I’ve never enjoyed
feeling cold
brittle, crackling, painful
my toes perpetually stiff.
Sharp inhales that give way
to traitorous clouds
venting out my heat.

He understands, too.
Preferring sweltering, and slowly
sinking into the warmth
of a summer day.

My anger burns hot
ripping through the air
blazing up then burning out
as quickly as it started. Yet
he recoils
pulling into himself -
balancing the scales.

Beginning with snow drifts,
he grows sheets of ice
freezing over lakes
forming glaciers. Slow to move,
to forget, the earth holding the shape
of his anger.

I’m left shuddering, wondering, if spring
will ever come again.

Giggling
The smell of baby powder
Oranges and hide away
Playing pretend with the dog -
the most expensive Barbie we owned.
sharing clothes
sharing parties
sharing rooms
sharing blood and parents and siblings and friends and smells and memories and
Little snores, keeping time through the night
A weird little heartbeat letting me know
you were always there with me.

Fights rising up like
Our summer storms
Sudden and violent,  persistent enough
To drench our memories.
Scary enough to send you crying
Sometimes to mom
sometimes just to yourself
somehow, as an enemy,
you were always there with me.

Manhunt in the neighborhood
flashlights in the dark
playing jungle
adrenaline fresh through our blood
tagging along like - a little friend
a little nuisance
a little sister
you were always there with me.

Fighting my own battles
the windshield wipers on my eyelids
couldn’t keep up
and so I couldn’t always see
you were always there with me.

then I went away right?
and so we split
grades, grades, grades, boys
for the both of us.
the most distant we’d both been
Yet something starting there
hard enough to see
something new growing and
all that time
you were always there with me

Now you have
your own baby powder smells
and your kids have their own dog
to dress up
you live just a bit away
but somehow
the less we share the more we give to one another.
well
the more I give to you
I don’t think you were ever the problem
Because
You were always there with me

and now you give me
nephews
and a godchild
chances to be a hero
to be the best (SO WHAT IF I’M THE ONLY?!)
aunt.
game night memories
And one on one time
In your life times one hundred chaos
in your cookie filled house
a place to always stay
an ear to always have
a harbor from my storms
somehow
you make all this space
for your tag along nuisance of
an older sister
as the closest kind of friend.
Because somehow,
luckily enough for me
You are always here with me.

Fabrics
Blue and gold, swirling patterns
Each piece the beginning of a story
Tangled in each other’s words
yet each their own book
dissected and created into
a dissertation.
libraries of stitches
Theories of color.

Time
easing along like we’ve been easing
these seams.
I try to stretch each moment with you
savoring your grilled cheese
the sun on the window
evening out the unfairness of time
lining up shapes with the same intentionality
of the love you have given
us. I need this.

Music
the humming of the machine
unexpected laughter
the beauty of a memory born
swelling quietly into a symphony
making gentle space for the present
and one thought
pervasive as a heartbeat
thudding again and again softly
in my chest
thank you.

Who poisoned the food?
is it coming
from me or them?
the smell wafts towards me
warm and sentimental
seemingly a feast but
but
bringing me back
100 years ago
to when the world was a darker place
to when
i was small
and alone
even around them

A century of growth
and still the smallest shift
and this mountain threatens to crumble
like the crust on this pie
like the scenery around us
perilous and beautiful
twisting
contorting
the peaks in the distance
as inviting as they are cold and brittle.

Should I tell them?
About this poison.
or just let it sink in
slowly
darkening these memories
until they look just like
the faded photographs in my mind.

You’re sneaking drinks



Again.


Please don’t keep on
With the wine bottles under the sink
Bloodier than any imagery
In the Shining
Flooding through our lives
Drowning us in solemnity
Tangible and heavy and soggy and moist
You said you won’t

Here comes my fall
Clinging to your lifeboat words
Trust
A precarious thing
Toppling in a rogue wave
Washed deep underneath
Unfathomable pressure
I’m running out
of air.

The girl next to me
Hasn’t made eye contact
This whole ride
We haven’t exchanged words,
So I review my own.

Oh the words of a younger me!
Scratch a dent in the sand
Before the tide comes in
Tickling my mind and
A little grating
But still cute and quaint
A heart drawn with a stick
Before being washed away

Oh the body of an older me!
I am too aware of
Growing moles
And fat
A stereotype wrapped in personality
cracking as the story of me
Slowly sets in

Oh the idea of future me!
who knows the amount of blank left
to fill?
I know nothing but that
Slowly
I am learning
To take up space

This train keeps stopping
And we are granted
views of construction trucks
Pallets
Stone walls
And our own thoughts

Bodies shrugged over seats like sweaters
Boredom leaking out through pores
Flooding this compartment
As stagnant as a puddle

Yet,
Being a passenger
The view ever shifting scenery
somehow
stills time for me
Making space for sentimentality

Contemplating
Loving deeply now
scraps of fabric
Seeming so unimportant on their own
But together forming a quilt
Who knew? My love language is
Sewing
Piecing together
Quiet moments
Cleaning sinks of dishes
Scheduling our dreams
Making fun of reality Tv
Trivia
- don’t forget missionary
Made less and less of grand adventure
And more of our home

While these dreams once seemed
So small they serve
To cover us
And keep us warm
Through the winter of the world.

I once dreamed
That I dreamed enough
To give a little tablespoon to someone else.
Anyone
In that moment of darkness
To be a light.
A splash of color
In an otherwise lovely monotony.

I wouldn’t use clever anymore
Passionate, wise, unique
Or even particularly brave
To etch on my legacy

Is this the grand canyon
Of long shifting waters, carving out
Depression after depression?
Or, is this wisdom? As I gain wrinkles and layers and lose organs I wonder.
How radically misguided can our best intentions can be? Is that perspective?
Is it becoming so reserved as to become inanimate?
Stuck still like clay and rock and rubble in a pit deep enough to be seen from outside earth’s bubble. But not having the decency to rage like the hurricane on Jupiter, not nearly as remarkable.
Keeping a silent tally. 28, 30, 35.

Maybe I can weigh my words against action, against feelings, and intention. Maybe I can return to water.
Even just a tablespoon.

In Florida the ground doesn't rise to meet the sky
no cliffs overlook the sea
barely a change in landscape
except the burial grounds paved over
to make room for the cemeteries
of those who come here to
pass.

Flat as a plain,
hurricanes can rip apart
homes and condominiums
and steal the sand
pumped on the beaches to keep them
white as bone.
washing away our filth
spreading red tide.

but during the summer,
when you can
forget all of this,
our clouds billow up
thousands of miles high
lightning their crown and thunder
their trumpets
heralding a sudden downpour.

we get a new mountain everyday. shifting
into new forms of heaven
wild
unbound by property legislation
separate from silent segregation of these
southern cities.
un-phased by the shutters on the windows
of the beach homes
owned by those who visit in passing,
when convenient.

a glimpse of these peaks
sends me a smile
driving into downtown
no matter how weary

here's a secret locals know
sunsets are more beautiful
when you look away
from the horizon.
(the only western water sunset
on the east coast!- only $200 a night!)

at the colors cascading
through the
endless bounds of
the clouds.

one blanket
then another and another
except it's summer in florida
with no A.C.
and someone's waiting for me to
get up.
or get it up.
or get with it.

call? there's barely breath here
let alone
voice.

a blanket is stone
when it's made of
expectations.
a heart is hot when it wants
to feel everything
hands are frozen when the future
depends on them.
I can have everything
I say
I'm strong enough
I can take it
I am able
I don't need
space
I don't need
rest
I don't need
time
I don't need
love

I can't
move.

I.  
100 years have passed,
but you still hold me.
Cracking at the seams you fold us down,
and we sigh at the stars
until we don't.

II.
One night, far before that,
you shake the sleep from your eyes
while I snore,
and a baby cries.

III.
I cry during my vows.
Maybe you do, a little, too.
We dance, matching each other,
spinning stories with our bodies.
Threaded together.

IV.
I expand with pain
until I collapse. You keep the light going
I don't turn into,
a black hole.

V.
Fire blossoms in our chests
We carve each other
with words until, unexpectedly,
we laugh.

VI.
Everything is blurry now
We walk slow, in pain,
complaining about time's
betrayal.

VII.
The whole time,
I love you like the sea
and pillows of summer clouds
that gather into sheets of rain.
I love you like thunder
and dragons
tater tots and scrabble
a promise whispered,
every day, a secret song
humming.
video games
and rainy days, a
lamp on the desk.
or maybe, a pair of
jeans.
a cherry tree in Maryland
I love you like I forgot death,
and remembered magic.
and then we made it
every day.
We never forgot it again.
And it was never a waste of our time.
not one
little
bit.

Where are you?
The crowd tries to bustle
the tickets out of my clenched hands
I cannot seem to find you.
For a second, there! a flash of you,
vanishing as a corner carries you away
I know you're near, but not
what's happening
Are you running towards the gate?
Or away from me?
Find a bar, meet a new friend
Steps 1 and 2 in a magic spell
3 sips, a story, 4 drinks, and you're on an adventure
while
I am the gatekeeper
The Fire Lord to your Avatar, the Sauron to your Frodo,
trying to trap you at
every turn.
But that is ok.
Fight me, triumph over me,
throw my ring in the fires
I'd rather see that than,
see you get stuck at this
****** airport

you have your own adventures to live
worlds to travel,
magic to share.

you are my love, my hero, the one who triumphs
over evil, the elven star to my Shelob's lair, the
gandolf to my Balrog, the s.h.i.e.l.d. to my H.Y.D.R.A.
the kirby to my Galeem,
the nephalem to my Diablo.
not just that-
you are
little moments
of light found in between
the chaos of time
You are
everything I imagined
and more
when my world was dark,
and the only hope I could cling to
was the idea of my future,
and perhaps the someone, (that heroes always meet)
who drives away the darkness
and holds their hand.
You are the one to see the world with
the destination of my travels,
the one to land with.
my partner.
but
not if, to you,
I am the gatekeeper.

and I'd rather be the gatekeeper
(even if it means you know what)
than watch you get stuck
and your magic fade
and your steps falter
and your soul struggle
to breathe, and you
hate yourself,
I'd rather you hate me
and get out of this airport
because otherwise,
evil would
truly win. and that
that is what
would end me.

Some people feel like a fire
I feel more like an ember
still hot enough to
burn
if you get too close.
I can flare into a fire if the right wind
comes along, pushing me
into the sky, the kind of fire
that burns through the night
rages through forests
eats through earth
but settles down again
the kind to roast marshmallows over,
or keep a cabin warm
in winter. But
the thing about being an ember,
is the rain hurts.
Some people grow from a good soak
rising up through the earth
reaching up towards the sun
they feed, and pulse, and grow
I shrink
losing the warmth that
makes me,
me.
soggy and steaming ash, acrid smoke
curling into the sky
gradually, until I disappear
An ember doesn't like the rain.
it's scared one day, the
rain will put it completely out.
And anyways,
who could learn to love,
something that,
at the end of the day,
after it tricks you with its warmth,
after it's kind
after it toasts
your food
and
its heat kisses you,
after all the effort you put into
stoking back the flames,
will still always burn you.

Once upon a time I wove love
with a black thread
and gold
and took them both together inside,
weaving
pulling
til they were tight
accepting the product,
loving the cloth,
with the shadow emphasizing the light,
the shine as important
as the dark.

And a wound as vast as the ocean
as angry as a storm
began finally to close
a chasm defeated,
a giant toppled,
by a bit of imagination in a dark room.

Those kids ignoring me,
my fury,
my loneliness,
my forgotten tears,
my fear.
I comfort me, and cry. Then a
-click-
I realize

Instead of wondering,
"What's wrong with me?"
Just a simple shift.
A step I could never take
(impossible, I had no legs)
air I could never breathe
(my lungs lost)
but now
I sing, I climb, I dance,
"What's wrong with them?"

Time speaks to me,
caressing my thoughts as I come
deeper into this city
the concrete aching beneath
my ready heels
the air as
wet as rain
sweaty as the sea
and a smell wafting up, catching my throat
a thought appears, suddenly
on the tip of my tongue
swirling around for a moment,
the pressure mounts and yearns
to be set free.
My clothes **** on my hips, *******
wet as sin,
heavy as thought.
And suddenly, as quick as it arrived,
the thought leaves.
My mind unsatisfied,
I head home.

A dirt devil dips into
the valley, crashes and breaks itself
on red canyon walls
Mina Loy spins her words dizzy,
round and round
but they only get lost in the ground
while today I scrape by
How many may I say,
to your ten, Sir?
Your pockets are empty but
you are rich in noise.

Words fall heavy out of man's lips
My own words carried away
by a wind
still spinning against that heavy rock
that even Nancy could not crush
nor Gertrude
you cannot put them in a box
but you tried
the square rock chittering at Woolf
as she crossed the lawn of Oxford.
She found a way into their library
after all

we only have handfuls of
all the thousands of words
buried under rubble
the rocks
the canyons
the words
of men.
but gradually
they escape
as only the wind can.

I keep trying to leave this house
my feet slip into my shoes still warm
from their long day and I can't leave
because a poem keeps trying to feel itself but
my hands keep interrupting the story by adding in words
greater than three syllables and analyzing each pause
like I am Shakespeare
I keep trying to do some good
I lift my legs forwards still eager for the world
but I keep falling flat on my face from trying to push the world and
I want to feel important but I keep thinking about the meaning of importance and thinking normally
amputates feelings because the Renaissance is not my era, and I keep
trying to rinse off my head but every time I empty it out a whisper catches my ear
and my mind ***** it in, like if I can pull in enough noise I can make a great rain of it in my head, enough to clean out my mind. Enough to pour down into my lungs enough to drench me down to my toes and I keep trying to leave the house with my heart still warm from the last time I saw you and my hands still shaking from the last time I touched you and my thumbs still kneading circles into my palms trying to leave my hands behind and I keep trying to leave this house.

The intellectual babble of a thousand
sophisticated individuals
rattles through the rafters of the human race,
running off rooftops,
turning to rivers in the gutters,
ricocheting off sewer walls and finally
resting in the sea.

Their voices might not write
the headline of a newspaper
but they could be the cast of any
Great Gatsby book,
defining their own generation,
spit upon, worshiped,
whatever.

We're consulting here,
synergy, development, growth
ambition, future,
hit those key points! Don't walk away
while the power point is only
halfway through.
It's only halfway true anyways.

I found myself years ago without a cause
just a voice.


What a din.

Slides back and forth
pendulum it penduls and lums around
I find myself between two letters in a word.
My head is heavy and swinging
while my heart keeps pushing,
and my hands never stop moving

Between two points, 8-4,
9-5, 10-6 we plot ourselves X, Y, X, Y
the co-ordinates of a majority of our lives.
How many times have those numbers meant more than people?

If,
that word is a lot heavier than you'd think,
that word is a longer journey than you'd think.
Where did it take you?

Now,
We are young. It's time to move. No meant for this or meant for
that. You are what you decide to do. You are defined by your risks,
X, Y, X, Y
What is the limit of the equation?
Don't let your life pendul you.
There is no limit.

it's not your fault, i think, as you smile in your sleep.
so upside down inside and out blue and red then yellow and purple
i am a swirling sea of color, never settled
tide in, tide out
in tampa bay there are two tides.
you are not always on my mind, nothing is always on my mind,
maybe just a fear of high tide.
You are the most beautiful thing i know.

it's not your fault, i think, as i'm sinking i try to hold on but
there's more than one kind of addiction.
precisely!
you can quantify any data you'd like.
you are a candle on a window sill late at night, you are sunshine
which sometimes i feel too dark to be allowed in, but
the sun always helps.
You are the most beautiful thing i know.

it's not your fault, i know, as i storm angrily to bed
lay towards the wall
looking at the wall
choosing the wall
while you ask "can i come in?" i enjoy saying "no" to hear you ask it
again persistent. you are better than rain or ocean or snow.
you are someone to grow with. but my anger is stronger than reason or the world would be a better place.
You are the most beautiful thing i know.

it's not your fault!
i understand, yearning to be held, felt, touched
my thoughts shut down like broken links in a fence, but instead of letting something in i keep you out.
you can't touch me because i want to be the rulemaker of our game.
when i was a kid they never let me play.
it's not your fault
You are the most beautiful thing i know.

it's not your fault,
i think, as i struggle to breathe. is this asthma or anxiety?
will the migraines ever stop? will my excuses for pain ever feel like they are allowed to be real. you see me.
you help. you don't ask. i've never been so felt before.
You are the most beautiful thing i know.

it's not your fault,
i wonder, as you lay there in your sleep
i will always question life more than perhaps another
am i meant to be a Mother? will i doubt my child from the day it's born because it's mine? will i give them scorn?
would you be a father with a mother like me?
You are the most beautiful thing i know.

it's not your fault
i wonder if i should leave
after my blows, only trying to hurt.
you are only here for me but i can make anything ugly with time.
i hope this sickness doesn't spread. please only take my head, leave him alone.
He is the most beautiful thing i know.

it's not your fault.
sometimes i'm melodramatic, or when the mood strikes pragmatic.
but never the same.
sometimes i think i should leave, but
i can't.
you are sunlight in the window, you are glass in the mirror,
you are steady and patient and far more than i deserve,
you are a quiet reserve.
you are a new park to watch the sun set
you are a life i haven't met yet
you are more beautiful than rain, ocean and snow,
You are the most beautiful thing i know.

Baby, baby.
Don't look at me like you do and tell me
You're telling me?
Don't tell me you can't feel-
baby.
What are you saying? You're tripping over your own
thoughts like you don't even know they're there.
Is your mind really that dark?
Come here, come and sit by the candle with me.
Let's watch the light.
Hold my hand. I'll hold you.
I'll hold you til you don't remember my arms are there.
I'll hold you til they fall asleep,
until all the nerves cut off and I can't feel my fingertips
anymore and all my blood is being held hostage by gravity.
Baby don't pull away.
Just let me hold you, in the light now.
There,
Just like that.

Oh baby I love you.

I always read them, I'm excited to see when
she posts.
Her poems are like sarcasm being honest.
Or the color black buying a handbag
her writing is grey, the same grey as a high school uniform
or a cloudy day out over the water, whatever water it is you love.
She writes short
I believe in fluttery words because
I like the sound of my own voice but she
writes only the necessities. She packs away words
like someone who packs a backpack
when they're skipping class.
She is a high a lot, she tells us all.
She doesn't mind those words out there.
She writes her thoughts as if they
should fit inside someone's cloud of smoke
after an exhale on
a good hit.
She writes as if there is a quota
on her feelings. As if once there's too many emotions
she might lose her footing. She writes like
the color grey.
But she still lets us see, one word for a hundred moments.
It may seem like an unfair deal,
but I really enjoy seeing
those frames.

HEY!
I love you
I want to shout it to the world

The world could handle it
The world would think me! "Another love struck…"
Am I a girl? Or would I be a woman?
Anyways
The world could handle it
It would read my poems
In all it's circular logic it would tell me
You are so young! 22, a girl/woman, you are
And I wouldn't be able to say anything
I could only reiterate.
I love you.
And you, you would be silent.
You wouldn't be able to handle it.
You would tell me I'm moving too fast.
The world is the only one to keep up.
Spinning across the galaxy, thousands of miles
An hour and you would just say
Maybe nothing but definitely it would
Be too soon you would say and I
Think the only one to keep up
Would be the world.
You are beautiful.
I love you.
But you would say
Shhhhh
Like you are a secret
And I am shouting you
And you don't want
The world to hear.
I will hold you to my chest
Keep you underneath my clothes
Carry you around all day.
If you want I could keep you secret.
The world doesn't have to know.
Only I,
With you tucked underneath my skin.

I'm trying not to write poetry
for him
but I can't help the way my words fall,
sometimes. A strong wind shoving me out
to sea.
It's always the sea.
I'm trying not to write poetry
for him
but laying in the warmth of
a shared bed
I can still feel his thumb in my fingers
as I try to hold on
to keep him from falling off the edge
of a peaceful morning into a workday.
I'm trying not to write poetry
for him
I imagine him reading everything I've ever written.
I blush a little, at the thought.
He shares my bed, yet
he does not share my poetry
the way beautiful strangers do.
I keep trying not to write poetry,
for him.
I don't want to give too much of myself
away but
I've never been one to do things
halfheartedly and he keeps drawing me in
real close
close enough to feel his heartbeat.
Close enough to be warm.

When you talk there are cracks
through your words that I can look through
and see something once of what you were
and what you're slowly becoming
and only time will tell if you're hatching
or if you're breaking but you've been
so warm and so close to me it sounds like
a heartbeat starting up.
When I lay next to you a fire
bursts through your skin and when I touch
you I ignite but there are deep, still pools inside me
that maybe you cannot touch, I wonder
if anyone can ever touch but at least
you can light them up.
I melt around you because
I've always felt like a razor blade
and my words like edges cutting into the
people around me but when I'm around
you I feel soft and that
I am not something
that hurts but maybe even
you like me.

I am going to see my sister
who will be horrified at my clothes
who will pretend to be disinterested in my life
but who will really be pleased when I ask her all
about the boy and her classes and her friends
despite her dismissals

Today I changed my sheets,
for my best friend coming over
and the sheets are just washed, but
there's still a stain. So there's a difference
between experience and *****. Which
she and I know a little bit of,
at this point.

My parents are going to be glad to see me
I will wrap myself in their smiles
I will eat their food and be lazy about helping
them clean up and possibly argue with a sibling
but they will love me,
anyways.

Today I will not think about
him as much as I used to,
but I might think about him a little
more than I need to,
and I will weave a tapestry of my life
for my friend and I to giggle over
and I will immerse myself in her past months,
and we will drink wine and
chocolate and I will be thankful,
as terribly tacky as thanksgiving can be,
I will be so thankful to have the sun on my
face and people who are brave enough
to love me.

"You can't see my apartment, yet."
He tells me because he thinks his apartment is
too ***** for my eyes.
He doesn't know my mind is a dump that gets hauled
out to sea every day to try and make some space
for something, anything, other than trash.

He keeps saying he's going to want space but then ends
up in my apartment and holding my hair
and breathing me in like I'm
worth something
to him.

to me
he is that space
above the ocean where I can
breathe a pocket full of air that isn't poison
so of course I come knocking on his door with a smile.

Before he comes over I'm sure to clean out my head
because if his apartment is too messy for my eyes
-my eyes clouded with my thoughts, my
thoughts building up like city fumes
the city fumes bursting through the
atmosphere of my head like burning trash-
if his apartment is too messy for my eyes
then I can't ever let him
know my own mess.

I wash myself off,
a mop head.
Used and ***** but with a lot accomplished.
Sometimes I'd like to just
         -pop!-
***** it off.
My head, I mean.
Get a fresh one.
(Get some-) Don't even go there.

If cleanliness is next to godliness then the devil
must be a janitor that doesn't
switch the water out
between
rooms and just spreads the dirt around.
Floors and mops get ***** that way.

Is god water then?
Or maybe the cleaners.
Destroying dirt despite the devil's
intentions.
Cleaning souls like toilets.
I'd like to think that god is a woman
who's cleaned toilets for
twenty years.
That's perspective.
That he's worn out his jeans
replacing rusting pipes.
Maybe god is the feeling of being off your feet
after a long day.

I don't know if I believe in god.
But I know I've met a mop head
or two.
All just a little *****.
Not one brand new.

Do not write for me.
You- so perfect but humble.
a calico dress.
Your words patterning the hems,
sleeves, trying to match an ugly pair of shoes.

Do not write for me!
I am a waning moon,
against the
nuclear reactions of your words in
the sun. Shifting,
casually,
planets. Playing god to the

Egyptians, who also did not
write for me.
But did for you,
who lit their temples,
shone through their heiroglyphics.
Who adorned their pyramids in
crimson robes of sunset.
And I, but a stone in a pyramid
Plain, and beige at best.
I still light up and write this for you.

I've imagined a life with him
I can see it.
He, he has a dog but
I knew he would before he told me.

He's one of those people that
pulls other people in
like the color
white
because everything
looks great next to white

We would talk about work
together because he
is one of those
people who
works
ninety hours
a week and so am I.

But if he is white, I am
off white there's
just something
a little
off
about me
like a dog that growls
unexpectedly when all you want to do is pet it.

And off white is probably
the only color that
looks weird
off
next to white and
he has a dog who probably doesn't growl.
anyways.

It sits, poisonous
Dripping sorrow over the windowsill
I drove to the Skyway,
Dropped a heart over the edge.
Watched it splash under
It took a couple seconds to hit.

This apartment, I can't find any matches.
Beethoven's wife,
It's legend that she would play a scale,
All except the last note- and Beethoven-
awake asleep in between dreams
not waking to her kisses would
get up to finish it.
She probably knew everything about him.
I bet she wept when he went deaf.
I like to think he wrote her a sonata, or two.

It's raining outside.
Right behind the poison on my windowsill.
A candle would make this place better

Where are the matches?
Beethoven's wife would never have betrayed him.
Do re mi fa so la ti-

Waking up.
-oh you
ow!
I felt okay
for maybe a second or two
(felt like a week or two. maybe it was?)
then I remembered how to breathe
and all of you came rushing back into me
pinpricks in my soul
all the dead muscle that you are well-
not dead sorry!
just asleep. Well it came back to life bringing
screaming nerves and I just
miss
shhhh! I don't know I just
lo-
SHHHH.
Shush. v-
SHHH
e.
Shut up.
You're gone.
Go back to sleep, just
go to sleep.

SO! Like...
there's this place called OKstupid
(OK! Cupid.)
Whatever.
You answer a set of questions to figure out,
you know
what makes you. (me?)
everyone compatible or not and you start off with this really-high-percentage-with-other-people
if you only answer like
you know
like 5 questions then... a lot of people match you.
AND if you answer like
you know
like 89 questions that percentage goes down you know
and I was thinking
we started off here at 92 percent.
We are an A in compatibility.
(Oh god.)
WE would have such great chemistry.
(Please no.)
We could probably TEACH each other a lot.
(STAHP)
I would study you like a calculus final, all night long and with a piece of wood in my
(UGH)
Anyways the questions they start off so high
such a great grade
but the further the questions go
you know
when my head starts to get all blurry
I can't think!
I freeze up,
Maybe the questions will spin out of control;
take over this whole thing,
I don't understand.
why
the more questions I answer
the lower our grade gets going.

You must turn 16, soon. Before the year is over.
Your year of birth, your current age tell me.
Your birthday is yet to come.
You weren't born in Spring.
When leaves were springing green and wriggling their way out of the cold.
You weren't born in Summer, at least not yet.
But you could be,
the smell of crickets chirping through the air.
Or the sight of fresh flower smell.
Maybe fall, when
Campfires and trees all lean together against the wind
And the dark huddles close to keep warm.

Winter?
Are you days of weak and bleak, redeemed by
The penitence of snow?
Are you the sorrow of snowflakes
Or the loneliness of Christmas?
Do you know the sadness of winter, at fifteen?

You must turn 16, soon.
When you do, I hope the skies sing you a song.

I ripped our love apart.
I defiled it.
Whatever we had I graffitied all over,
I sprayed noxious fumes over a work of art.
And you're gone.

I ate our love up.
Devoured it.
We had a four course meal planned out.
I ate the desert before the meal began.
And you're gone.

I bulldozed our love.
Destroyed it.
We were architects for not just a building, a city.
I burned the plans, the structures.
And you're gone.

I killed our love.
Murdered it.
a life of
Your pit bull and
hairless cat and
motorcycle
Workbench
-did you ever take that course?
love

Your eyes when they were seventy.
When we were on shrooms,
I hallucinated you at seventy.
I started crying because you were so beautiful.
That was before I went homicidal.
But you are gone.
And I don't blame you.

This is the poem that hasn't been written yet.
A dash of sad.
There are letters, and sentences, and paragraphs of
the lines on your face.
Your expressions.
This poem hasn't been written.
I describe in it, what it's like
To know your hand,
not just memorize it but know what all the nervous ticks
all the minute squeezes are.
To feel your heartbeat in your thumbs.
This is a poem with a growl.
Just a little bit because you are so much a part of my space
that I must kick you out sometimes.
But this malice,
is really just the orange to purple the
necessary opposite of the depths of how I
feel towards you.
This poem is how I think
any good poem should go.
I will think, I will laugh.
Of course sometimes cry.
But in the end, of course!
As all good poems should go.
I will be the better for having
read it.

Lover,
You are not the heartbeat.
I am the heartbeat.
I have to, don't you see?
I'd like for you to be just
Glorious!
Bursting through my blood.
But you at best,
a pacemaker.
You shock me now and then again.
This is how I know you to be a lover
and sadly not,
my love.

And then we broke up
so what did I do?
I read poems, hundreds of poems and each one,
even the one that was like a bird
and even the one simply about words
in each one I found you.
A beautiful new,
sad
painful you
and each time I read
(I tell you, I tried to go to bed)
a little part of me died
a little part of me
no, I don't want it to rhyme.
But my tears wasted
my poems wasted
my words and thoughts and wants wasted
I should have shown you more poetry
before we were through.

Don't sigh at me, Wind.
So impatient! Pushing at my clothes.
Trying to sail me down the road.
You can't force a thing any faster
than it's meant to go.
Not even you wind.
You can't hurry time!
So impatient.
You should learn something from the earth.
Grumbling, generous, gentle.
Slow to shift, only sometimes
a tremor.
Or maybe a day with water!
Crafting clay canyons through
handfuls of centuries.
Convincing rock to change, moving
the earth by gentle persuasion.

Fire.
You stay away from fire.
Fire's only good for burning.
Don't hang around him, you'll only encourage him.
All impatient-like.
He'll be up and roaring again,
Raging and burning and tearing everything apart until
he goes and burns himself up.
And then what?
Nothing.
And he knows this!
So do you.
Wind, you can't expect a forest to regrow overnight.
And that.
Well, that was a pretty big fire.
So dig down, Wind.
Find the earth and water,
rebuild your roots and grow.
Just don't go trying
to set me a'sail.

It drops, dangles along
the edge of a deep canyon.
It asks a question.
The crawling river's only reply
is a sad, sweet song.
"Sleep."
Whose echo decays gradually
through the rifts of the canyon
until eventually,
too,
the song is gone.

Today I planted summer.
I dug through the slumbering roots of spring,
the hollowed out tubes of earth where cold rested,
Biting through roots and earth and little bits of ice,
an ice colder than life and ice colder than death
rested, eating up all the warmth.

I started with this, the cold. I couldn't
melt them myself,
winter must always come again.
So I just pushed it off, the cold. I tucked it away.
Because I had the seed.
So I tucked the seed into the ground, beaming golden
I stepped away while it began to live, while its potential unfolded.
And oh, the potential.

Summer breezes, ocean tides, green grass,
new loves, the gold of sunlight. Barely audible, a voice sang.
Sang of melting and moving and shifting and growing and
burrowed into the earth finding all the cold
melting the frozen joints of the earth, to kiss the ice,
to stave off the freezing of the earth.

The energy of the sun and nature itself wound through that seed
and spread out through the soil.
And I, I only planted it. So I went home to wait for spring.

If I ever need to describe a *****, in words. In detail.
I know where to draw inspiration from.
I know exactly where to find it.
The spite, I think. You draw it out,
a long spindle of malice you
stab with.
Superiority, you know nothing of the struggles around you,
wrapped up in whatever
News article of drama starts circulating in your head and then you
Write your own letters to the editor.
Setting it straight, your side where you play the victim and you are misused and you are abused,
Without consideration to actual reality.
You, sicken me.
A secret? Let me paint it over buildings in the dead of night so in the morning, you must
Hide your face.
Hide.
It.
Now.
Let it be known that if ever
In any book
I write a character, a character with all the right environment.
Someone who picks evil, someone who picks the darker road.
They will have a trace of you in the very middle, a seed
That when they blossom will have spawned from my conceptual image
Of your very core.