They say that a person's heart
is the same size as their fist
but when you said I love you it hit
harder than your hand ever did
and I may have two black eyes
but yours are the color of fresh cut grass
and your heart must beat faster
than a hummingbird's wings
because your fist moved like
the needle of a sewing machine on my skin
but I was the one stitching myself back up
and I am covered in bruises
shaped like the hand I used to hold
but they will never hurt as much as
the last time I felt your pulse

*******
and your indecisiveness
Your mysterious demure caught my glance
You twisted, and dissembled my sight
Wrapped up in your eloquence
Believing in good intentions
Our evanescent love lasted only a moment
If it existed at all
Your nearness to me was made insignificant by your blithe nonchalance
And here I remain
An ingenue
Fooled again, lured in by your perplexing,
Negligent attitude towards life,
Towards me

The actors are outside smoking
and discussing ideas they only know
through fiction. I’m not amused.
I’m in a band that’s falling apart with wit,
and some not-eclectic, or odd,
but still strange type of grace.
There’s a message on the table when I get home.
There’s a piece of me that wants to be jealous.
I’m desperate for an escape.
I’m desperate.

If this poem had a life before I wrote it,
this poem was a penguin.
This poem waddled,
not just because it was a penguin,
also because this poem was fat.
This poem was a fat penguin.
And not just the black and white kind;
this poem was an electric blue fat penguin
who never really understood it was different
until its parents let it out to play with the other little penguins
and they started teasing it and calling it blue bird.
Until that moment,
this poem had no idea that it was a bird.
All this poem knew was that its heartbeat was like a simile
and it had metaphors for feet
and they did not dance.
This poem embraced its electric blue nature
and never saw itself as the underdog
because it was a penguin who lived in Antarctica
and it had no concept of what a dog was
or what it might be under.
Penguins just don’t think like that.
This poem smacked a seal with a couplet underwater.
None of the other penguins believed it,
but it did.
This poem waddled with a lazy swag
and leaned a little to the right
so sometimes it walked in circles.
This poem had 360 degrees of perspective
and -50 degree wind chills.
This poem had more than 50 words for snow
and no words for poetry.
It just lived
and didn't even listen to what other people wrote about it
because it's windy in Antarctica
and you can't really hear much.

our body the hands let's make between the reeds of deep rivers a widening of our soul and blood will come from their lips into shallow waters the distillation of flowers


                        so heavy with pollen


their heads bow so heavy with pollen their stems bend and meet with bloodandwater




                                     petals,



                                       .
                                         '



                               '



                                                   ;




                                    .

sometimes, i think you live here,
in my marrow, in my bones.
there's a squirrels nest of
broken heart pieces and mirror whipsers in the dark
shredded and stuck around my ribcage.
you haunt my esophagus and sternum.

usually, i think you no longer live here,
in my fingers, in my toes,
but, can love exist like ghosts?
faded polaroids floating in air,
like where there's not enough ink
and the words come out blurry and smudged
and grey like charcoal-dust-fingerprints
on the page?
can love exist like that?
shadows of tall buildings stretching across streets?
can love exist like that?
i think it can, because there's charcoal dust
at the base of my spine
that still spells out your name sometimes,
and smells of chai.
you still know my weak spots,
and i still know where you're ticklish
i know where you bruise like over ripe apples
my spine remembers curving against your chest,
and i know your breath against my neck
your hands on my hips,
your lips on my lips
if anyone ever wants to know you, let me tell them
the noise you make when you get a new idea,
or the hushed sound of your breathing as you sleep,
the way your lips curve into a smile slowly,
or rush into laughter, there's no inbetween.
i'll tell them about your eyes in the middle of the night
when they bore into me like twin drills into brick..
and they will begin to know you.
it is funny that people can fall off of you and away,
drift back into the coils in your brain
that hold distant, but important, memories
moments of pure bliss, trauma,
you forget the names and faces you used to see everyday
for all different reasons, the universe has different plans
than what we'd like to see, couples are forced apart
sometimes gladly
sometimes reluctantly
and sometimes sadly
but there will always be a thread of you that
holds something on the other end
and usually it hangs off of you unnoticed,
but sometimes it gets caught with other threads,
or looped around an arm or a leg
and you have to remember,
try to remember,
for a moment,
i am on the other end.

we were at this table,
men and women,
after dinner.
somehow
the conversation got
around to
***.
one of the ladies
stated firmly that
the only cure for
***
was old
age.
there were other
remarks
that I have
forgotten,
except for one
which came from this
German guest
once married,
now divorced
also, I had seen
him with
any number of
beautiful young
girlfriends.
anyhow, after quietly
listening
to our conversation
for some time
he asked us,
"what's ***?"

now here was one
truly touched
by
the angels.

the light was so
bright
we
all looked
away.