I used to write

like if I said it enough
found the right way
suddenly someone would grasp
understand, untie me

as if, in naming my fears
they would stay in plain sight
not in shadows
dancing on the wall

like if my tongue
could blunder through
the brambles in my throat
I would stay
awake
aware
afloat

Two weeks drug free.
I did it for myself,
I did it for my sister
for you
and for her.

Cravings don't wake me up at night anymore.
I can hold a cigarette without my hands shaking
and I can look my mother in the eye.

Where are you to share in my sobriety?
Where are you to help me through it?
(Where are you?)

Words can save,
be saved
stuck in little glass jars,
keep-sake of last winters blues.

Whispered into a pillow,
swallowed after June.
Words follow like a shadow,
box them up,
dust collectors on your top shelf,
they will fall on you
when you reach for something too high.

Words are water, air, earth
drowning in I'm sorry
floating on I love you
buried by goodbye.

Words on post cards
spoke here
kissed onto pages
stamped
it never took a step
lost in translation

Words will keep you safe,
tuck you in at night
kiss you on the forehead
you're all alone.

Words are falling
rain,
rivers,
I am swimming
in the way you told me
how my skin felt

words save,
put your seat belt on
can be saved
I love you from here to here
Little glass jars
I don't want to die any more
Last winters blues
*You've started smiling again

She remind me of a flower.
In that she's pretty and makes me happy.
I want to pick twenty thousand flowers for her
and litter them across her room where they can dry up and get ground into the floor.

Everything takes time
and time takes everything;
Flowers, feelings, people.


I'm not sure why I've been thinking of flowers so often recently.
Perhaps I've been using them as a means to forget you.

No, not forget. I could never forget you.
To take my mind off you.
To take my mind off destructive things
and instead onto something pure
and calm and not sharp

I've written three poems tonight,
and each one ended up in my waste basket.
Sometime after writing the third,
and giving up for the night
I realized what was wrong.

I wasn't writing about you.