once, I got a letter in the mail
I knew it was for me because the handwriting was illegible
and the stamp had a middle-finger
instead of a queen
whoever wrote it knew me well
because the sealed it with a
*******
and a big, bolded
go to hell

Some days my body is a trophy.
a dusty display in which I placed all recollections
of sorrowful evenings and birds with broken limbs I collected from the porch
Some days my body is a trophy
a tribute to my skin having smoldered
and made stony by fire-polishing
which may have brought on blisters and a chorus of
"i can live, I can live, I can live"'s to erupt at the mere thought of heat.
Some days my body is a trophy
it is for the one who says
"i went so far beyond her expectations that she lost sight of me"
i cant see him, my vision is hazy after spending an eternity with dust on my corneas and curtains drawn across my forehead,
I hid in myself, detaching skin from muscle and using my armor like a blanket in which I could block out the peering eyes of strangers
Some days my body is a trophy, because
instead of cutting away my blanket like I had,
you folded me back into a swan and I was no longer
crumpled rice paper that had been incorrectly origami-ed
by a fat fingered hurrier.
I was an image.
I am  your trophy to the world telling them all
I restored a masterpiece that had been mishandled and cast away
Some days my body is a trophy
That I hold up high
that says
I am worthy
and I will not be left behind

It's warm
There is no sun or fire
Just your fingers on my arm

I've taken off the scarf
Around my neck and I pace to
The window to check
If the snow has melted yet
Almost

It's nearly warm again
Letters in the mail bear
Good news from over there
They're doing well
Oh well

I'm alright here in this
Purgatory season
Caught in between the realities
Of seeing and believing
In what I've found here

It's been a cold year so far
But my heat, here you are standing
Before me
Your flames are all I see
In this dim corridor
I'm passing through

I hope the snow melts away
Real soon

Our eyes wide open.
Observing the threads between us, holding, binding us up
In warm sheets together.
Arm in arm,
Taking your face near mine,
Our  breath,
The same in my lungs
As out yours.
Dusk peeking through the blinds,
Tucking in behind the hills
Rolling past the window.
We let time
Slip.
Because we knew,
Knew that there was more than breath
Being shared between the pillows.
Though we didn't say it then,
We felt the jolt,
The surge of energy through our organs,
Like the vibrations left wafting in the air after
An orchestra,
We lived briefly in that moment,
And we fell and crashed and burned,
And flung our charred bodies into each other.
In that moment,
Before we finished blinking,
Before your eyelashes parted,
allowing the luminous glow
of what you had felt reflect back
in my eyes,

I knew.

I knew.

Loose and black and peeling,
Hey, hey
Chip away
The scabbing on your brain
Find a smoother way of dealing.
Let gray eyes roll
back in your mind.
Find that passion
One more time.

Youth distracted from youth
by ideas of a love
that fuels the sun
and crisps the skin
with yearning,
lust.

You are youth
with future
of seed and rain storms,
soil tilled
by child's play
not by fingers
in hair
wrinkled
bed sheets in your fists.

Embrace the sunrise
and do not rush
the twilight.