will we be breathing in the same sun again?
i have so much to say but it comes out wrong. ten summers passed and i can still see those plants reaching for the sun.
young and messy in grayscale sheets.
will we see another spring?
i wrote a story that i'm afraid to read. my hands shake too much to turn the pages. water washing through my life.
string lights on the bedpost guide me through memories.
muddy pieces stuck together and blurred lines that i can't make out.
behind my eyes i know you wanted
what was out of reach. pin up my arms and legs
because i don't know how to do any of this without you.

my body is a series of dizzying corridors and windows painted shut. for a moment I forget and the red on my skin reminds me. and there are two choices, survive or don’t.
colors blend together painting the grey that is my life. you said you wouldn’t and you did. 11 walls for each year until I don’t feel anything.
my hands are not mine, my lungs and blood and bones are not mine. the stomach sick with fear is not mine. and I know now that love is not blind. arms outstretched but severed like limbs in a storm. I can’t pretend to be who I was. the world swallows me up and I feel so small. burned up like worms on the hot pavement. there is nowhere to go that doesn’t hurt.

when I think of who you wanted and how it isn’t me
or maybe it was then but not now
not ever again. yellow dresses and cardigans.
flowers growing from my eyes. deep green November water washed against the snow.
I don’t remember who I was.
hands trace over memories that don’t feel like mine. summers spent in the sun without failing.
when I look at me I see nothing. blank, black
cold. maybe I don’t want to remember.
not anymore.

that late afternoon feeling
sweet smell in the air
strands of honeysuckle braided into your hair
humming a bluegrass song that reminds you of home.
flowers stretching upward like soldiers
your skin glowing soft in the sun
hands turning up stones, summer knows your name.

she reads the pages of my pain
aloud
over and over and over
until it's 4am and there is nothing left but the dark.
desperate to recall
pictures of her like words scrambled together in books
lost over time.
she was beautiful, she was everything.
her blue lace hands and sweet, hot marigold summers
the stories of that winter, snow falling over rotted leaves
washing all of it clean.
she reads
until the sun breaks open the stone blue iris,
and the birds recall her voice
her hair soaked from the first spring rain.
she reads
to remember, to forget, to heal
to break her heart wide open
to feel
and stand on the ledge but remain.

i see her face
there are lines now-
i am missing years.
i know her hands, her hair
her knees and teeth
but she is not me.

days fall from the calendar and i am
stuck here
waiting, watching for her
wondering if she will resurface

i wrap my hands around my own wrists
but they are not mine
i bend with the same knees
but they are not mine
i eat with the same mouth
but it is not mine.

can you find her?
i think the red painted over her-
the searing hot pain in her gut
swallowed her whole.

i have battled many things-
men
my thoughts
other people’s words
i have walked down flooded streets
water rushing to my knees
i have had my heart broken
by him, her, you
there was nothing so big that i felt frozen
until these six years
crushing me - ******* out every piece
until there is nothing left

how do i learn to love me now.