i put your heart back together
with god's golden hands
the moon's bluest light
i gave you fire to place inside your bones
to keep you when the winter comes to steal you away

you were wild, girl
don't let this **** you.
you have been ripped limb from limb
seams split so far that you can't find
where they end and you begin

i watched the world spin around you
you held up every constellation with ease
but then you grew tired.
i stood beside you and stretched out my arms
i reached and reached,
my hands lost inside the oceans

what i regret the most-
i didn't help you hold it up.

i will love you when i'm wild
when i'm sad
when the whole wide world seems too big
and the black night swallows me
i will love you in the peace of the morning sun
and when winter cracks my bones

i will love you when you cry
for your father and mother and for mine too
i will hold your hand
on the shortest days, the ones filled with joy
and the longest. full of loss, and regret
and deep despair.

the crumbs don't lead back and they don't lead away. every breath and step, heavy as the hardest rain.
i feel you as close as thunder. mountains whisper about where ive been and what ive done. echoing out above outstretched wings and winter sun.
"this is who you are, who you were and who you can never be."
lost and found in the dirt. these leaves can't hide anything.
of all the stars ive named,
there's one i can't forget.  
always hanging here to watch the days fall, slow and overbearing.

i named you, regret. the ultimate consequence. there is no art in letting go. there is no light in your sky.

imagine in the dead underneath
a ghost
of every lie ever told.

you were always best at
turning brides to widows.

the low-lying fog lit up by the streetlights
echoes
tree branches look like hands
reaching out as
winter comes to claim me again.

i broke the bread and drank the wine
but my hands will never be clean.

i miss your buttercups and bluebirds
the way your rain falls warm on my skin
and how your sun lights the longest day.

come back to me
come back to me.

tired of comparing myself to
your past lovers
my friends
or girls on the street.
she always has what i never will
a younger face
a brighter smile
hair that curls perfectly
falling down past her shoulders
where she carries every little thing
so delicately, in perfect balance
while i am here
hiding from the world
wrapped in blankets and regret.

i can't help but wonder where all this time has gone.

you are the countless pages
in books I've never read
rain soaked, sun spilling across
an August afternoon
pouring in hard through the window.

your wings as black as a night sky without stars.
the sea kept safe, formed inside of your eyes.
you have been reborn many times.

who will you lift from the depths of hell this time?

you watch and you wait, pulled in every direction
your heart strings tied in knots and torn apart.

this world still needs you,
every
last
drop.
the dreams you dream while the sun still shines
the bits of string that get tangled in your hair
your awkward smile when someone says you're beautiful.
every thing that i remember and the ones that i can't,
the things that i don't know now that we're older.

don't give up.

i built a boat to sail us out to sea.
made of broken parts of you and me.
the flowers i collect each spring.
the rusty keys i can't part with.
twigs and bones from all my homes.
stones from the lake in the woods.

we paddled out with our hands
and our great big dreams
i watched you sleeping every morning,
the light inching closer and closer to your eyes
you shone so bright that i could see nothing else.
a girl wrapped in a halo,
her innocence spilling out into the sea.

one morning i awoke
i laid beside you, and awaited the light but it never found you
the darkness had swallowed you.
you were filled with shadows and sad things,
the kind of things that make you cry even on the good days.
that day i stopped paddling.

i sat with you. i held your hand. you were suddenly so afraid of the water. you said there were voices in your mind
and you weren't sure ******* them.

i fell asleep with my hands in the water.
when i woke up my skin was salt soaked, shriveled fingertips
i turned to reach for you
but you were already gone.

i break
and slowly fall
your fingers resting, silent
playing piano on my bones
who am i to wish for anything more
than this.
love born of strife and regret.
the days have taken their toll.

the winter sits heavier now
stealing breaths that summer gave
we were too young, too soon
i took what i could not keep.

i watched you burning but did nothing.
rain fell around you and i captured it all
leaving you to turn to ash.

you are talking and i hear nothing
except flowers missing spring
buried deep beneath winter
burdened so heavy with purpose
but no way of showing.

i have retraced steps
to when you were golden
glowing at the back door
and i was april
standing open wide,
waiting at the storm door to let you in.

your laugh is like a familiar song.
i know the words but can't sing them without you.

the morning falls on her
like feathers pulled from my back
soft light and shadows frame her face
i cover her eyes to let her sleep-
she is unaware of me
but
i love her just the same.

siphon the blood from my weathered heart.
encased in muscle and bone
it pulses loudly through your words
so loud that all you speak are dreams.

a robin came to bring spring but i stole her away.
i kept her locked inside of a cage with one small hole
and every day i sang to her.
the songs were all about you,
young and new and sweet as nectarines.

we both breathed the same air but i sneezed at her affections.

one day i laid her soft by the open window
winter's breeze fading into something new
the light caught her eyes,
and i wept as she crawled back into her cage.

i think of her.
when the night is long
and the house is cold.
i think of the warmth in her eyes
and the light that i took,
the piece that i kept. the piece that i burned.
the fire
that i lost myself in
the dying breath
the wish to try again.
to do better next time.

in dreams i know
how every strand of hair falls
your sun-kissed shoulders glow
in the summer sun.
the storm that came and stole your eyes-
sweat dripping down your neck,
your legs slide slow down in that water
haunted when you're sleeping
by the salt on my lips.

sinking and gasping, clawing toward the surface
water filling my lungs
blue lips and dead eyes,
i'm losing me with you.

i thought that this was everything. forever, for my whole life.
the faster my heart pumps, the more blood i lose.
blacking out and my head slams to the floor.
you pull me up and you're screaming
but i can't hear a thing.

my bones crack open under the weight of your hands.

the line separating who you are and what you've done is blurring.

you are the rain that falls in january. soft at first--
then chaining me to the bed.
your hands, a message from jupiter
swirling around inside my head
and i'm lost in your thunder.
at 4am i hear you call
you ask where i've gone again--
if i will return this time.

when you lied i thought i never loved you.
silver fills the cracks in my fingers
and i've spent one more year under your open sky.

i wish fall had never left-
when it goes it takes everything.
thirty two candles for thirty two years
will i ever see the third.
if i go now it will be on my own terms.
find this and remember that i loved you-
and know that you always tried.

the cold wind calls my name and i am tired now
lay me out with flowers
and dream of the children we could have had.

the feeling of knowing
where my footsteps have been
my mind retraces every step
until i feel nothing but the cold, the dark
the miserable memory of your face.

there are roads i never drive down for a reason.

i washed my bones clean but now the rivers all dried up
you dreamed my whole wide world and i saw it in your eyes
pale at first then deeper blue
i stood at the edge and the water swallowed me.

all i have ever done is hide.
hands sewn in pockets, veins tied in two
you said that love was black and white
but i added in the red and blue.
initials carved into my arms
the names burned across my tongue
until i hate the taste
of being used.

to reach the soul
that is trapped beneath
the cold black earth
to claw, and kick and scream

love, love, love
cannot reach you
my eyes cannot see you.
i imagine you, who you were before
the great depression.
winter came and claimed so much.

the pause between words
before they leave your lips
the moment you could have chosen
to do the right thing, but you didn't.

i could paint pictures for you
until all of my paint is dry
adding water until the colors are gone.

i can slowly become nothing.
a piece of a story. the piece that is forgotten
as the book goes along.

i keep imagining what it would be like to photograph you.'
you with your dented wings. your banged up heart.

my heart, lungs, hands
have served me well for thirty two years.
and i will not watch my empire crumble
all because you were sad.

a lack of color-
days drawn over crossed out words
sunsets and full moons
do you really believe that i have forgotten anything.

a mind that you cannot rest in.
swirling hands and tangled hair.
if you told me that men were the devil i would believe you.

let me lie face up
hands toward the sky
let the water flow over me
through me, until i am nothing

how did you ever break what was already broken.

when blue eyes are enough. wrists painted white to cover up your scars.
i said i never loved you,
but i lied.
to protect you from the dark in me.
all of my broken pieces, hidden in the darkest corner
of the last room down the longest hall-
and the walls i built won't crumble
standing strong for too long now,
your hands won't set me free this time
your arms won't hold me still this time.

to stand
in your arms
long and slender
reaching toward the sky
the sun glowing on your skin
the memories i carry
made long before the wildfire
destroyed it all.

you thought i chose him but i had no choice at all.
in my heart, i never forgot
you and i in your bed for the first time.
the way the hair fell down to your chin
hiding those blue eyes.
that townhouse. the silk necklace you made for me.
kissing at parties. holding hands in your car.

frozen forever just like that in my mind.

my only crime;
loving what i couldn't have and having what i couldn't love.
never the same love twice. never like you.

i will never smell your hair again,
never touch my legs to yours.
i try so hard to remember
your laugh, your sweet voice
singing the songs we loved
listening and wondering
if we could ever be good enough
but
you always were.

love is deaf and blind and numb
lost in waters too deep to swim
you looked right at me and became the whole wide world.

your fingers play piano on my bones
notes that i've never heard
you sang loud and hard,
"can we forget, can we forget?"
but i plugged my ears and wept through the song.

you are like the great wild wood
holding secrets in the darkest corners
arms outstretched, this is where you pretend
you're as tall as the sky
promises never kept build up
you lay down one thing just to carry another
a beautiful girl, a million different pieces
glowing and bleeding and wishing
the stars will never burn as bright as you.

when what you have believed is love
for your entire life
is really a sickness,
an addiction.
lover, heart breaker, life taker, ruiner.

there are no white horses.
his armor doesn't shine.

i look at you and realize i may never sleep again.
tell my mother that i loved her,
and not to cry over spilled milk. tell her that i was
born again. i left the world with glass in my feet
and they'll pay my ferry to the other side.
blue eyes guide me home, no,
they keep me captive.
i loved you before i was old enough to remember how to breathe,
four lungs and sixty four teeth,
we were the same but now we're not.

the lord won't forget about you. she watches you hanging laundry,
pieces of your silver hair littering the grass.

i laid awake last night
telling you why i'm afraid of the sun.
afraid that one day it's going to implode and **** all of us,
or worse,
leave me burning in a nightmare that i never believed in
clawing and crying to find a way out
but there isn't one.

i thought that i was brave.
standing as tall as the sky
arms going up and up
for what felt like forever.
my whole life laid out
everything that i ever wanted
close enough to see but not reach
and in the blink of an eye
it's all gone
smoke and ashes filling my lungs
my eyes dripping blood
bones breaking and burning away

god came and i looked away.
i hope you take his hand.

i think about
your eyes and lips
your hands and shoulder blades
i think about your bones
that grew so tall
to hold you up, to keep me here
and i'm mesmerized
beneath the stars spinning in your sky.

i am tired
in ways that i cannot explain
the words in my head mean nothing.
the blue in my sky has been scratched out,
painted over. replaced by the need to be better
than her, or her, or her.

this face, everything i hate
hidden beneath painted lips and eyelashes
every piece of skin
every fold, every wrinkle
there is no one who can erase time.
it has never been
about her-
the only war i fight is with myself.

I met a man once who told me that the soul is split into three parts.

the first, the beauty you carry on your face and in your flesh. eyes as blue as a cloudless winter. every freckled shoulder, every broken bone. the look on your face when you know you're finally home. that crooked smile, running arms outstretched toward the river. dancing in the rain.

the second, the voice with which to sing. every word spoken in love. the lies you tell. the regret stuck in your throat. and then screaming out to stay, when it's the last second of the last day.

the third, the season that brings you in.
how the sun falls on your face and that shiver from the bitter cold. the piece you can't control. the heart pumping blood. the brain's wires crossed. the longing for death. the infatuation with living, breathing. your fate to feel, to love, to hate, to fear.
life's arms open to receive you and death waits to keep you.

the breaking heart
the dreadful night
i know what's next and that winter
will never really leave.
i lie here, wrapped up
this blanket fused into my bones
can i ever escape?

you said to endure every ******* season
every word you ever spoke split my skull in two
can you see it now? the part of me i can't change?
i bleed out but feel nothing.

your lips leak from shadows
too cold to bear your name
the trees hide you away from me
miles away and i mean nothing
every word burns like wildfire

can't the sky let me forget?

to the wrongs i can't right
this is us - what we were, what we are
"and we won't be breathing in that same sun again"
the far off now is too far
the rain came but never left
two halves
the whole piece is missing.

i close my eyes but still see everything.

touch me until i break apart.
bones collapse under the weight of your hands.
we are the same but separate.
i think of you
but i'm dying.
help me see the center.

forgive me--
i am still coming home to myself
still sorting through the darkest parts.
some days i seem wild, restless,
and you may not understand me.
some days i am afraid to move, to live,
and it may be hard to love me.
remember i too am still learning to love
the pieces that don't fit together,
the cracks in me that aren't filled with gold.
on days when i cannot smile,
forgive me.

the ground shrouded in white. the trees bare. the sun hidden.
i pleaded for Persephone to return.

the tomb i left
the war we lost
feeling everything miles away
wind cutting through every word
bind my feet but in dreams
i still follow.

my mind forgets the sun
the rain pours down into my bones
filling every crack
with fog carrying in
every mistake from the last three years
i don't remember what was beautiful
everything is lost
everything is lost

i suffer through
these last cold nights-
winter's final stand.
she stretches her icy fingers
toward the trees,
the wind blows
as they bid her farewell.
"you have no power here."

when i lie down beside you
blankets become that
same
old
fear.
a divide so wide between us
a space that cannot be filled
your eyes wander but i'm still here.

let her have her way. the grass trails behind her. blades sliding through the cracks between her fingers. she looks on as the sun rises. light flickering across the earth. her feet ***** from the ground. shadows fall from branches. the ferns in her eyes fade out.
can you remember the blue before i met you? that great, wide open space? how could i have stayed?
i held your hand. i gave you everything.
pieces of your skin are still falling from me. the dust settles on the leaves that i've grown in my chest. you planted seed after seed.
it's been tough to **** you out.

i close my eyes and dip my hands in the water. the freezing cold reminds me of those days with you. wanting to pull away but sinking further in until i'm numb.
you've been hard to wash off.