Bright, angled footsteps crossing
Our lawn at 3 a.m.
A quick, blurred tumble into the front door

It’s loud and you wake us
But no one sush's you anymore
No one comes downstairs
to try and get you to sleep

We can smell the intoxication below us and
We can feel your dizziness while we’re
Warm and safe in our beds
Listening to the tip-tip of the
rain on the roof and the clank-clank
Of newly opened bottles of Miller Light

I lost my faith in my Lord and
My mother the 5th of June when
Her soul vanished in the warm,
Overlapping evenings
She ****** my anticipation dry
With her long gulps

When I asked her to stop she chuckled
and looked me dead in the eye
“But what, will have then?”

I didn’t have an answer to her impossible questions
And Empty requests because I
Dream too
Of better places and better faces but
Mother I love you and

We know she has a problem,
My father says
I didn’t ask for this
He says
I didn’t either
I say

What doesn’t mommy come to my soccer games?
My choir recitals
Or to tuck me in anymore
I ask

Then I remember she has a new best friend
A friend unfailing and persistent
Who boosts her mood and her self exhilaration
Much higher than we ever will

I don’t mind it so much now
Time has its concepts and
Addiction has its play-by-plays

I am a working progress
And so is my mother

She’s starting to cook now,
Investigating recipes like she used to
Investigate mixed drinks

And my fathers happier
Turning up the football games louder
And firing the grill up sooner

I ask her more questions
Making up for all the lost time
We never spent together but

She doesn’t apologize because
What has she done?
Other than skip my
8th grade graduation  
For a rendez-vous
With her needle and

What has she done?
Other than tear down
All the walls I have built of trust and

What will she do when she needs her own comfort?

Unsettled fingertips tap the counter and
I clench my fists
Unclench
Clench
Unclench
Clench
I live inside Salem,
A body of mystery and fear
Torn between truth and myth,
The void exactly where you wanted me

"Are we going to fix it?"
We don't talk about it
"Is it going to work?"
We don't talk about it
"I love you"
We don't ******* talk about it

5 years is an eternity for girls living apart
Separate states and contrastive attitudes
Regarding colorful race and travelling the world
I wanted adventure and you wanted safe

I think about you when I row the river,
I think about you when I paint the landscapes and
I think about you when I'm drinking
A wrecked, terse woman wasting in oblivion

You injected distrust in each of my veins,
slowly seeping throughout my body,
Creating a coma of emotional insecurity
year
after
year

And I believed you this time
I believed you last time and
the time after that but
I will not believe you the next time

I sat on the curb at 3am and discussed
endless options of our future
I didn't need to prove myself further,
Since I've already done the hard part,
Driving 5 hours in the middle of the night,
in secret to see you, darling

"Are you coming?"
"I'm coming"
"Are you sure?"
"I'm sure"
Do you promise?"
"I promise"

I did the hard part and it was your turn
Your turn to prove that you meant it,
that you wanted it to work

The sun was pouring that day,
When you cried and choked on the words,
"I like a boy,"
Words that weren't so foreign
but that were piercing to my heart

"It's okay," I said
"I still love you," I said
A beautiful mountain girl surrounded
by bigotry and hate in a state full
of so much beauty

Acidic tendencies in the middle of the night,
I washed my hair with your ******* forgery,
My eyes poured for days, unceasing
Unrelenting
Ultraviolence on repeat because
Lana can make it beautiful

A heartbreak so heartbreaking
and I loved you
I loved you more than the pale moonlit mountains
and the Ferris Wheel skidding the clouds and
I loved you more than jars full of sand and
Midnight fireflies and cool, sophic fire scented air
I loved you more than loose t-shirts on lazy days
and I ******* loved you

"I love you more than this mixtape,"
with the memories of swaying palms and
gravitating tide pulls and a simple sentence of
"You look so familiar."

I wish I had never seen you
Blonde hair, windy
Blue eyes, angry
I wish I had never glanced toward the deck 5 years ago
on the shore where all things seemed beautiful

Because All Things Seem Beautiful
at first, before the crash of thunder and
Before paradise lost its way home

"It's not goodbye," you said
"It's see you later," you said
And I wish it was the former and never the latter
Because this road was lost many years ago when
Empty promises promised to exist

You've broken my heart and
I
Loved
It
because with you, dark nights
seem a little breezier and howling coyotes
drown out country ambitions because
with you, with all of you,
it's too safe
Too ******* safe

I loved you the first time,
and I loved you the last time
I need my trust back and I can't be waiting
for you to make up your mind on your *******
domesticated relationships because you feel
better hiding than being passionate

Hiding behind your masculine partner,
A partner so very vague and so very safe,
when you didn't take the chance that I did
A chance that would have worked, for as long
as things really work
I would've tried for you

I need to trust again
I need believe when others say that they're coming
I need this distrust to deteriorate because
I can't do days of stomach aches and
gipping anxiety anymore
I need to trust and to love because
I know that I'm good at it,
but you've taken my ability to love
and flushed it like cold coffee

This is okay
I am okay
Because each day that I go from you,
the happier I feel and the freer I feel
I'm a kite that catches the wind at ungodly times
of night and a gemstone that scratches too easily
when promised a warranty

Goodbye to you, beautiful mountain girl
I'm saying what I need for me and never for you
because I loved you in past tense and the present
is so forbidden

Goodluck with your normalcy,
while you lick your lips with Jesus
and while I light a cigarette so sweet and pure
Goodbye, beautiful mountain girl
Goodbye

Her hand grazed my knee first;
black nail polished fingers
filled with golden rings and solitude

Her hand slid up past my knee next,
A chilling whisper of a husky voice,
"I'm bisexual, whatever, who cares?"
A tone so sleek, so ****,
Uncaring and unrelenting

Her hand moved inward this time,
her warm breath pressed to my neck,
questions of sexuality and culture
in her ******* rasp and
I melted that way, I ******* melted that day

A level booming below,
A band of drummers,
Drumming of ambition and heartbreak,
A base-dropping attitude from Athens

She leaned in first, her smoky green eyes
******* mine and I looked up,
with a feeling of hot temperance on my tongue,
She kissed me,
sweet and bold and the evening was full
of firsts because she grabbed me,
so fast and forward and
dimmed the mood and began her journey
into transcendental fluidity

We swayed to the beat of casuality,
a beat unfamiliar in my world of seriousness,
and she grabbed my hand and pulled her lips
closer, closer
and whispered "I'll get us a taxi"

Beautiful women make my heart flutter,
and beautiful women with smoky green eyes
and blonde dreadlocks make my speech stutter
but I followed her into the abyss of wonder
holding her hand onto the grassy concrete,
our breath white and our spirits hazy

The taxi home reminded me of New York streets,
and it made me forget of Oxford priorities and
senseless irony and she kissed me twice,
her **** fingers searching for answers
in the 2:30am moonlight

She kissed me in the elevator,
A familiar scent of the haunted ancients and
her sly character left me breathless, an
adventurous eighteen-year-old searching for
wisdom and a twenty-something searching for
a definition, we collided

Her dorm, lined with yellow lights and
colorful elephants, a comforting essence of
security and warmth

She grabbed my waist and
turned me around,
I lost my breath in her
seductive sway,
She kissed me hard and pushed me fast,
onto her pillows of a cool fragrance

She screamed once and I screamed twice,
A fantastic pain muffled by the sound
of old heat lamps

"You'll forget this," I said
"Please," she said, "I'm practically sober."

We continued for hours, her spirit quick,
unceasing,
persistent
She smiled exquisitely,
with slanted eyes, she licked her lips

We slept soundlessly,
Her hand where it started, above my knee
and below my waist,
Black nail polished fingers held
my hand until morning,
a soft kiss on the shoulder blade
and I awoke to the chirping of morning

And I left with a sense of softness,
not accomplishment and
I'll see the smoky-eyed,
yellow-dread girl once more,
And I hope it's when I don't know
what
for

Graffitied, empty shadows cross the street
holding no one’s hand in the dead daylight
Tough little boys bullied into men
on brickroad neighborhoods
built for the needy

Abstract Gala supermarkets
Opening their doors for those with
thick rimmed glasses and high waisted jeans
but closing for the needy

Black spray painted letters on gray garage doors
expressing angst and boredom in a self-made city
Inked grotesques and broken glass lemonades
scattered gently along the road we call home

Watered down tomato soup dinners
that feed six but meant for  two and we’re
crouched along swaying bridges
when lights of the stadium
blind across the street

Brooklyn anticipation,
dreams of howling wolves and pines swaying
Brooklyn anticipation,
Brooklyn solitude

California Missionary,
crossed the border of my heart
atop the wings of the sunkissed quail
treading tires and
skidding across proud brown bear’s abdomen

California missionary,
sped fast ‘cross Pacific Highway
spreading to us the whispers
of spirits
and the cackling sun gods

California Missionary
abandoned ceramic pots and
Christmas-tree needles
unshaven and never watered
from her shivered trunk bed and

California Missionary
taught the pages of Abraham,
squinting through sunlight and
dreaming of typewriters that
ceased to exist in the broken
Golden State

California Missionary
arrived with garlic and crystal-clear mirrors
steering her mustang clear of
cats with dark complexion
top down, in the state of
tinted sunshine and

California Missionary
left the mountains of bigotry
to tell lies of ancient scripture
that she loathed
so that she could
live
again and

California Missionary
stole the ring on her finger
that promised devotion
from a man of Christ himself
so that
California Missionary
could begin to understand
herself

A trace of baked apples
and coastlines
Meredith’s most cherished possession
A bicycle
Purple and patterned
She grips high handlebars with high hopes
When the sun leaves a lasting impression
in the water
She pedals fast towards chimneys
flooding with smoke
Toward spongy grass and
midnight porch swings
Her only fear is drowning-
not in water
In innocence, in indifference
Dying without a purpose,
dying without a name
The palms whistle her name
as the sun sets and
the moon howls
She lets the shower soak her skin
Then sits at the corner of her bed
nocturnally
She dreams of waterfalls taller than God and
waves wider than wind
She sells italian ice
in a ball cap with
her toes curled in the sand
She’ll never leave

You were the highest key
on the piano, so sweet and so pure

There are butterflies
floating in my stomach
and living in my skin
except that they're
muddy
and jaded
and wet

The butterflies
are
moths
and
bats and spirits

A hazy grin on a foggy Tuesday
and I hope you
bleed
for being responsible for the scars
on someone else's skin

I craved the color,
a vintage film but now
I'm graying,
A faded stopwatch
stopped in time

"No" is never "yes"
because a body is a body
meant for soul
and a body is not yours to
control

You are an aimless nap,
casual and languid,
Cozy but dangerous

In the gray wash of the day,
you're a single red balloon,
floating, floating
toward nothing, toward
oblivion

A sly-eyed persona,
an ombre-d smile and
a heart mixed with lemon, sour
but sweet


An afternoon green and airy,
and my mind is full of you,
destructive but beautiful,
I wish I could fix this for you,
I would fix this for you

You're the lucky eyelash and
the smell of woodsmoke in Winter
a warm, windy anecdote
when the sun sets early

You smell of roses,
an irrisistable aroma of
beauty,

You don't know how to love
and that is okay, and I am okay
because girls with a sly-eyed personas
and who smell of roses,
are girls who linger in daydreams and
who smile sleepy smiles
and know the best music

Girls like you, cozy and
Dangerous,
are girls that I paint,
so dark
and
mysterious

foggy mornings,
we're tangled in sheets
two puffs of smoke,
three kisses on cheeks

i haven't felt this happy in weeks

she smelled like my favorite book,
with bunny eared corners and
underlined regret
her woodpine smile,
will take me a while
to
forget

she likes to scare you,
with tickles and feelings
a horror that conquers
creaking in the crack of darkness or
darkness
or
darkness

her eyes shine like Union Terminal
and her tye-dye smiles
are opaque
and clear
but my dear,
and my god,
and my God,
she is beautiful

she's the simple succulent,
no need for water
or commitment
but pleasing and
familiar
she's a polaroid picture
of the Queen City
and ****, is she witty

she's the only girl
who mocks Lana
and gets away with it

she calls you "honey,"
in her perfumed sheets
with a snowy exterior
on the busy streets

because from carmel apples
to frosted sidewalks,
she asks questions
and questions and questions
and she has a
glace that leaves cuts
on your heart and
a sway that rips your
control
apart

but monsters are people too,
and we could fall from grace together
monsters are people too,
and right now i'll endure
this
weather

i don't care about titles anymore
i don't care about length anymore

i care about guitar vibratons
and laughing on foggy mornings
and a puff of smoke and a kiss
on the cheek
and do you know why?

because

you're sculpture to me,
an artist's stain
a splattered canvass,
playing the blues

you're molded to me,
a magnetic clay-mation
I don't understand,
swaying to tunes

you're art to me,
no explanation or
interpretation,
you're freeing to me,
dancing with wounds

Merry go-rounds
Twirl around the sky
Shut down ice-cream posts and
Repressed flower petals
Crisscrossed hands and
Popsicle sticks
Loitering the salt-stained pavement
Glints of late-night squares in
Skyscrapers which brush the clouds
The crunch of diseased leaves and the
Distant honks and whistles
In chaotic, zig-zag traffic
Snow falls silently
Its fingertips landing on
Windbreakers and cotton mittens
Of children
With red cheeks and
Exasperated smiles
Chasing after frozen-pond ducks
With tongues extended and catch
Soft white water
Winter dampens the sidewalk cracks
And chills the abandoned earmuffs
But winter will not
And can not
Dampen or
Freeze or
Abandon the spirits

I'm the yellow, autumn leaves falling jagged
in a swift, soft wind
dying, although beautiful, I line the streets,
sweaped and condensed because no matter
how beautiful, you still disrupt them

I challenge their green wonderland, falling slowly,
in a soft wind, I disrupt their manicured displays,
falling jagged and yellow

I'm the soft sheets in a sun room,
the light warm and bright, cascading upon me
The twinkles of dust particles floating around me,
I seem cozy, although exhausted and lonely
because light drains the room only once an afternoon,
5pm, illuminating my sheets slowly and precise

I know do know what it's like
to feel sad all the time,
A feeling that resembles a chest ache
that lingers after heartburn,
When you can't catch your breath,
or like wilting flowers after Broadway curtains close

I wonder if Picasso felt the same as I
When he picked up a paintbrush,
did his hands tremble and his heart race, like
I feel when I cry?

I'm the cardinal that you wish on
but does not answer prayers,
a disappointing hope, disintegrating with the seasons

I am yellow leaves,
soft and swift,
falling slowly in the wind to an Earth so
incredibly dead, but still beautiful,
yes, still beautiful, I disrupt them