I could know any of them
in a dark room, eyes
blindfolded, hands
tied. How, you ask?

One of them smells
like fresh laundry, warm, like hugs, a tinge
of unshed tears, a safe place
to sleep. She smells like home more
than anywhere I've been, when I can catch
her smell. I have breathed this
in for so long, sometimes
it eludes me, the way I
cannot scent myself, for
an abundance of familiarity.

It feel traitorous to try
and describe how
a second smells, that
when she will never
understand, but she
smells like spontaneous gifts
of friendship, and
long sunlit days, she smells
so much of herself
I could never imagine
her differently.

Yet another scents the air
in such a way I
feel my lungs are
bloomings, and yet are somehow
contricting, like I cannot draw
enough of this air,
to breathe so deeply as
I need. He smells
of an accomplishment
hard-won, but worth
every step of the way, though
there is a hidden
bite, a concealed
sharpness, an almost imperceptible tang.

I cannot begin to think
how to explain the intriguing way
another smells, as I cannot quite
place my finger
on it. Much like
its owner, her aroma
is a woven tapestry, and so
we see the complete
product, but never
the individual
threads, a perfect
work of art.

And lastly, the one
who often seems
to have no smell
at all. Spend
some time around him, however,
teach your lungs how
to sense his
presence, and you will notice
he does not smell flashy
or bright, his smell
is constructed
of strong undertones, complimenting
and supporting
everyone else, comforting like
some people's idea
of god.

Sometimes I think
if I could have my own
particular brand of perfume
all the time, I
would be invincible.

I often see you look at
me, your sidelong glances out
from lowered eyelids, as if wondering
where I suddenly
appeared from. Not the girl
you once had a chance of loving, before
she started living her life with
a bang, an explosion
so strong it shattered all
of your expectations, this
is not quite a woman, but you
do not know what she- I
am. You look on, dumbfounded
for only a split second
when hurtful words hurtle
out from my lips, whizzing by your straight back
and stony face, wondering
who put them these. I
am more brilliant and sharp
than you had ever
thought I would be, and you
do not know how
this could be.
Listen to me
when I tell you that this
is all to your credit. My words
are only being said in the style
of the master, she
who taught me to build bombs
of truths, to throw them
at the chinks she taught me to see
in the enemy's armor, to know
unerringly before whom
I stand. My brilliance
was a gift, too, this
is my outer shell, shining
with my blood that I tried
to keep in, but I couldn't, so I painted
myself and called myself
Red. My sharpness
is not originally mine, I
am removing the harpoons
you struck into my flesh, and
throwing them back, casting off the lines
you would hold me with. You see,
mother dearest, I am not truly, originally,
a shining star. I merely
follow the leader.

Don't you understand?

Before you can make a change
you must first feel you are worthy,
feel you deserve that change.

Don't you understand?

I am a river-stone, swept smooth
by the currents of life around
and the hundreds of feet above.

How can a stone practice
anything but acceptance?

Most people hold on
to something burning them for
that last bit of warmth.
I learned all too well how
to let go, and if you
scorch me, I will drop you.

Most people spend time daydreaming, I
have never dared idle away time like
that, because thinking
of what will make me
happier than
anything hurts so badly
I have forgotten how to truly
want anything-
I dare not remember.

Most people are not me, and
most people will probably not trick
you into caring for them, until
when you inevitably
hurt me, or I
do it for you, it will pain you, electricity
crackling down whatever
it is ties us together, burning
as I will not let anyone
do to me.

Time is trickling
and flowing through my fingers, the grains
of sand in the hourglasss
of my life are filling my veins, minutes
clotting the hours that construct
my ventricles pumping seconds making
my head swim. Time is holding me
up and time is somehow
my prisoner, as well, my element to play
in, as I wish. I conduct myself
upon my own time, though you
think your time is logical and ask
of me to yield to you. No, no, time
flows in streams through the air
around me, I breathe it freely
as I wish, blowing soap bubbles into crystalline
moments, that will catch the light
but pop, leaving your eyes stinging
when you try to reach for them, to catch
me. In another life
I was Dali, in my life now I
am Dali, painting and bending clocks
as to my will, making your logical early mornings
my glorious late nights, full of colors
those who do not truly know me
will never catch in the shadows of my laughter
and the turn of my eyes, I
will always be Dali, as years
are trivial and decades can pass
more quickly than the blink of an eyelid, I
will always be less than the great artist
and more, I am constructed, not only of time, but
of something just as fluid and so
my every cell will exult and change
as the symphony of the universe's timekeeping
glitters and twinkles  in its constant state
of effulgent musicality.

Hey, remember
when you and I sat in a field
and I found an interesting rock
that may even have been pretty
and you smashed it
for fun?
Hey, remember
how you and I sat in a field
and I held that interesting rock that
was once pretty
and tried to put it together
until I gave up?
Hey, remember
that you and I sat in a field
and a rock was just a rock
and not foreshadowing
and not a metaphor
for us?

at some point tonight
I started hating myself.
I'm not surprised anymore
just kind of resigned.
I'm glad you're not here.
you would have hated this me, too.

As a small child, the straps
that held me in my carseat
were the worst torture
imaginable. I remember straining
against them with all the might
in my tiny body, knowing
it was hopeless. Your silences
have become the car-seat-straps
of my life now. From the outside
they waited, beckoning in sheer
inevitability, and from the inside
I can see no way out
without ripping you in two.

i.     I love how it's such a given
       I'll do anything for my friends that they
       think it includes letting them walk
       all over me and ******* ripping me
       apart.

ii.    I can't miss the irony in the fact
       that all the music I listen to when I'm hurt
       is music I was introduced to
       by people who ultimately
       hurt me.

iii.  Sometimes I cross the street with my eyes closed
       in order to pretend fate is a thing and
       I have no choice in whether or not
       today is the day I explode
       in beautiful horror.

iv.   It's times like these I miss my cats.
       Because cats don't judge you
       for crying, they just lick
       the shiny marks on your face
       until you stop.

Sometimes I think
that everyone I trust
just lets me lean against them
so they're in a better position to kick my legs out from under me.
That everyone whom I let learn my weaknesses
will not learn to shield them
as I originally intended, but study
in order to know where to plunge the knife.
Standing under your own power
is so hard
and learning to trust someone
harder
and, in my case, has such a higher chance
of hurting.
I am the man with the broken leg, I
am the man with the traitorous mind, I
am the man who will tear himself down
in absence of someone to do it for him.
Even knowing that, I am standing
on my own feet now. Even knowing
all my own weaknesses, which buttons
to press, I know that trusting
myself, precarious though it is,
is less dangerous
than trusting you.

When I was younger, the world
was my playground. Any place,
if I believed hard enough, or even
if it just looked comfortable and I
was in the right mood, became my own.

Little fouryearold, fiveyearold, sixyearold
me, would automatically case out
the joint, scan any room, looking
for places to fit my tiny four
fivesixyearold body, comfortably.

Today I was sitting in a museum, where
benches lined in carpet lined
the walls, and a quiet voice
I had forgotten once lived inside
whispered "you could sleep here."

When I was younger, I still believed
in the power of family, of love, I
still believed we were all
alright, these things happened in every
house, and my house was the best for me.

Little fouryearold, fiveyearold, sixyearold me, little
voices whispering "you could be safe
here," little nooks and crannies to hide
your fourfivesixyearold body, I wonder
were you, even then, looking for a home?

There's always this stage, later on
after you have realized that you
actually can live without
this person, though it is a continuing
source of pain. At this point, everything
you were so scared of saying
for those long many months, somehow
has been said. You both know
how much you mean together, how
your conversations will go, what
the subtext clearly says, though not
said clearly. I know you miss
me, just as much as I continuously
miss you. After some point, I will know
you love me just as much as I
will try to show you how much I love
you, though I didn't believe it before and
I couldn't tell you so for old fears.
At this point, the wound of you
not being here will start to scab
over. The very essence of your unbeing
in my presence will dictate that you
cannot heal me, that I must live
with this pain and your vacancy. I will not
tell you I miss you, taking a knife
to my healing holes. Against my will,
I am pulling back. After the thrill
of "I miss you" has worn off, it only
brings pain with every utterance. I miss
you, I miss you I miss you I
miss you, and you are missing so profoundly
the very air around me sings
of your absence, whistling through emptinesses
that echo the ones inside. But sometimes
I would rather not remember
that you are missing.

I don't think you understand
what I mean, when I say
I am a fifth wheel. I don't mean
I am always on the side,
I don't mean
I am completely unnecessary,
I don't mean you don't want me here.
All I mean is that, much like a car,
where the fifth wheel is backup,
I am your insurance
against having less than four.
Essential, but not inherently an essential part
of the basic structure.

Sometimes I want to ask
if we'll ever get back
to normal. If the hospital bed
will disappear from the main
level, if the endless stream of
doctors and nurses and physical therapists and reflexologists and acupuncturists
will ever pass us by, if maybe
a night without the squeaking
of bedsprings and the helpless shaking
and gasping of another seizure being
broadcast throughout the house
will finally come, if just maybe
when I say goodnight, you
will have time to look up
and see me standing there.
But then I remember that
the word "normal"
has never been heard in our house
without the harsh sting of comparison, and
this is our life, now, as
we have changed so many
other times. Who knows
what "normal" is, anyways.
If I ever did, I have forgotten.

Today I thought, for the first time
in a while of apologizing
for my existence, and asking you to deal
with my own troubles.
Again.
Slightly shocked, I looked at myself, asking
how a person such as me has not thought
of a apologizing for her very being
in so long, and how you
have convinced me you truly want
to shoulder my burdens-
Yet again.
Slightly uneasy and in awe, I
trembled, asking the air, the
room, the world, the silence (but never
myself) if
maybe I truly am
enough for you, or if
I have convinced myself to forget
that I could never be, and so
cannot remember all the thousands
of unspoken apologies I am doomed to know
need saying to you and everyone
Again and again and again.

Just
give me a minute, please
before I walk in
to my house, I need
just a minute outside our
door, to breathe in the last whiff of fresh
air I'm going to get
in a while,
Just
give me a minute, please, I
can't think, my thoughts are
screaming their way around
my skull and my
music is trying
to drown them out and I
just want some quiet but that's
not something found inside
Just
give me a minute, please,
before I turn my key in the lock to try
and rearrange my face, try and turn
my mouth in a smile dragging
my lips apart and baring my
teeth a fraction harder than
actually necessary to grin try
and take a minute I need
to make it look like
I'm not trying so hard
not to cry.

The space between us is congested
with all of our unspoken words. I
breathe them in, feel the way
they cut down my throat as I swallow
my thoughts, choking silently. They explode
inside my chest, forcing
their way through my ribcage, shattering
the very framework of my body, until
shards of my own bones embed
themselves in my heart. They burn
inside my stomach, fueling
the automaton I have become, making my
movements strong, jagged, hasty, making
my smile too loud, my laughter
too jarring. Can you
feel them, too, or is this just
what you call air?

Sometimes I miss
the way we would talk
before we knew each other

so completely and thoroughly. Back
then, though it seems eons
have passed, we would only skim
across the surface of the other, touching

lightly, the dragonflies of our questions
creating the smallest of ripples
on the top layer of the pools
that were us, never close

enough to even guess at
the hidden depths. Oh, but we
were playful, back then, glistening fliers
chasing one another, sometimes-

rarely- truly touching, throwing up wings
to dazzle with color, to hide
ourselves, the parts we were afraid
were disfigured and damaged, the parts

that were the only parts
truly us. Slowly, our eyes strengthened,
we learned to see though our flimsy
shields, we embraced, piece by painful

piece, each other’s hurt parts, misshapen
and deformed though they were. As we grasped how
to see, not only look, I think
we both realized we are not truly

dragonflies. Maybe we don’t even know what
we are, yet. But as the murky
expanses of you slowly become clearer
to me, and our waters mingle, I know I truly

belong here. I would not trade you
for the world, but sometimes I miss
the sun-filled, glittering glory
of dragonflies over shadowy pond, touching

only the lightest of touches, playful
and flirtatious and impersonal
and giddy.

There was a time when words
would gallop through my head like
herds of horses, leaving me gasping
and trampled in the muck

of my emotions. Their hoof prints, scars,
on my mind, on my heart,
marking me as “writer,” though I felt
I did not deserve such a title.
How could I, when horses break free

of their own volition? As weeks
passed, I
began to
learn the ways
of the herds
of my mind,

the strangely
rhythmical
cadence of
their hooves on
the insides

of my skull.
Though I could
never run
with them, I
learned to ride

fast; I learned
to decide
which would run
today; I
learned to guide

their forceful
direction,
while clinging
tightly to
the first horse

I wanted
to work to
a lather.
Sometimes, when
I am weakened, we fight

for control of my pen, my horses
and I, but they
are always
just that- my
horses. Now,

though I am
only starting,
I feel I
can somehow
finally

lay claim to
the title
of “poet.”

Last year
you weren't here
for my birthday. I
understood, of course, even though
it hurt just a bit. When
we talked on the phone, you
told me when you returned, we
would do something together, and
I giggled, playing through my mind
the word you used, tasting
its heavy cream on tongue,
"decadent."

Last year
you returned
and you had forgotten
your promise. I understood,
of course, even though it hurt
more than just a bit. You were
busy, though time for criticism and
loud shouting matches and afterwards,
muffled sobbing into my pillow was always
made. In the back of my mind I
kept waiting for an acknowledgment,
maybe, if I was feeling optimistic,
even an apology. It never came. My hope, turned
decrepit.

This year
I look back
at what could have been,
and I understand, of course, but
memories of my blind faith in you hurt
the dying spark of optimism, the one
you haven't killed off, yet. Now,
I am the one who will not be here
for my birthday. You, wanting
only an excuse, will try and gift me with
your presence, commit actions
in my name, actions I do not want. Our love
lost, I do not ask if ever it existed, I know
the affirmative will only hurt me. We
are so shattered, we are far past
the point of being
Delicate.

The ***** of my coat still
smell like you and I want to crawl
back into bed, wearing your scent like
the choicest perfume, maybe
then my insomnia made of only
longing will stop long
enough for my mind to finally quiet
from singing its refrain of you over
and over and over and over and maybe
then I will be able to safely
sleep.

The air around me is too big
without you to fill it and the world
is cold and bites at me, you
kept it at bay, as I wait
for the way away
from you I just want
to find my way back. Please,
say that that's possible.

Big fish
Small pond
You wanted to break free.

Small fish,
Watch out-
Welcome to the sea.

this song is the slow burn
of fire through your veins, it's
the long glance across the room
that send you tumbling straight
into the unplumbed depths
of her eyes, it is exactly
the feeling in the pit of your stomach
when he turns and smiles
right at you, rustling forests
you were unaware you had,
until flocks of birds take off,
filling your insides with fluttering
wings, and nothing but their song
will come out, when you open your mouth.

Lying next to you, you recite
your graceful words, chosen
with precision and care, every one
captured in your memory, בור סוד
.שאינה מאבדת אף טיפה Lying

beside you, on my back, I sneak
a quick look at you, your face
serene, and struggling just a bit
to place every word correctly, and

to be so amazingly honest. Looking
over at you, I catch a glimpse
of your stunning eyes, overflowing
just of you, and feel like

with your poetry, you have gifted
a piece of your soul to me. Abashed
and flattered by the beauty of it all, I
have to drop my gaze.

When I let you in I saw you
as a source of strength, not
a drain. And I was right, but only
for a while. You have walked
over me, firmly, even as I lay down,
willingly. You have walked over me
so forcefully that the imprint
of you will forever be embedded
in my heart. You were not
the first, and, knowing myself, you
will not be the last. But this
is the last straw, and soon
though your impression will never
fade from my flesh, it will stop
becoming deeper and more painful
with every passing day. I am strong
enough for a last stand, cowardly
though it may be. Inaction is
a form of action, and I
am giving up.

I can fly, standing, my
back *****, I can fly, holding
my arms aloft, I can
fly, speeding down the hill, I
can fly, swerving around cars.
I fly, dancing with death and
courting danger, I fly, laughing
loudly at my fear, I fly,
relishing the near-misses and almost-
impact of tragedy, I fly, I
spin, I wheel, I turn, I
soar, *(I escape
everything.)