off-white jet stream gets enveloped by a crying sky;
someone said, "you won't grow if you don't weep."
well, don't weep for me.
the smell of wet dirt,
wet leaves,
and wet concrete
waltz in through the drafty windows,
leading the parade of nostalgia breaking me down.
why in the **** did i ever grow up.
now it's rent checks,
passed-due notices,
and borrowing money so that the dogs can finally eat.
this isn't the 'me' i once loved.
i was a fearless leader of the rain-coat regime,
leading a fleet of one-thousand wax-paper sail boats to victory
over the tyranny of the rain gutter.
i was brave then.
a renegade cowgirl of the final frontier,
adorned in costume jewelry and mud stained over-alls.
i built ships to shred the sky,
and bring home my mother all of saturn's hula-hoop rings,
and every bouncy-ball on mars.
she always said my treasures were worth millions;
but i didn't want the money, then.
i wanted adventures.
with dirt roads and ***** toads and sandwiches smashed to ****
by rouge apples set in the cooler.
i wanted to hold the map,
and the compass,
and feel like the captain of our red-desert sea.
i wanted to see for myself everything that the horizon had to give me.
see,
at that age,
i knew i'd live forever.
but at this age,
i know i'm bound to slowly die.
i'd give every penny to my name
to get back to the days
where even the rain didn't stop me from playing.
to when "dressing like a princess" entailed mom's red apron,
dad's harley davidson cap,
and little brother's rain boots.
i haven't felt like a princess since.
i just feel like a failure,
and it hurts.
i don't even know where i learned the word,
but i promise,
i regret it.
so i'll wish on this cheap bottle of whiskey,
and the glass that i'll drink from,
to go back.
to be five again.
to be set next to my mother's type writer,
whispering the words to the newest tall-tale i'd woven,
and watching her type out my dreams for me with her perfectly slender fingers,
one sticky key at a time.
it always sounded just like rain drops.

back to the days of dandelion dreaming
     tasting the sweetness at the center
     and squeezing the sap from the stems
onto our dirt dusted hands
          frantic finger-painting on the cement dance floor that we bloomed from

back to the sage-dressed lake bed
     she laughs
and boasts silently to the sky of her emerald depths
     i laugh
and boast ineloquently to the bottle's neck of my mermadic swimming
          always got my head beneath the surface
     but this isn't suffocation
               no
          just transformation

i am on the rise

back to the nights of meteor showers at the top of the world
from the hood of my car
     sharing candy bars and over-ripe secrets
it's the browning fruit that tastes the sweetest
          so freedom must be the color of garden soil
     or maybe just the same shade as your eyes

back to the laughter
erupting from our child-like bellies
like hot water
     from granite springs themselves
remember?

back to the tents
     and firepits
     and unmapped road trips with no end in sight

back to the chapter
with the "happily-ever-after"
     and the monsters under the bed packing up for a holiday in spain

back to the light
that's how i'll survive

a candy apple red heritage soft-tail classic
on a rusted dirt road
i am built of where i've been

the mango groves
the east and west coast
and every camp-ground in canada
this map is my home
let me tuck you into the folds
and sing you to sleep
some place sweet
where the air smells of earth and rain

don't let the concrete tame you

the road under foot is not measured by the steps necessary to travel it
but the way one migrates over the breaking soil
resting between where we are and where we'll be
when our dreams run free
and the tent's set in the pines

barefoot
running shoes
doc martens
thumb to the sky
pack on my back
black top under bridgestones

let us fly

let us soar

s'go

i'll take you with me
like my sleeping bag
and skinning knife
and canteen

be the water that i drink

fuel the fires that propel this engine
drive me to the end of the road
where one can only go by foot
and feather
and foolishness

let's disappear in the fog of the north
the mud of the east
the heat of the south
the haze of the west

let's find ourselves in the topography of folded bodies
tangled up in a flesh scented tent

an aerosol angel with college-ruled wings
and paint stained fingertips
stranded in a sea of pigmentation
lately, she's been feeling out of place
not all compasses point due north

a parrot in a sea of sharks
who's never learned to sail

they're selling tickets to the ****-show on the shore line
catch the half priced sunday matanee
save the date

a trapeze ******* with a choke hold on the universe's coat tails
tap dancing through star charts and love poems at the pace of lightning's strike
some failures just have to be public
if lessons are to be learned
the prettiest ballerinas aren't afraid to fall

she's learned the hard way to find beauty in skinned knees
strength in stubbed toes
and faith in a broken heart

no point in dressing up, honey
prince charming doesn't frequent freak shows

he's an arrogant flake, anyway
her best bet is a strong man
or a fire breather
when looking for a boy to bring home

one man to bare her burdens
and another to scortch the wreckage of what's left
careful what you wish for

butterflies the size of funnel cakes shake her rib cage to pieces
silver confetti on pitted pavement

he looked so handsome beneath the neon lights
horrified and ecstatic all at once
like a lost boy in neverland

scanning the crowd of strangers for any possible princess tiger lillie's

someone to ride alongside on the ferris wheel all night
untill the sheriff shines his flashlight down the path that points them home
alone

but handsome boys know little about matters other than themselves
so she's gotten good at feeling bad

it's time to find a man
someone who can build things instead of just break them

a light breeze stirs the tops of the trees into a tantric dance
in a section of the sky i've only ever dreamt of thriving in.
magic stirs the dust...
and it coats my eyelashes and the undersides of my finger-nails,
and falls from my skin softly-
the way stars descend through atmospheres.
there is sweetness in the air.
moon-beams basket-weave through night-sky hair
and tap-dance their way around my neck,
adorning me in their celestial secrets.
i create and name my own constellations
from the vantage point of a little girl beneath a big sky,
connecting distant points of light with nebulous-lassos flying from my fingertips.
i am golden.
in this moment,
i am beautiful...
if only i could remember.
preserve this feeling right now-
scoop it from the encroaching dusk,
and trap it in a glass bell jar like a firefly,
and feed on its light forever.
if i could remember that i do love myself-
maybe i'll survive...
perhaps even flourish.

rebellious song birds whisper through the night-
accompanying the melody of breaking waves-
a lullaby from the universe that only i will ever know.
i hum along in thoughtful bliss.
this ends the separation-
from myself,
from loving,
from FEELING;
right now i feel everything.
love,
light,
warmth,
beauty,
and the courage necessary to finally acquire a sense of freedom that can never die.
i am living,
to the very best of the definition...
that's got to be enough for you-
for ALL of you-
because i finally see that it's enough for me...

and for the stars.

we broke the wishbone
you got the wish
i got a splinter

that's how it goes

fare faced grinning fool
     oh, how easy it'd be
for me to be jealous of you, brother
the boy who couldn't be stopped
the man that the wind whispers to

you are magic
you are busy lights on an empty stretch of I80
the swell of drum beats over silence
the giggle-fit tear stains on the universe's cheek

baby boy
wide eyed man-cub

the world tried to steal you
once
all those years ago
and you
you defiant son-of-a-gun
refused to bow to even death
     the laugh lines at the end of a blank heart rate

thanks for never leaving me behind

you take nothing seriously
except dreams and funerals
and the call of the moon

"no matter where you are in life
no matter how noisy it gets
or how badly it hurts
you have to throw on the brakes now and then
just slow down
and turn your eyes to the sky
and howl
like a ravid coyote
howl at the moon"

"remind existence that you won't go quietly"

when i was six
dad told me that he and mom
had made us out of stardust
and magic
and beer caps
and fossils
     that they made us out of treasure

you're my treasure
and the temple of my dreams
you're my map
my back pack
my adventure hat
and the voice in my head that laughs
and calls me a *******

we are not human beings on a spiritual endeavor
but spiritual beings
bound to a human medium

how very thankful i am to be tethered to you

my DNA is a self-made daisy chain
strung together with the best of intentions
and a few yards of dental floss

it's always getting tangled up in moon beams
and boot strings
     tugging me in one thousand directions at once
like the sea pulling at the limitless shorelines hem

i am magic

my flesh reflects the hue of the desert dust the winds bathe me in
speckled with freckles that occasionally line up with the stars

what a fool i'd be to paint myself into obscurity
with make-up brushes and lipstick hues

          no

i choose me

excessively sensitive to the energy of all other living beings
always feeling everything
all the pain and happiness
love and fear and angst
     at once
          lumped in with the leaves of my tea
destined to forever reside within
     me

the high-priestess of the immeasurable things
the guardian of treasures unseen
     constantly filling my sundress with ***** pebbles
     broken feathers
          and all the stardust i can find

i've spent the last one thousand life times
being everywhere at the EXACT same time 

you should know
     you were there

     and oh
such love i've found
hiding in the shallows
in the mud
     and under the edges of your finger nails

even in the darkness of the vast
and ever-stretching sky
there is so much light
so very many precious gems
hoisted into timeless settings along the milkyway's head-dress

          i promise
where i am right now
is the best place to be

and if you don't believe me
     crane your neck towards the stars

perhaps
if there were spaces
     gaps left in the english language

places meant for characters left to be invented

maybe
if there were phrases
     and definitions
yet to be coined

i could finally tell the whole truth
about me
     and the monsters in my head

i once dated a boy who found it "adorable" that i know how to change my headlights
     fill my radiator
     change the oil
     and notice every stopsign as i'm halfway through it
he dumped me via text

before that
there was a boy who loved my lack of first person capitalization
     my over-use of metaphores and similies
     the way i personify the night
     and practice preforming poetry in the shower
he took off into the sunset with my journal in his shoulder-sack

and somewhere in between
i stopped asking myself what it means
threw up my hands
     and learned to enjoy the ride

the train whistles lull me to a dusty sleep
     an ancient sleep
primitive and timeless as the sage
          it tastes like rain
          and reads like a folk song

and when the engine songs are gone
the interstate strikes up it's serenade
     flooding my heart valves with gasoline
     and valvoline
     and the smile of what i can only hope to imagine are young lovers
with a fiesty case of wanderlust
and a puppy in the back seat
with a wagging tail

"happy trails" i whisper
and the stars flicker
and i smile

the walls let their secrets slide while they sleep
     all those restless memories they keep for themselves
floating around
and settling in the parlor dust

they trust me just enough
to let me cradle them in my chest
woven between my rebar ribs
and my flat-tire heart
     thud thud thudding as it speeds off into the distance

the dogs rustle the sheets as they rise
     just long enough to sigh
          dance a sleepy circle and a half
and put themselves back to bed

i finally crawl out from inside my noisy head
as the boy nestles up to my neck
and traces my clavical with his humid breath
and ropes me in closer to his chest
     with his big bear arms

his heart sings like a fire alarm
stirring the brave to save me from the shadows
     and chase the ghosts from my gallows
          and he even lets out puppy snores in his sleep
the tune that finally pirouettes me towards my dreams

where the birds sing like drunken sailors in the mango groves
and the rows and rows of lime trees
     my heart and mind innertwined to paint me a scene i've never even seen
          not with my own eyes

it's so nice to think it's within me
and not without me

yes
     for every sound, a source

i miss your lips
the way they'd smoothly dance
like a genie in a lamp
as you'd sing
and speak

how sweet your memory tastes
though the reality has long since faded

i cling to my effervescent exaggerations of our tangled past
replaying time to time
on the dream-screen of my mind
as i snack lightly on the salty remarks of my youth
and i laugh

it hurts
but it feels so healthy

you fade through the moon-mist
and dismiss your own existence
once again proclaiming that you are nothing
but an extension of it all
a fingerprint of the wilky-way
just a strand of DNA
swimming through the wake of infinite expansion

i miss it

the beer-breath incantions you'd softly slur after dark
the kisses you'd plant along my edges
like the vines that trace the hedges
in the front lawn of that dusty place we'd fake our love

nostalgia always begins so inviting
untill you're finally feeling sea-sick
from the over-ingestion of false sweets
and pure imagination

now we're so far gone
living in a different reality entirely
i don't think i'd even know your face if i saw it
i know you only by the way your shape fits in the frame
another handsome man
trapped forever in the reels of film of my mind

but i'll remember you
you're woven into the wood works
    
     drunkenly dancing through a serendipitous sea of names
     stands the lamen's term for your current shape
your birth-given name
credited with a handfull of scars
left behind by a man who forced me to grow

i lick the rain from my lips
and kiss the moon goodnight in hopes of tasting the stars that you dream under
when you're lucky enough to sleep beneath a clear sky
and for your sake
i hope the clouds will always part for you come nightfall

and i wish the sun to dance across the apples of your cheeks as you smile
as sunbeams dot your face with pigmented music notes
and constellations waiting to be named

i hope you're smiling now
and day-dreaming
of rugged landscapes fading to rust as the thunder whispers the blues through the stillest night

i hope you smile when you think of me

seated around a cluttered table with extension cord lighting and a cheap beer
or rambling down a dirt road
or a metra track

don't forget that i'm magic
and that you are too

i hope that your favorite flowers bloom in fragrant plumes wafting high enough to cross the heavily guarded walls you've resurrected

i hope you won't spend a single second scared
or lonely
out there in the "great wide open"

but mostly i hope you'll never forget the road back west
to the desert dust i flourish in

he always insisted
i needed something to believe in
     yet he scoffed
          attempted to laugh it off
when i promised that i built stonehenge
     and the great pyramids
    
     ground his teeth as i whispered
that the world found cuneiform by my hands

     and he dropped me off
when i elaborated on the day
i walked away from babylon's tower


so
     off he galloped forever
          destined never to understand the factual weight of one's dreams

the waves break like the days that chase them
and our hardened layers fall down around our ankles
and sacrafice themselves to the edges of the shorline

it's the sunshine season

we don our freckled, olive, summer skin
as we slip into our cut-off shorts and boat shoes

the winter blues melt into their tributaries and take off for the sea
leaving us to blush and bloom like budding tulips

work stained hands toss the rule books aside
making room for a cheap can of beer and an ancient dog earred map

let the dusty two-tracks point you back
to your abandoned spirit of adventure
and your neglected hiking boots

let's go

let's run off towards the sunset
and the lake bed
and get to the heart of what matters in the middle of nowhere
let's get lost sunburned
drunk
and young
it's time to be better again
to be happy as children again

i'll meet you out there
somewhere along the edges of where the water fades to mountains
and the mountains pierce the skies
i hope to see you there...
with a smile on your face and your heart on your sleeve
i promise to bookmark a place for you

let's go find what they are all missing
nurse our hearts
and our spirits
and that primitive instinct burried somewhere deep inside us
that begs us to chase the sweetness
to play
climb
dance
and grow
let's go

but first
a toast

here's to you
and to me
and to every skinned knee that eventually led us to learn the ropes
here's to the countless hopes and dreams that we've had to reconstruct
in order to shape our own realities
here's to sunburns
moonshine
and all that we can be
beneath these summer skies.

i fell in love with you
once
long ago
with my eyes closed
and the dream-screen drawn

we danced
like music notes across their barred landscape
we danced
the loveliest late-night lullaby

you became my hiding place
lilac and lace linens
stretched over a lumpy matress

my indiana jones
waiting patently and poetically
in a long-lost temple of slumber

you come back to me in waves
softly and subtly
while i'm half awake
you're kissing the broken down shorelines of an insomniacs holiday

i wish i could keep you
like an empty bottle in the window-sill
or a heart arrhythmia
this lonely romantics cardiovascular waltz

let me snag you up from my dream-dust
and stitch you to my sole like a lost boys shadow

let me find you in my reality
tip-toeing over an underlined paragraph
of a beer stained paper-back

i'll find you
someday
after a long-over-due nights sleep

perhaps in the guitar strings
or type-writer keys
or at the bottom of a bottle of whiskey in the ever-humming freezer

be mine
evasive valentine
i'll even let you hide in the curls of my hair
or under my fingernails
i'll keep you
if you'll let me

just don't forget me
come sun-up
when you gallup away
from my sub-conscious escape

take my heart-rate with you
tucked into your breast-pocket
like a floral handkercheif
or a photogaraph taped to the dash

come back
to the grey matter kingdom
tucked behind my eyelashes
i'll meet you in the idiosyncrasies of my synapses
writing love stories that never once happened

the clouds are breaking
slowly
and sweetly
and just enough to let ribbons of sunlight splash down on our faces

let's play today
let's fill the car with gas
and beer
and horseshoes
and disappear for a few hours on end
further south
on the lake shore
let's run rampant today
kick off our shoes and paddle over the cracking pavement barefoot
at full speed
and full of laughter
let's jump in the puddles
and build in the mud
and dance in the wild flowers like we used to
before we learned that others may be watching

let's fly a kite
unfathomably high
upwards enough to tap-dance through the rings of saturn
and scoop us up some treasures-
astrological costume jewelry just waiting to be adorned
let's sing like we aren't afraid
snap our way to center stage
and bathe in sweltering limelight for the world to hear
we'll sing away all our blues
and the rest of the world's blues too
let's jump off the high cliffs
in our steam pressed sunday best
to show at least ourselves
we're all we've got to impress
and as we're weightless and pressurized
beneath the surface of a glossy green lake
let the buttons
and cufflinks
and pearl earrings fall away
so we can see ourselves some clean way
again

let's forget
let us never remember being scared
and lonely
and lost
at cumbersome crossroads of the past
let's rebuild ourselves from scratch
press stardust and dirt
from the ground up
to make us new
and real
and something we can finally feel proud of
let's be magic
light in the dark
and love to the lost
we can heal hearts
we can hold hands
we can be friends
and be happy

let's play today

almond shaped eyes
     the color of fertile earth
           deep
deeper than marianna and her treacherous trench

i fall deeper into your magic with every glance

     the mere thought of your existence sends lightning bolts through my bones
you give me butterflies the size of ostriches
     and someday soon i'll take flight

astronauts and the smell of stardust

      nasa
           here we come

i can hear the static pulse of the universe in your laughter
     you leave solar flares in your wake 

you take my breath away
     a presence as heavy as the vacuum of space

not burdensome
     but welcomed
like an egyptian cotton blanket over bare flesh
     or the pressure of the lakes surface on my naked ribcage
          an embrace
with god
with darwin
with satan
and neil pert

it hurts me when you frown
     deep
          deep down

i drown in despair at the earliest glimpse of your discourse

     but when you smile
hot ****
          that smile
i shiver and shrink 
like a scalp in a glacial pool

you're strong as a sequoia
      proud as an ancient peak
yet for some reason
     you see me
in a far more flattering light than i view myself

i wanna take you
     far
          far
               far away
and make you stay forever mine
forever perfect in my eyes

poetic strengths
prose-like down falls
     and it all reads just like Rumi
classic
     timeless
          true

i can't wait until the day you admit
that you can't wait
     to be tangled up in me
          and the sheets
          and the seams of the fabric of time

the moment that i laid eyes on you
     time simply ceased to be

the globe stopped its spinning
and the lights started dimming
     and the heathens began their fevered singing
          and i forgot just who i was

the instant that your eyes fell upon my frame
     i got thrown back into reality again
          and i crash landed feet-first into a chair

          it was fair
     we both had to stifle our giggling

you spoke smoothly
     almost orchestrally
some sort of poetic sing-song
          heavily laced with the accent of the place that i hope to someday find you

               "chicago, chicago, that toddling town..."

i hope i find you soon
     wearing that same sleepy looking smile
     and your news-boy cap
     and that shoulder strap sack that i'd like to think you kept stuffed to the brim with college-rulled ball-point ballet

but that was years ago
     now there's more than just arrhythmias and murmurs and excited flesh between our heavy chests
now there's lines drawn between our toes

lines scratched into the sands of time with the force of lightning's strike
          
          worry lines
          telephone lines
          state lines
               lines that furrow across the face of the map

     things tend to fade out like that
the way the last track on your favorite record fades slowly to the sound of a skipping needle
          
i'm still unsure if i imagined you into existence
     or if you only existed in my imagination
either way
          i wish you'd have stayed a while longer

the morning after always hurts the worst
hazy brain
summersault stomach
and where in the hell is my car

i want a pizza
or two

it was nice to see you
i've missed your smile
and condensed stare
and the shape that your lips make while you confess your love to the beer bottle's neck

that explains the jameson
and all the beers at the bar
the beer bongs at the after party
and why i could stomach the strippers

it was all you
so nice to see you

why do i always feel guilty when the sun comes up

no one got a black eye
i didn't grab the mic
and my clothes stayed on until i was safely home
although
the cab driver may have caught a glance

to think
i'm "all grown up"

i'm not at all sorry
not for the whiskey gut
or the fire i'll throw up
or the kisses that i didn't plant along your collar
i'm still the same floral-print ship-wreck at the bottom of the bottle

my mother once said that the only people worth clinging to
are those who see all of your greatness outweighing your flaws

you still see the holes in my tights
and my falling hem line
not the honey sweet legs they shape
or the hips and thighs that the denim hides
i'll be just fine as the german genie in the bottle of irish whiskey

witty
and slack-jawed
and ready to kiss the lips off the face of the clock
and two shots away from dancing with the cops
i look great in hand-cuffs
i'll whistle the whole way to jail

small victories weigh the most
and right now
i feel like muhammed ali

thanks, babe

here's two asprin that glow better than your eyes
and they're mine
waiting to chase away the pain that came up with the sun
here's to endings that aren't a safe bet
here's to sleeping alone
here's to new mistakes
just waiting to happen

*water never tasted so good to me

i'll leave behind a legacy of lengthy love poems
so that no reader could ever tell
     that i've never loved a heart who loved me back

i'll ensure that my body leave behind no bone unbroken
so no anthropologist would ever guess
     that i spent my entire life scared to death

and i'll fill each dusty corner of my tiny little house
with plants and books and trinkets of memories forgotten
so that the coroner could never publish
     how empty i really felt

oh-
          of all words i've ever spoken
    i pray that these will never read broken:

*i will sow this great earth with ideas for blooming
each incapable of death so that no child ever guess
    that i didn't live forever

i pressed the moon to my breast
and took light to heart

now i see clearly when i fall apart
     and pull myself back together
with nebulous lassos

the snowfall came tumbling down
   resting sweetly on my eyelashes and toes
like the feathers of one million unfortunate doves
     that dad popped in the chest
     with his pellet gun

i spent twenty years day-dreaming of a love
that i finally found
     when i found you
and it's true
          love hurts

but what's worse
is holding on to a kite's string
     long after the kite broke free

you're not coming back to me


     so this is what letting go tastes like
               whiskey and salt water

i leaned against my mother's kitchen sink
crying
          six shots of whiskey deep at half passed noon

     and both mutts came running
leaning their limber legs against mine

a heart-felt interspecies hug

ready and willing to catch my salty tears
upon the bridge of their snouts

     so this is true love

i want a voice like the heartbeat of the metra tracks
     as it shakes its way into your brain
while you're half awake
and daydreaming
     'bout something sweet
     something that means nothing to me
but it's cute
     see
          
          the way you can't help but smile

i want to be that cringe of excitement in your skull
that you can't stop daydreamin' about

  and...
if you could find yourself fascinated by my freckles
     and my flaws
     and the scars all over from all of the near-fatal gashes
     and the heaps and heaps of stardust rusting to my eyelashes
     and the fact that i'm always talking about love as if i'd actually had it
          i promise
i'd never say you were a fool

i could wear you like split ends
or a crooked grin
     a handsome pair in inclement weather
     somehow better together

not two halves
     of one whole

two wholes
     thriving on each other
      
          cigarettes and coffee
          whiskey and beer

mmhmmm
     we're in the clear from here
nothing but salty tides and starry skies
          straight on 'till morning

i've written a grip of confessional love poems on beverage napkins
strung them together with a dissociative understanding of time (like dental floss)
     wrung them out and hung them up to ripen on the line

mama always said not to name things that are only going to die
and i lied to her face when i told her i wouldn't

          i gave it a name

and i was going to send it your way
as if maybe seeing it all spelled out
would make you change your plans
     and stay

alas
     i'm quite certain that i blew my nose on the winning sonnet
and burried the rest with what was left of my tears

now i don't even write
     i just scream at the stars all night
as if my life's become a sailor-song
and this desert
          my decaying cabaret

i found a weathered love note pressed into the breast pocket of a second hand wool coat...
the year pre-dates my existence,
but it's addressed to me and signed with a moon beam.
it reads like a perfectly orchestrated symphony of strings of small silver bells swinging from the trees in a breeze,
and a melancholy hum of distant thunder as her luminous soul mate tap-dances his way through humid states in flashes of raw,
and sacred light.
it reads like an epitaph-
a stumbled upon testimony to the life of a stranger that makes you fall to your knees
that simply begs you to weep...
and to wonder;
if you should have said goodbye...
or if you could have locked the open door long before the sweetness of life you so surely insist that you've found fled through it.
it reads like a note taped to the bathroom mirror in the handwriting of a concerned friend...
reminding you of your likely survival,
of the possibilities of each and every sunrise,
and of dollar beer night down town.
it reads like the author had meant it.

"my dearest stardust," it begins,
"how forcefully bright you are destined to shine...
you are built of light,
of ancient celestial wisdom.
you're a beacon
a light house on a foggy shore guiding lonely sailors back to where their hearts belong.
your heart-songs are the articulacy of a thousand life-times forgotten.
each note flies from your lips as you forge them with force...
like speeding bullets sent out into the universe destined to slay the way we fear ourselves.
don't let the darkness find you;
never let anything thin out your glow or drown out your melody.
you are magic;
the type of thing we cling to-
as children and as dreamers.
you are a mother to every orphaned flight plan and exit strategy...
an escape artist painting door frames on surfaces not meant to be defaced.
you end up everywhere,
and you have everywhere to run.
you overflow from poorly stretched canvasses,
to broken spines of dusty books,
and back into the heart of a lonely traveler's compass rose.
let your self be magic
be aqueous
be fluid and refreshing like the rain-storm that you are.
you're the desert
the sands of time
you're quickly fleeting and quick to run.
you're a dying breed.
and we,
the lights of the sky,
treasure you.
we remind you of this in every comet's tail and every clear wyoming night sky.
all of our love."

and i can feel it
flashing before me in every stranger's eyes
it is real...
we are magic.

the snow falls sincerely sorry,
like a pale yellow skirt at the foot of your bed-
i always said, "i didn't mean it".
but i meant it.
it's that time of the year,
where you'll wrap yourself in wool and leathers,
in hopes no one will feel just how cold you truly are,
but i can feel it.
you drink your whiskey straight,
yet feel too inhumane to rest your lips on the same bottle
as the only people who've ever loved you drink from.
your glass gets frosty.
you blow hot, pungent air between your teeth like steam,
in hopes we'll see you as some frightening machine,
instead of how you really are when you forget
that you should be holding up your fashionably unfashionable walls.
you're just another washed up actor,
who somehow lost the ability to differentiate between being on-set,
and being alive.
so you lie.
frantically,
frivolously,
and frusterated,
that nobody you trust can trust you to be you.
the scenes that you build get muddled and confused,
rendered too busy by your lack of attention
and over-use of the exact same hues.
you used to seem so beautiful,
until i found your pallet
under your worn-down mattress...
you only paint with grey.
oh, how you tried
to hide the colors that i am under a tweed cloak of comfort ability,
but i don't fade,
and i most certainly do not run.
i change every day,
and when i begin to hate the direction that my masterpiece is heading in,
i change course entirely.
i abandon the compass,
and the guide books,
and stampede across the pages,
until i become the new and improved version of who i was yesterday.
stop pretending,
and just be.
you wear your "fight" face everyday,
as if you may have to chase a pride of giggling hyenas away
at any given moment.
put down your knife and act right,
no one here wants to hurt you.
you hurt me,
you tried to hide me,
and you lied to me.
still, 
all i want to do is teach you.
teach you to let go of your charade,
to embrace the life you've made,
and how to paint the sunset as a sunset-
not a eulogy.

i tried to write a poem that wasn't about you
but nothing came to mind
so i climbed up on top of my mom's roof
and puffed smoke signals towards the moon
in hopes that they'd take my thoughts with them

before i knew it
i was counting sattelites
the same way that i'd count your breaths at night
     apparently everything marches to the same measure as your sunken sternum

"sunrise, sunset."

somewhere in orion's belt
hides the same gleam as your moonlit grin
and i'm back at it again
     twisting up sweet leaf in the appologies you'd sling
     and hoping you'll think of me
when you wake from coughing in your sleep
as i scortch my fingertips

maybe you'll be reminded
of that first campfire kiss
we shared in the sticks
     was it five years ago
          or was it six?

****
     i just can't think of anything but our tangled hips

          the way they read just like a star chart's dots and trailing dashes
     and the astrological improbability of celestial bodies managing to gracefully merge

the pendulum princess taps her pen on the desk
as the dogs whimper in their sleep
and the trees wrap themselves in the witching-hour starlight

the silence suddenly seems so frantic

i swear
i can hear my skin shrinking

the wind slithers over the roof
whispering through the moon beams
in hopes of finding someone to snuggle up with

at least i'm not the only one who's sick of sleeping alone

my body no longer feels like home
my bones creak like splintering floorboards under stubbed toes
my head's busy running in circles of constant contemplation
     am i awake
             or am i dreaming?
        was that a sigh
                or am i screaming?

buzzing like a firefly
trapped between a ***** countertop and a frosted beer mug

three weeks of bed rest
(and counting)
and all that's grown stronger
is my understanding of exhaustion

my secrets sharpen their teeth as i'm sound asleep

and i still wonder why i wake with sapling scars

run into the crested shorelines where the greatest empires have fallen,
and kiss the tides of the salty sea in hopes of calming your clumsy pulse and flippant thoughts.

stretch your legs.
limber up like a prideful little boy before a rigged game of lava-monster...
and run!

run like your shoes will never untie and your heavy feet will never misfire.

run to the reams of yellowing pages you cling to,
full of ball-point memoir metaphors and pithy,
expressive descriptions of the beautiful women you've trained yourself to hate along the way.
don't get friendly with your paintbrush when you reminisce this time.

run.
full-fledged, snot-nosed, scared-shitless-grinned
sprint.

run to itchy cotton bedding drenched in the stench of day-dreams and nightmares;
peppered with heaps of insight they've yet to diagnose,
and one cold pillow
that can never seem to lull your static head to sleep or fully support the weight of your heavily burdened shoulders.

run like it doesn't mean anything for once;
like a wide-eyed kid who's never seen a map or compass,
he just zigs and zags through the seemingly limitless emerald velvet at full speed as he navigates the backyard in pure and honest bliss.

run to sun-soaked golden fields where the night sky tints itself purple to reach the perfect shade of darkness,
and your breath hangs low on the tops of the tall grass like the fog hanging over a prehistoric low-land,
and the stars shine like slicked-up pebbles about to let you decode the mystical secrets they hold...
and everything comes clear
and clean
and calm.

run free
and wild
and nameless
like it's the only thing you've ever known,
until you're ready to run back into me.

winch sinched grimmace
hung at half mast
in an attempt to hold rebelious bicusbids in their place
     but they still wiggle like a bobble-head jesus glued to the dash
     every time that you laugh
so i guess that's why you're giving it up

your arms look like a road map
     riddled with pin-***** ***-holes
and with routes to hell and back marked
by distressed vasculatory flares
     so you ask to borrow my sweater
     and another fourty bucks
with no explanation why

for once
     you didn't lie to me

i 've got a soft spot for the smell of tobacco and the taste of whiskey
and the voice of boys who claim to miss me

i long to get high
high up in the trees
in the hills
along the ridges
     i live to pierce the atmosphere
and note the lack of sensation as i plummet

oh how i love it
     those cheap thrills of the fall

he used to range off-key
on nights he'd sing to me
          and i?
     well i'd fake a smile
and pretend to not account for
the fire running my spine
that never let me whisper to his lobes
     "you're doing fine"

i just couldn't lie
to a face like a shelter dog's

and he'd lay next to me
     sawing logs
as if he couldn't even be bothered to dream
as if all screens are unwelcome
when what you're trying to stitch is a sail

     another night time nice guy
with a needle between his teeth
faking bonds between the bed sheets

          those sheets though?
          those sheets got me

i was born at the heart of a ribbon jam
      my analog pulse
tap
   tap
      tapping
out the lyrics of my fight song

since day one
india ink sludge blood has flowed
     from my dog-earred heart
          straight through to my ball-point fingertips

my DNA lays in cursive wait
     leaping from the pages
        into the light
at every aching plot twist

card catalogued depictions
   
  not of how events factually unfolded
          but of how it seems they could have unravelled
if this were a paperback i'd planned to read
   and re-read
alike

but alas
when the lights go out
     that's it for this round
          and i'll be down for the count
          no matter how hard i fight

but words...
words know not death
     solely evolution

they change their shape
   their time
      their place

a word can only fade
     like aerosol on dust colored cinder

a single word will outlive one hundred empires
   one thousand governments
      ten thousand authors
and so
   it's within articulation that my loyalty lay
   and in my words that i'll find my home

here
in the lowercase swoops and loops
   of the 'A's
      and the 'E's
      and the 'D's
      and the 'G's

...and those little cursive 'Z's that hang just the same as mom's old hammock

           yeah
           home

with every inhalation of stale inhabitation
     i'll exhale a poem

my regenerative reincarnation through catalytic creation

some women call their bodies home to something greater

     me?
my body's a burial ground
for dreams i found
     and lost
just as quickly

i'm a canvas
void of my own expression yet riddled with scars
left behind by precious little ghosts
     and their lack of confession

if looks could ****
     i'd be slaughtering the masses
and if these walls could talk
     they'd probably never stop laughing
but if that ***** of a mattress should crack
and leak the secrets of mine that she keeps in her chest-
like tightly bound metallic coils-
     so help me lillith

i'll burn this house to the ground

     i'd rather see all that i've built turn into ashes
than to hear her voice rehasing all the whispers i'm slinging whilst fast asleep
     or how i cry in bed for weeks
     or the way i flinch when the sun crosses my face
like a shadow i can't name

     i'm a mess
a natural disaster with whirlwind hair and a lightning strike pulse
     in a second-hand dress that doesn't fit right
          i'm fine
     i'll survive

but should you be the boy i find
     and i bring you home tonight
just know that i'm better than alright
          know how very much i feel alive
regardless of the subconscious soliloquies you unleash in your half-silence
     divulging secrets whilst you slumber

          i wake like the waves lapping at a fallen empire's shoreline
     and quest to test your lyrical limitations and the possible personification of your breath
     and your chest
          heaving like the sea himself

diamonds and navy strung together by a row of brass buttons trailing up your chest;
your flesh is the night sky,
and i...
have always been a clumsy astronomer.
tumbling through the footnotes of books i pretend to have read-
searching for applicable knowledge and definitions that at least begin to pay you homage.
blissful in the sun beams and sullen in sudden rain-storms...
though,
you glow,
regardless of the natural disaster trailing in the wake of jet-streams out your window.
you translate the smoke signals trailing from the tails of our cigarettes,
and the morse-code transcriptions of my off-beat heart.
such a beautiful transistor of the divine gift of speech.
such a handsome mystic.
make me magic-
paint me natural...
leave me stranded in your starlight.
a tidal metronome to my unsteady pulse,
composing arrhythmia's barefoot in the night.
tap-dance with me in the graves we're digging deeper with every passing instant.
in comparison,
this could be penned a bad decision,
but those seem to be the only kind that the creatively maladjusted are ever capable of making.
perhaps we're cliche...
but the only person i care to find in a crowd is you,
and you stick out like the sore arm of a spiraling universe.
pearls and coal grey strung together by a row of silver buttons trailing up your chest;
your flesh is the night sky,
and i...
have always been a clumsy astronomer.
let me study your pulse through a fogging telescopes lens.

oh, sweet mistakes
how dear you are to me
i'd never know success without you

every skinned knee brought the eventual feeling of restoration
every heart ache whispers of future empowerment
and with every black eye - the promise of beauty returned
one must feel their weakest at some point
in order to ever fathom true strength

i've found myself in the heaps of rubble
left behind by what i'd never wanted to become

in ruin we are reborn

so let the levy break
let the water wash away what we've made
let the words evade me
let the type-writer's keys stick
let the ribbon jam
let all of my thought-out conceptions of what will happen
         never be
let it all go to ****
and get lost
and crumpled and bruised
let it all snowball out of my control
so that i can let go
and let it be how it's meant to be

let me rise from the ashes
dust off my wings
and cling to the hem line of the ever-twirling skirt of the sky

let me fly

it's been so long since i've tasted the freedom accompanied with the abandonment of the flight-plan
how i've missed the adventure of being lost
and the undeniable sense of self-worth acquired by finding yourself

i am new

i watched the gods dip their chubby fingers into a puddle of midnight blue
and finger-paint a sky for the sun to rise in

oh how they laughed
and they danced
and they kissed the forehead of a giggling moon breast goddess

then
     you were born

a diamond of dew in spider's web

that was the day the universe learned how to do her spinning

it was a dry winter
he sang "*** and candy" as i braided my hair
we'd never dwelt so far apart
oceans between us while sharing a bed

he bought me rain-boots for christmas
desert dwellers have little use for rain-boots at the end of december
but i smiled because it didn't matter

he could never see me
only aknowledged the static space i inhabit
his empty eyes sang symphonies in the silence

we were young
and the world refused to cease it's spinning
despite our sea-sick cries while faking love

even the rustiest carousels chase their tails long after the waiting line is rendered empty after dusk

the secret to life inside our discarded cigarette cartons
the history at the bottom of the beer pitcher

it was our hell
our own private galaxy doing pirouettes on the sidelines of time
we aged like newspapers hidden in the hedges

but we meant it
or at least we thought we did
whatever it was
we meant it

the way that one means it when they say they wished they'd died the morning after dollar beer night

it felt right
no matter how bad it always hurt

the way that your hands fit into your pockets
makes it seem like you've got secrets
hiding in the creases of your palms
i wanna unravel your white-knuckled fists
and read the braille of your fingertps aloud
to a crowd of strangers

let me type my philosophies out
along the margin of your spine
in morse code

i'm the best story i've ever told

i can hear the strength in your voice flex when you laugh
something about that giggle of yours
could iron the wrinkled mountains down
and lie them flat on their backs
along the hem of the sea

i'm uncertain if your eyes are blue
or if they're grey
either way
i have to try my damndest not to climb inside
and hide
tuck myself behind your irises
and watch the gulls go by
from that distant shore

the thought brings me terror

i've had so many nightmares of being
crushed by the ocean's mighty limbs
lost forever
broken
at the bottom of a beautiful abyss

i wake unsure that i was even sleeping

       ...i found you on the dock
whistling sailor tunes

i'm doomed

there, in those strawberry fields of dreaming-
those blooms of a season long since dead and torched-
     i swore i found you
and you were speaking sweetly in a smokey room
with a crescent smile
and a cheap long-neck bottle
and a blue ball-point pen
that you'd only pry from it's waltzing
     to chuckle with (and charm) the bartender

an older lady
with muddy-water curls
and poision ivy eyes
     and...there's something about her that reminds me of my mom...
then the moment's gone
and now, all i can wonder
is how it is that she's counting change when she hasn't got any fingers

the captain must be on the mic again
with bull-**** banter about the weather
     or our eventual destination
     or something about the turbulence to calm the unfortunate un-drugged
his monotone monotony
sneaking through my sleep to me
     and coming through like the voice of the radio host
     as my head's beneath tepid bathwater

your ellegance uneffected by his audible intrusion
into my sub-concious dellusion
     you pull at the tides of your brew
     and wink
then back to a busy pen

     i have to get to you
you've got to remember
  
come back

but dreams don't work like that

it's as if my feet don't match my body
or my legs are facing backward
or i'm in that godforsaken hallway scene of "The Shining"
     and i'm finding this to be far more frustrating
     than remaining concious through the flight could have ever been

and again
somewhere over nebraska
the ride gets increasingly shaky
     not obnoxious enough to wake me
     just enough to take me to the part of the nightmare
     where my teeth start falling out
          like precious little gems of vicodin and nicorrette
               t a p p i n g out my fragile skull
and now i'm wearing some ******-gummed grin
and that charming lounge is feeling like "From Dusk Till Dawn"
and all of the friendly faces are gone
     except for yours
          and you look horrified

how come now i've got your attention?

touchdown at o'hare
and i wake in the window seat next to a vacant chair
     alive and well
except that you're not there

and to think
     when i was a kid
          my nightmares all had fearsome beasts
then i grew up
          and found the monster to be me