Lately I am fascinated by
the concept of give and take.
Like you fit me here, and
I am enveloped by you there.

Enraptured by the fragility of taking.
Reach in and grab my
handfuls. Leave you shaking.
Your chest heaving the weight
of exhaustion
up and down.

A levy system. Checks and
balances. Occupying the occurrences
of big spoon and little.
Who's entitled to warmth tonight?

I am fascinated by blunders. If I cry
facing away from you, am I really
crying at all?

I made an atheist thank God
in bed.
He whispered it in my ear,
breath steaming my ear canal.
My hands were clasped behind her thighs.
I prayed to God for forgiveness
silently
because my mouth was occupied.

Your face is like autumn's edge

The endearing triumph of tucking away summer. The shallow walks in woods, arms enveloped in anothers, wrapping oneself into the arsenal of comfort.

The sun ending in early afternoon, setting itself over that trail from the nape of your neck to your lips, which my finger-leaves grazes ever so slightly, falling away from the knowing of branched arms. That leap of faith stumbles so gracefully, suddenly, the shining of the first touch-fall, delicately inching it's way to the ground of your lips. I'm grounded in this fall, feathers melting in the setting sun of your half closed eyes. The parting sigh of ending summer, one last sizzle until you make your claim, burrow yourself into the center of me, cool me down and say, "I am here to stay." I take comfort in your coming. The knowing that you offer something unfleeting, something that repeats itself year after year, and yet, I am still mesmerized by it's beauty, still amazed that it comes, still unsure how luck could ever find me.

Your face is like autumn's edge; tumbling lovely for sleep, keeping me wanting more.

My mother twisted irregular ringlettes around her finger in the dead of the night. She pulled my head knee-level and spoke in whispers of places she would one day see. Some people are never meant to stay.
I grew up in the quiet, still nights of "don't get up or else." Else was a definition I never bothered to learn.
I would crawl hands and knees and open my ears as wide as they would go. You hear so many secrets when invisible.
I became an artist at the age of three, vivid image colored bifocals taped to the back inside of my eyelids. My mother wrote HOPE entwined with NO, four inch blade, small waves, when I would sleep so I could only dream of where she would one day go and where I would never see.
Inheritance breaks backs with unforeseen trauma. Seeing the crooked cat-walk back unfamiliar to the bitter taste of prophecy, daughters learn to expect good-byes.
My mother spoke of places I couldn't fathom. My mother bare-backed with the wind before I had a chance to learn some mothers want to stay and rock their curly-haired crying daughter to sleep.
It is self-preservation to believe people cannot be permanent. A mother's love is supposed to be the strongest love of all, a piece of you able to be seen without the truth-bearing soul of a mirror. And mine was the size of the wind. You sleep and cry, and I will find a way to leave before being left.

The tree from Life of Pi lives inside my stomach. It has planted its roots deep within my intestines, growing tall and lean, up through acidic oceans and stopping with branches wound around my ribcage.
I fall asleep inside limbs, cradled above the ground. It's safest at night. And when I thirst for the juice of some sweet fruit, I unwrap a balled up green veiny thing, only to find the seed is a human tooth. 32 in all. A tree that eats living things and saves the waste.
Dread is a ballerina that leaps across the stage, landing on tip-toe, in tip-top shape. Her hair is pulled up in a bun high on her head, fingers nimble, drumming lightly to the beat.
Football shaped eyes run touch downs across your body all day long. Everything fits perfectly, and I still find something wrong. I could sleep my life away, but I guess you'd call that death. Ending is impossible with fate.

a bone colored evening sighs razor blades across the sky
deep seeded (den)rut tur(ned) on an axis,
spinning the evening into an oddening.
the pantry is bare.

somewhere, a baby cries for the love of a mother
who is slumbering in half-sleep,
hoping the child will forget she knows her
and forget to weep.

the sun dipped it's radiance hours ago
to wake another part of the world,
leaving a chaperone dimly lit with wonder.
moon-gazers stare.

"Why is he there?"

legs are tangled, twisted fates,
star-crossed lovers long to touch
under the watchful pin-****** of the night sky.
souls align to be snipped of the mate's burden.

And the cows, with their moon howls,
lay low in swept grass showers,
watching the entwined shadows
watch them with fascism fascination.
waiting to pounce.

hushed silence fills the air.
hands clasp and unclasp,
fitting in the empty spaces you never notice
until they're filled; emptied again.
the sky blows a wish.
light is exstingui(shed).