It’s cold in here.
Cold in her fingers
In her toes
In her nose
In her chest.
Cold icy fingers
Crawling up her throat
Ball into fists there
But they don’t melt.
Burning icy hot there,
Freezing all the words there
Adding Help and other desperate sobs
To the lump there.

You see,
She’s had this blanket,
This beautiful blanket she’s had since birth,
And it was tightly woven,
Stitched with love,
And so so warm.
And it’s always been there,
When the coldness crept in,
And she’d close her eyes
And reach for her blanket.

Even when the blanket started unraveling,
Started sporting holes
Leaving uncovered toes,
She didn’t mind
Because she was mostly warm anyway.
And even when the blanket took on
The smell of ethanol
Blindly she’d reach for it,
And Blindly she’d tuck it away,
Because it still made her feel warm enough anyway.

Well, she used the blanket
Until there it lay in tatters
Unrecognizable to her fingertips in the dark.
So, she opened her eyes.
The blanket wasn’t even a blanket anymore.

Hadn’t this been the way it began though?
She saw the disassembled ball of yarn
That was her blanket
Even before her blanket became a blanket
So in a way,
This blanket was really only
Fancifully packaged yarn
And that was all anybody could expect it to be.
And yarn on it’s own
Doesn’t do a great job
At keeping little girls warm.

She tried hard not to be disappointed,
But she was.

So as the ice crept up her calves,
Into her tummy,
And again up her throat,
She closed her eyes and held herself.
She’d let her yarn be just yarn,
And wiped her own tears away.

My heart is missing, have you seen it?

It’s about 5 ft 8,
A hundred sixty pounds
-Give or take 10-
Last seen in a fitted blue and grey and black
Shirt with fitted blue and grey and black pants,
And a green duffle bag,
Strapped over the back;
Dead weight-
Almost as heavy as
The the ocean.

My heart is missing, have you seen it?

It’s got brown eyes-
The kind of brown eyes that you think of
When you hear that song
“Brown-eyed girl”;
The kind that look good behind
Extra strength lenses,
Magnified enough
So you can almost taste
The milk chocolate inside.

Please,
My heart is missing,
It’s got a mole on the left side
Above the upper lip-
A lip who’s always smoother  
Than a freshly waxed thigh-
Those lips
Whose touch is electric
Against mine.

It likes back scratches
And war movies
And fishing even when it rains;
It doesn’t like salad dressing,
Getting unnecessarily *****,
The unknown-
Especially the unknown-
Unknowing meaning unfamiliar;
It likes to be prepared.
It has a laugh like honey
The kind you could just drink
And drink,
And pray that the sweet sound never stops.

It’s got a voice like home,
And a smile that shines light
In the darkest of places.


I can’t find my heart-
It could be a thousand leagues under the sea
In a yellow submarine
Minus the yellow part;
Is he thinking of me?

And I wasn’t prepared for departure,
But I guess I could never be
Expected to know how to live with a hole
Where my heart used to be.
If you see my heart,
Tell him how much I love him,
And I guess I’ll just have to learn
to live without
Until he comes home to me.

The apartment has that
New plaster smell.
He hulls the crisp, white mattress
Into the middle of the
Hard wood floor,
And she takes his hand
Pulls him onto their bed,
Head on his chest,
And into their world they go.
And this is what they have
To lay their love on.
Ten months later
He’s chain smoking on a
***** stained mattress
In the middle of the apartment
Lined in yesterday’s pizza
And an array of old, used
Excuses and socks;
And she’s trying to separate
His clothes from hers,
And at the same time
Pick up the shattered pieces
Of their little world,
Littered underneath the
Tattered, filthy sheets
To the left of the overflowing,
makeshift, ashtray-hole-in-the-floor.
And this
This pathetic, worn out mattress
Stuffed with broken promises
and discarded dreams,
is all they have  to lay their lives on.

If you find yourself
unable to summon sleep
into your eyes
I’ll sing you a song
to keep you calm
and we’ll wait for the storm
to subside.
If the weight on your shoulders
and the shackles on your ankles
become too much to bear,
I will carry you
over my shoulder
past the pinnacle of the hill
until it’s easier to walk.
And if your lungs
become too labored,
clogged with the smog
from your fears,
I will breathe air into your chest
and let light into the
garden in your ribcage
until your lungs are clear
and flowers grow
all the way down
to your toes.
I will trim the hedges
and pull the weeds
**** the toxins from your veins
and I will teach you how to do the same.
Because eventually,
the muscles in my legs
will no longer suffice for yours,
and the air in my lungs
will become stale in yours,
and you will need to carry yourself
to shore;
but darling I know
by the strength of your bones
you’re going to be just fine.

I know of this magic elixir
That will take away all of your pain
It’ll take you to comfier places
And I swear you won’t feel anything.

At least that’s what they told her.

I know of this magic elixir
That’ll burn in your mouth
And sizzle on your tongue
And it’ll sting like bile at the back of your throat
But it’ll only hurt for a little, just a little
I promise.

So she swallowed the fire
And let it burn bright
Mistaking it’s warmth
For the warmth of sunlight
Until all she had left
Were these heavy black coals in her gut
That weighed her down
Until she lit those embers
And she could fly again.

But after a while it didn’t stop burning,
And she didn’t stop hurting;
And her insides were charred,
And black and scarred
And when she told them the pain
Was too much to bear,
They scoffed,
“There’s no such thing as magic”.

I know of this poisonous toxin
That’ll burn away all of your pain
Until your insides are charred
And beginning to rot
Then I swear you’ll feel everything.

I ate the poison with you.
I fell right beside you
And I helped you get back up.
I kissed your scraped knees
In the ghosts of your mothers lips
But I was your friend.
I resuscitated your heart
When you stopped it from beating
I drank your tears
And cried them myself.
I cared;
I never once pricked you
With the same needle
The world persistently penetrated
You with
And I would have
****** out the venom
From those snake bites
If you’d asked me to,
Knowing that you’d never
Take that bullet for me,
Even if I asked you to.
But I still jumped into the fire
To make sure you got out
Alive.
And somehow
You thought you were alone.
And somehow I ended up
In front of the gun
And you had no problem
Pulling the trigger.

It's quite as the graveyard shift at the cemetery down the street
Silent enough to hear a ghosts whispered breath,
Enough to hear the tiny cries
of the little drops of water
Just escaping the sink faucet
When they splatter all over the aluminum bowl.
It's quiet enough
To feel the weight of the world on my shoulders,
So that the voice in my head
Sounds like a million voices
Belonging to everyone else
Who's awake at this ungodly hour,
Who feel the weight on their chest, too.
And as my pulse climbs higher,
And my palms begin to sweat;
And it's like my fears have multiplied
to the size of the sun;
And water from the ocean is filling my lungs,
And it's crushing me;
I think of the stillness of your body while you sleep;
the steadiness or your breath
As you exhale through your nose,
That halts the flooding in my chest.
And all at once those million voices
Boil down to just yours
Coaxing me back to sleep,
Reminding me that the weight of the world
Is not mine to bare-
And if it were I would not have to bare it alone,
That you'd be there for me.
And it's quiet in here;
Quiet enough to feel your arms around me,
For the sound of my slowing breath
To drown out the thoughts inside my head,
and I can close my eyes
And dream, so sweetly, of you,
My darling.

The house is full of horrors,
This house, it owns no love.
The air is filled with madness,
The floor boards moan in sadness.
The sounds it makes at night,
And the walls, blood red and white,
Represent the turmoil that’s going on inside,
But everything is perfect on the outside.
The grass is trimmed,
The flowers bloomed,
The hedges cut,
The paint renewed,
So people walking by they smile,
And continue on their way.
But the house it cannot move,
For a house wasn’t built with feet to run,
Or a mouth or eyes,
To tell you something’s wrong.
This house it carries on,
It has to stand up strong,
To support the demons ruining
All the paint work.
They will rip it all to shreds,
Tare it up until it’s nearly dead,
Without a detectable scratch upon the surface.
The house it cannot show
The scars it bares inside,
And its figured that’s all it’ll ever deserve.
There’s no way to break the cycle
trust me it’s tried,
And all it’s done is made itself cry,
Which resulted in a leak down from the roof.
The house was beat
And still no outward proof.
There never was,
Nor will there ever be,
Someone there to help it carry on.

Anxiety
is like the ugly sweater
the aunt you never see
gives you for christmas,
except eventually
it becomes part of the lining
of your skin,
and no matter how many times
your mother tells you
it’s okay to take it off
and shove it under the bed
until next time you see her,
you can’t.
So, you have to wear it under
all your normal clothes
and pretend you don’t notice
when the tiny fibers of the itchy wool
peak out from underneath your favorite shirt.
Sometimes, when I look in the mirror,
I see the colors of the
anxious fibers speckled
in the subtle bags under my eyes
when I can’t sleep.
Sometimes allergies look the same.
And I am selectively permeable.
So I can pick and choose
which molecules of information
penetrate the pores of my skin.
But sometimes,
attached to my contact lenses
is an anxious fiber
or two
and my tattletale eyes
share my secrets.