You make me want to dance.  
Caring for you makes me want to turn the volume all the way up,
and completely let go of
everything that has ever stopped my moving feet.

I feel your electricity pulsing through my bones,
burning out all the dampness.

You ignite a fire that restarts my heart.

You are unexpectedly the best thing that could have ever happened to me,
appearing out of thin air to catch me at just the right time.

I never saw you coming but,
I'm glad that you're here.

I've been so curious
about people who burn down their home's,
and drive their families off of mountain sides.
The ones who take their live's, pack up everything and leave
behind the ones they cannot imagine living without.
The people who cause their own hurt.
The lucky ones who gamble everything away.
The ones who let their live's tumble down and blow away.

I've stood in front of this mirror and watched myself bleed enough times to know what a good thing is.

I still light the match and burn it all to the ground,
cross over the barrier fast enough to free fall,
break your heart time and time again,
leave you behind when I know
you're the only thing stopping everything from completely unraveling.
I put you down like a bet,
and lose you every time.

I **** us,
over and over and over, again.
It's no wonder why I hurt so badly in the middle of the night,
and can't trust myself with my own heart.
I do this to myself,
these are self-inflicted tragedies.

My grandmother tells me that
there is a party of women whom I've never met
watching over me from heaven,
guarding my heart,
protecting my spirit from above the reaches of my mind,
I can imagine these women,
their white gowns draping over my head,
tickling the tops of my ears,
whispering to me from between gusts of wind,
between the lulls in my thoughts.

My grandmother tells me that
my heart is the only heart that’s ever reached out to hers,
and hasn’t found discomfort in the closeness.
I imagine my veins growing out of my body,
reaching across to her from our
opposite sides of the dining table,
I imagine them intertwining,
becoming one.
I imagine our heartache mending one another’s.
I imagine us finding solace
in our collective hundred years of broken pieces.

Two generations, decades apart, healing one another.

My grandmother tells me
that there is a party of women whom I have never met,
watching over me from heaven.
I loathe the thought that someday,
I will know one of those women watching over me,
when she is the keeper of my heart,
when my veins have to reach above the clouds to become one with hers.

My angel,
in life, in love.

You aren't going to find what you're looking for
in the mouth of the new woman you love,
even if you search behind her teeth for years,
even if you finally find the words to describe the emptiness
that blooms inside your body-
You're never going to find whatever you're trying to find
within some other empty chest,
mouth,
stomach.

She will let you look though.
She will offer her body to you
as if she's spent her whole life waiting for you to use her
to feed your soul.
She will map out all the places you can search,
and tell you all her stories
of how she grew into those places you're about to hollow out.
She will let you take her apart and search for yourself
behind her lips,
and
between her thighs.  
She will let you,
and so will the next one,
and then next one,
and the next.

You will burn through their bodies like a forest fire
until you realize-

Whatever you're looking for
can only be found
in the only place you are too afraid to look.

Whatever you're looking for is somewhere lost
inside yourself.

It ends,
fast and fragile the same way it started.
You get your handshake,
you get your piece of paper
and your four sentences worth of memories
that add up to a fifteen-second walk across a stage.  

All the important people say they're proud of you,
all your friends-
all your friends of friends say they'll miss you.
You toast them to a new beginning;
you smile your way into a new place.

Everything is different now,
four years go by and when it's over it all hits you at once.
Nothing is the same anymore,
everything has changed.

Now you must grow up,
the celebration ends,
the milestone passes,
now you must move on.

every time we get lost in translation
and find ourselves amidst frustration
on the wrong side of our own little world,
i get a little taste of the bitter flavour
that would be to spend the rest of my life missing you.
i’m frightened at my dependence.
i’m frightened at my attachment.
i’m frightened at how fragile this is.
i'm frightened at how strong my love is.
i’m frightened. i’m frightened. i’m frightened.

i want to be
the girl who likes daisies,
and the girl who likes chrysanthemums.

I want to be
the girl who wears skirts,
and the girl who dances with you in the kitchen
on new years morning.

i want to be
the girl who holds her heart out to you with both hands,
and the girl who says ‘take me, i will belong to you-
but more importantly, belong to myself’.

i want to be
the girl who reads you her poetry in parks in summertime,
and the girl who helps you feel
everything you’re meant to feel.

I want to be
the girl you tell your secrets too,
and the girl who tells you hers
too.

I want to be
the girl who holds you when you cry,
and the girl who whispers ‘i love you’s
in your ear at midnight.

i want to be
the girl you come home to,
and the girl you make breakfast with,
-the one you call home.

a.m.