You loved me like the
seasons and winter seems to
be where you’ve left me.

The world looks much better
from behind your eyes,
and I would love to view it
in that same light, myself,
but all those little lights
have their own dark corners
from my perspective,
so I'll follow you instead,
out of the dark and into the light,
a passenger in your love of the world.

Skeletal fingers naked of leaves
stretching empty promises
into white skies
I take breaths
between the lines of your garbled
I love yous
whispered into the hollow of
my neck and
all I feel
are broken twigs
against an innocent back

Blurred city lights
palms pressing against fogged
window panes
wishing you were here
the hills and
hollows and
hidden valleys
of my body
calling out into an empty
lonely
night

Water scalding scarlet
running burned fingers over
******* and
belly and
thighs
coaxing old singing love from
white railroad tracks etched through
crystal critical
veins
skid marks from the
love you
left me
with

shadows collapse
     at dusk
silent lightening,
     an unknown storm

her heart a bitter white moon,
     and unseen spirit
crows murmur in darkness,
     leaving tell-tale secrets

she shivers
     at midnight
I watch from the cemetery,
     spirits lost in night,
yearning to cup
     her aching bones

Like a dove's mournful cry
echoing across fresh dew,

Like a shadowy silhouette
against a steady sunset,

Like the way I marry my
coffee and cream,

Like the way a book's pages
flutter between my fingers

You are --

A burst of spring,
A given hand,
A warm embrace,
History in the making,

Yet perhaps,
Like a jolt of blue lightning
striking across my midnight sky,

You are ephemeral
in your ties to me

i'm drowning in tempranillo tears,
drenching my veins in
hard rock and **** wine,
trying to get the
taste of you
out of my mouth

She has a boyfriend who closes his when they play pool,
It’s only fair that way.
She smiles at him over her cue,
all teeth, open mouth and bubblegum lips,
and the ball jumps off the table.
She screeches a laugh,
This girl, she loves loud --
Shaping words to songs,
Dancing with a pool cue,
Framing my face with her delicate touch,
Piano fingers playing etch-a-sketch,
connecting my freckles and bridging gaps,
changing the world.
The sun pours out in her words,
She loves with her smile
And speaks with her hands.
She laughs at a challenge,
always eager to take a chance

He played to the rhythm of the rain,
a glass of blood red pinot noir at his feet,
an acoustic guitar balanced on his knee –
crooning the sounds of an
aching heart.
The acoustic paused its epitaph,  
letting the patter of rain on an
aluminum roof
fill in the sounds where his friend
should have been.
He glanced at the empty wicker chair beside him
and wondered –
despite their ranging conversations
from music to Hell –  
why they never discussed what one would do
without the other.

How do I tell you*
I love the way three dollar wine tastes,
a cheap buzz lighting up my veins,
merlot dripping tears on the floor
I sought for comfort last night.

How do I tell you
That silver is the sweetest color,
singing songs into flesh as I drag her
through scar ridden skin,
opening rivers and avenues
I could be an architect with the way I construct,
drawing with permanent marker on
scribbled, blood stained satin

How do I tell you
I break off pieces of myself,
store them in my broken heart bank,
savor memories for later, when ripped
liquid velvet
doesn't leak onto my fresh floor
anymore

How do I tell you
I curse your nightly name,
thick tongue tasting the
stale sangria of your lips

How do I tell you
How do I tell you
*How do I tell you

she ties her ******* thick knot so he can’t **** on it.
she bites the inside of her cheek until she tastes rust, until he finishes and collapses in a post-****** nap.
she is forced to rise after her body’s beating, juggle his child, do the dishes, start boiling the water, prepare his dinner, crack open a beer, unscrew the anti-freeze and pour just enough all with one hand and all before he wakes.
he tells her to sweep the floor but the dust pads her footsteps so she doesn’t wake him and she’s happiest when he’s asleep.
he’s happiest when he has something to complain about, something to force himself into, some cavity to cram in the name of pleasure.  

women are wild horses grazing in forgotten fields, unrequited and unchained beauty admired only by the sun.
women are the lone wolves, leading from behind.
women are the taste of freedom ****** out by a man with hands around her neck and hot breath in her ear asking if she likes it, asking if she wants it harder.
women are the smell of iron and sticky fingerprints, painting red-black odes into cotton canvases, where society can’t stipple or staunch the flow of freedom.
women are mothers before birth to unruly grab-me-a-beer-babe men tossing ***** clothes to a fresh mopped floor and telling her the place is a pit.
women are anger buried beneath flesh, a bubbling riot up and out of their mouths in the form of what they call crazy and what we call just plain tired.

she hands him his beer, smiles as she adjusts the baby.
here, she says, you deserved it.
she tastes those words, the way they weigh heavily on her tongue like stones tossed into a lake to drown.
she tastes those words, the same words he said to her the first time he painted her eye a pretty bruise-blue, pulled her hair like reigns like he actually believed he could control how she built herself.

When I heard the news,
I crumbled.
Piece by piece, shards of my heart
fell away,
uncovering a revelation:
You are not the villain after all.

Or maybe, you're clambering.
Grasping onto any similarity
she and I share.
Searching
to fill the void left by me
like I filled that of the one before.

And I realize
maybe we're all just trying to fill
the spaces left by the ghosts
of those we once knew.

Your eyes are lit low,
at dusk, like liquid gold.
There’s heavy silence,
your words come slow.

But, can you just hold on?
let’s wait until the dawn,
let sunlight touch your promise.
What if this goes all wrong?

Your fingertips play my spine,
you swear things will be fine.
I turn into you,
already, you feel like mine.

Your arms protect me,
your eyes, they set me free,
your lips promise forever,
Don’t you ever leave.

I listen to the thunder and
wonder
where you went

We sat with a pair of burgers between us,
the Purdue game muted on the big screen.
We talked about high school and
Friday night football and
health insurance and
what it feels like to get hit by a car --
our first date, just five years removed.

You have abstract works painted like satin
in your skin
like scars
in your skin
like memories
like nightmares
like “I wish I would have’s…”

I tease you gently;
you beg me not to work so much
You frown at your plate
swirl your fries in ketchup and
in this, I see fragments of the old you.

I ask if you’re going to church tomorrow,
and you reflect the question
like it’s a challenge
like belief is always shaped with doubt
like even when there’s faith, voices still waiver.

There are still tiny fractures
in your bones
in your voice
in our memories.

There are still raindrops in your eyes
when we talk about high school and
Friday night football and
health insurance and
what it feels like to get hit by a car.

There are still scars in your skin
in your mind
in my heart --
Our first date, just five years removed

I finally felt the sun on porous red rocks that day –  
7000 feet closer to heaven, 7000 feet from air that hurts to breathe,
I asked you: why don’t we feel like this every day?
and I didn’t think about the blades I used,
or the pills you took ,
all I could think was those red rocks,
that hot sun, the endless sky, and this beautiful earth sprawled
at our feet, like at that moment we owned it,
the three of us back together again
we breathed – finally free.

but our heaven is 1,000 miles away now,
your absence hurts just the same,
and I’m back to suffocating on this Indiana air,
and all that clouds my mind is
we still have this beautiful earth
and that beautiful week
to float away with.

We watched the day die
And fade from our lives
Just like the memories of us

This is why I don't speak much
Because he doesn't listen
And my declaration gets carried away
Like a whisper in the wind

Smooth talker,
with dancing fingers soothing over
sensitive areas.

It won’t happen again, you tell me.
I’ll make this right, you promise.

Your words, like velvet to my fingers,
appeal to my heart ache,

And I almost forget the past
as angry red scars turn silver
and the past's flame fades to a sliver

Yet like ghosts in a Polaroid,
your past comes back to haunt me.

And I think of the curves of another woman
nestled in your velvet embrace

And I wonder if she believed
your velvet lies, too.

I can't find the strength
to call you back--I'm weathered
from the way you fade

october 6, 2018
was a day for wearing white,
supposed to be his bride
instead, I’m alone
in a new home,
watching an Indian summer go by –
robin’s egg skies, and
emerald hills

i wish it was raining instead

october sixth was supposed to be
navy and cream,
stargazer lilies, and a
backyard wedding in
southern indiana woods
where leaves the color of blood,
wept with all our loved ones
paving the way of our future

a prologue: dates to the theater,
foamy beer,
sticky dance floors,
loud words and hate,
a home together, destined to fall
and the secrets stuck
like dust

sometimes, the devil hides behind the shadows of love

now, i wake up alone,
in my new home
to the songs of doves,
the morning is for mourning,
i like to think they’re singing for me

i cradle the mug in my hands,
listen to the birds
and the words,
a song i wrote and sing to myself,

the chorus, it goes like this:
“you’re safe now”

when you go through something trying all the good guys and do-gooders flock to you. they wring metaphorical hands and ask if there's anything they can do, like some baked ziti or wadded handkerchief will caulk your cracks.
then an acceptable timetable for healing goes by and they lay pity eyes on you give you that how're you doing honey smile, but their baked ziti didn't serve as the salve they'd hoped and you're crumbling fast and maybe that pity smile is your solution so you tell them.
you tell them how many times you count the cracks in your ceiling before falling asleep (27) you tell them how many glasses of wine it takes to feel decent again (at least 4) you tell them how many hours it's been since you last ate (56)
and they wish you ate the ******* ziti and blew your nose in damp handkerchiefs because an acceptable amount of time has passed and you should be healed by now, but what they don't know is your timetable is inverted and you work in wrong-way highways. they don't know that time is scar tissue much more delicate than the lock-box you've put him and all the things he did in, and each second chips away at that box and the essence of him is seeping out like acid that melts through all your barriers.
the good guys and do-gooders don't want to open your broken-heart bank and let all the bees out. they want you to eat the ziti and say thank you like it actually fixed something.