It is just a word,
This nameless tide
That we decide
Should give us pride
This piece of land
We portioned off
With weird
Property lines
To define
What is yours
And what is mine
Who we are
And who they are
It could have been
Called anything
The name does not
Make it distinct
Nor craft a creed
Of perfection
For the world to see
Because it is just a small piece
Of a bigger thing
With a different name

When she walks into your kitchen crying,
put down your half scrubbed ***,
turn off the faucet,
wipe the water off of your hands with a white dish towel.
Like her eyes are trying to dry themselves on her pale cheeks.

You wrap your arms around her
and let her cry into your hair.
You feel like a mother
comforting a child who has just lost their favorite stuffed toy.


Her grandfather just passed away,
and this is the first time she has left her house since that night.
The night she couldn't drive fast enough to say goodbye.

You don't wipe the tear from her jaw line.

You're afraid your water wrinkled fingers
will remind her
of him.

The curtains have risen.
The actors changed their personalities.
The stage has started to shine.
Yet one boy did not wat to put on the mask.
Yet the audience was missing.
Yet the theater was a flat.

Maybe it's the poet in me
that believes
that after all these years,
and miles,
and songs,
that you might untangle yourself from her arms,
tug on the string I tied to our fingers before you left,
and find your way back
to me.

Your heart
is pulling you across the ocean,
to ports with open arms waiting for you;
and I'm left here wondering
why it wasn't enough
that I would have tore out my rib cage
and made it into a boat
for you to sail yourself there in.

I would wait here,
at this port
that is both where you have been
and where you still are,
until I turned to stone.

It's the poet in me
that can't let you go.