we lay in bed and tell each other
which forests we want to carve
our names into, which branches
we hope to knock down, or grow into,
which places we want to make our own
money, our own homes, and our own.
I tell you I don’t know - you tell me you don’t know - we go on to tell each other all of the things we think might be the things we know.
I trust you. and I have to trust
that you trust me to do the things
we lay out on maps. to follow
and veer, and when the engine stalls,
to let go.
I told him, “We’ll have a corgi and a husky”
and you told me, “Plan A is to become an astronaut”
and I tell them over and over
thank you for letting me stay the night.

pain is too many exclamation points -
some kind of overcompensation for the sober realization that we need to be happy,
but aren't

pain is burnt toast, but not in the good way;
like the way that it sits on your tongue
Makes your mouth taste like metal,
makes your words feel like crumbs
waiting to be swept away

today, I laughed too much, so by 3 o' clock I had no smiles left in me
They have gone like I have gone to sleep
waiting for some alarm to sing
to ring with something like hope
something to cut the rope, the knots
my stomach ties when I don't notice
Pain is knowing that you know this
will hurt
and knowing is half the battle.

But knowing is...half the battle
The rest of the war is dealing with more
exclamation points than you wanted
more mornings without alarms

more meals
of only crumbs.

Five years is an awfully short time to spend with someone you thought was a part of your stomach -
the skin in your throat, the folds of your kneecaps
You couldn't imagine shaking them from your fingertips,
not in a million lifetimes

But instead, it only took one;
not as brief as a mayfly but as not as long as a bird soars
If you ask me, we were cut down too soon but hung on too long -
I'd have kept hanging, too,
if only the branch weren't gone.

I sit and hold my grandmother
in the shape of a small pillow on my bed -
they turned the dress she used to wear
into covers for all of my family's grief
and all of human need for things to stay close.
Her dress matches my bedsheets,
so it seems almost too fitting for her to be here.
I know grandmothers are grandmothers,
but they've always been people before that,
and maybe pillows afterwards.
I have a lot to do before I die,
and a lot more people will probably know me
and at least a few more people will probably love me,
and I don't wear a lot of dresses but,
I hope I will compliment the color scheme of your bedspread someday. I hope I will fit as easily into your life as a she fit into mine.

I’m a freckled 5'5'' solider.
I like wrestling with my dogs so that my jeans retain a layer of fur -
even if they were my favorite pair, I will wear the hair with pride.
...but I wear make-up to make up for the way I lose my face
looking in mirrors, measuring my stomach by fingertip lengths,
wondering how the 5th grade girl who’s lungs wanted too much air
would care about the way I carry my chest now:
like a treasure that’s been too long held under the sea
If that girl could see me, she’d write an entry in her Lisa Frank diary
about hope, instead of fear, rejection, fear of rejection and God -
I remember praying God would change me and I’m so glad he didn’t.
I’m glad that I got the chance to do this one on my own.
I have grown into a person, with a weird shaped head and too small feet,
with a spotted heart that finds ways to beat.
For those who call me damaged, including myself (mostly myself) -
like hell.
I’m still as completely as valid as a function as I was
as a small purple infant with light blonde fuzz
I was what I was and I am what I’ll be:
a freckled 5’5’’ ocean tide, shifting into me.

time travel is not just theoretical anymore -
I do it all the time when
I think of soft red sweatshirts
boyish high pitched laughter
the smell of day-old Old Spice
quiet lips;
tired morning breath
your hands
coming and going

there is only so much time
for night bugs and spring peepers
bullfrogs and late creepers
hidden in the beams that shape
the back porch of my heart.
there is more time left
for whatever's left
to start.

morning air
bittersweet, home-made mocha
my dog’s wet tongue
glitter glue
how quiet we were
soft lips
a few made-up worlds
a new made-up bed
how we touched heads
the way she looks at me
friends who don’t hate me
me, who won’t hate me
ocean water
cheese tortellini
waving hands
turning tides

make my throat a little sore
going down -
but go down,
fill the open wounds in my chest
make my stomach stop turning
make my world stop burning
from the inside out
color me in
with a chamomile crayon
lay on me until
we're lost

you think about someone too long listening to a song
and they start to creep their way into the chords,
climb their way up on the staff, find their place in the rests
until there's no where you can't see them. hear them. miss them.

there are a lot of songs I can't listen to anymore
I will never be unsurprised by the injustice that just one person can do
to another by simply trying their best to exist.
I throw out favorite movies and favorite artists and favorite books,
I throw out pieces of me everyday because I can't carry them alone.

I'm sorry. I'm sorry I couldn't keep us like we wanted.
I'm sorry that we weren't the strong adults we thought,
just small children who tried to make a home in each other's arms.
And maybe you don't feel that way - but when I hear the crooning
of a boy singing about how we were spoons,

I can't help but notice all the scars we left, two knives
pretending that we could never really hurt each other,
getting closer and closer
until there was nothing left to cut.

i want someone to read my dirtiest thoughts
and not be scared
or pity me
i want empathy
while i spit blood and *** and sweat and pull at ingrown hairs;
while i tell you i’m not sure why i’m alive
while i tell you i’m not sure anyone loves me
while i tell you i’ve had dreams about you exploding,
your insides spread across the living room walls
in some kind of strange irony,
i want you to be as sad as I am
but lovely enough to pull us both out
i want to be saved
little by little
person by person
word by word
secret by secret
until i know longer feel like you would run if i told you i wanted you to run,
or if i wanted you to stay;
until i no longer have anything horrible enough
to scare you away.

All wrapped up in flannel
A bouquet, of sorts -
Of love, maybe
Pride, maybe
Effort, always.
It has to be hard
to be earned.
Jump for the flowers,
Make them come to you.
this body right now
Feels like summer
Like home
Soft, capable, and
mine.
This body right now,
My body,
Finally feels as so.
credit my clothes,
Grant them power,
Make them make me
but in all honesty,
this body is more
Than flannel-shirt deep.
A blossom, of sorts
underneath
of love, maybe
of pride, maybe
Of me.
Writing this
feels a bit like a prayer
sometimes,
Most times,
This self-love
gets tangled in
it's fair share of
Misfirings
Miscommunications
And doubts.
Without it,
I have learned
To feign
Self-hood.
But with it,
Now,
I can claim
This body.
I claim it
for love.
And mostly,
For pride;
whatever that is
For you
Whatever you are
To me.

slips in like hot summer
curving through swerves of defenses
cultivated in times of snow, of solidarity,
of certainty certainly now found
missing.
squeeze through pipes of dreams
and memories.
I'll always remember your fingertips
pulling my organs apart.
feeling it piece by piece, row by row
i am missing more and more of
skin, of summer, of snow i'll no longer know to recognize
creases become center pieces.
shadows become lamps.
i am left here to ask for more cigarettes,
spiraling through like smoke on water
sitting, asking,
"can I enter here?"
before disregarding any walls.
all we ask is for walls
to keep summer still.

you can preach to the choir but I never feel a a note
coming from your own throat.
trying teaching with your stomach instead of your hands
be a little less removed, a little less "improved" -
it's not a bridge until you build it
either start laying bricks or light the match.
if i catch you saying sticks and stones will break my bones
but words will never hurt me one more time, i might just
punch you in the gut.
that's where my words come from
that's where i feel every phrase that's real
come reeling through and keeling over
i'll share these words with you.
just cause they ain't polished don't make them less true.
stop preaching
start listening
then maybe I can, too.

sometimes
when I hear a joke
or read it somewhere
in the vast expanse of
words and sayings and stories,
I see you hiding
in the punchline.
You nod your head,
you force a louder chuckle
than you need to -
I know how hard it is
for you to laugh with me,
but I also know
that this punchline
was the glue
that kept us stuck.
Now,
even with you on the other side
of everything,
I can hear your laugh
in a bad joke
we would've loved.

I wonder what it's like to have arms
that don't feel like weights dragging
in the sand, leaving creases in everything
you've touched, or stumbled past,
trying to reach some place where
the ground is solid,
not liquid beneath the soles
of our feet, constantly changing
and challenging us to meet the day
with uncertainty
and certain immediacy of choices,
all of which will inevitably cause you
to leave or to stay.
I wonder what it's like to forget
where I've been and focus on
where I am now; I wonder if I'd be happier
or even more lost.
I walk around like an open wound
without the vulnerability; walls
around the sore but nothing to help
it heal.
My chest feels heavy.
My back feels heavy.
The weight of you is heavy,
almost as heavy as the weight of my own arms.

what do you do with
the moments between
moments

the time when her head
leaves your shoulder
but before
her fingers lace yours

when his kiss
leaves your conscience
and you're just staring
waiting - what's next?

or when your bodies are moving
together
on couches
and you become separate
long enough
to make it upstairs

what goes on
in your head?
is this the right choice? maybe
am i hurting you? likely
am i hurting, too? always
is this enough? or anything?

what about
when you realize
that your whole life
is a moment
in between
moments
and we're just
trying
not to
notice.

"i'm sorry"
i find myself saying
to my friends at 4am in my brain
to the mirrors as I walk by them
see the face of a 10 - 13 - 21 year old girl (woman?)
I'm sorry
for whatever I did to you
i don't know what i did still
but if it hurt you, then i'm sorry
when can i stop being sorry
for other people's mistakes
i want to take the blame and shame
because if *I don't, who will?
It has to go somewhere and it's much easier
to make room in my chest than to let in run free
it's easier for me
it's easier on me
if i just say i'm sorry.
I'm sorry.
I'm sorry for being a person.
I'm sorry I couldn't be anything but real.

when do you push the fangs away
and when do you climb onto its tongue?
...is this grieving something healing,
or am I simply reeling myself in -
back into a place that no longer needs me
a bed that no longer fits me

if I could shrink enough to fit into your arms,
I would;
but what I'm wondering as I'm heaving,
still weaving your hair out of pillow cases,
is if I should.

some days the birds just sing.
some days the clouds don't mean a thing.
some days your tea is hot, but cool enough to drink.
some days the birds just sing.

i'm missing something i never had
a part of me that i can't get back

...because its still sitting here in my chest,
settled in like a cat in winter,
bathing in the glow of my sighs
sinking in the quick sand of my apologies
lodged in the crevice of anger, unforgiven -
no "sorry"'s for the part you never stole
you didn't lose it, you say, your eyes darting
like lizards looking for a spot of sun

no, you didn't lose it. it was never gone
i can feel it in my clogged wet paper throat
resting like the sun might never rise
i am missing something that i'd never lost
because i'd never found
it

everyone feels alone
sometimes.
we all have parties we couldn't go to,
weren't invited to,
left early because we felt like we didn't belong.
Loneliness is not a disease.
It is human experience,
like love and hunger and getting your toe
stubbed on a door.
What they didn't tell me was that
loneliness should not be a lifestyle.
I don't mean isolation -
I knew not to cut myself off,
I knew we could never survive all alone but
I didn't know that we could never survive
all tangled up together either.
Loneliness becomes a lifestyle when
codependency becomes your idea
of closeness, of love, of identity -
I don't know how long I've thought
other people needed to be helped before me
other people needed to be loved before me
other people needed to be felt before me
I don't know how long I haven't known
Myself to be anything other than others I've loved.

It is so easy to hate yourself when you aren't convinced you exist.

When you're not sure you really aren't just his legs or her torso, their throats combined into one,
Who's to say these hands are really mine?
When I think about my fingers,
individual, small, difficult,
I am scared.
I forget every day that I am here
As soon as I fall into someone else's eyes and shape and words and -
and I do not know how to remember.
My loneliness is not a disease,
tearing me down and eating me from the inside out;
it's the cure that makes me
shiver on a floor of my own sick tendencies
to push and pull and scrape,
never sit,
always wanting more skin
than anyone has to give.

like the pencil tracing circles down the margins,
I can feel myself spiraling into your arms when
I know this can only end one of two ways:
I get exactly what I want,
Or I spend the night bleeding into my pillow,
Spilling guts and months of self-pity and doubt
Into your innocent half-dreamt up hands
The plans that I build in my brain
How the night will go
How my face and your face will do something like embrace, maybe even face
The feelings I've erased from your consciousness -
Like a pencil in the margins,
I am not worth grading.
This is not worth debating
The night will end the way you planned it
The way I never want and always get
Hot, steamy, long, and wet
my face buried in your indifference.

it's like a string gets cut
a piece of hair breaks by the will of your fingers,
or the will of your scissors,
or just all on its own
what has grown into a never ending strand of canned up regrets
forgets its necessity and splits non-aggressively,
progressively but passively
half sinks, the other floats.
not a friend notes the difference,
but you know it's there -
or rather not.
you are one hair shorter,
one tear bolder,
it's getting colder but
you wear a little less.
take a look at all the mess
you made, trying to take care of dying hair -

it's all dead anyway.

trust that it knows when to leave.
trust that you'll known when to grieve
and when the sieve has done its grimy work
someday, it might still hurt.
but you don't need to make sure
it's tucked in every night
bed story and light
rub it's back, "it's all right"
it's all right
do not bite the hand that feeds you
or feed the thoughts that bite.
it's all right.

the string stretched out too tight

i guess the point of all this was to say
i know that humans get better and pain
dries up like fainted leaves in the sun
but i've suffered.
i'll still suffer years from now when i come across
a misplaced memory of you that i tried
to forget existed, or tried to remember too well.
you can dress yourself in as many
exclamations points as you find fitting.
i will wear my skin as long and as often as I can.
when it's cold, i will not don anger
wrapped like a scarf around my throat
maybe i was never meant for scarves,
or exclamation points,
and maybe you were never meant
for skin.

No solace in
hollow trunks. Just space
to fill.
In, out -
nothing quite sits
the way we used to.
Critters like to move around
build their homes in snow and then
vanish. Nothing
to remind us they were here.
I would say I miss them,
but I forget who they were.
What am I to do
with space?
Everything at once becomes
full
and then,
spring

You're staring out the window again
What are you looking for?
Maybe a squirrel
Maybe the first sign of sunrise
maybe you aren't sure yet
Maybe I'm looking for the same thing.

you put your head down, to the floor -
did you give up so quickly?
Is that it? Are we done
looking for something more
in you, in me, in the world?
Have you really let go of hope
Just as easily as I have?

Quit looking at me like
I have anything left to give you.
If I could tear down each wall
for you, you know I would.
But my hands are tired
so

you are staring back out the window.

3pm sunsets
and that squeaky drawer where we kept the condoms
I moved my bed, sideways
because things are different now and I made it so.
I'm not thinking about you
I'm just thinking about how much I like this book
and how her hair wisps at the ends
how his hands could fit my whole face
and how nice it is to sit alone,
coloring pictures not for you or him or her
but because I like coloring pictures
I like thinking of the future, for once.
I like romance and friendship and creativity
not because of you, but because of 3pm sunsets that fall
not because of you.

The worst part of poetry
is trying to make everything rhyme.
With the amount of time I pine
bending lines to make them mine
and fine, sublime - sorry for the slants but I'm
needing to do a lot more productive ****.
...but instead I sit and craft witty
Pity-inducing stories of my worries,
of my mind. My poems.

The worst part of poetry is the vocabulary.
Should I write this like a novel
or more like a train of thought?
My brain is pumping raw ideas
my heart is thumping words I see as
honest, authentic - messy.
How do I make my feelings more appealing to a crowd,
to a person sitting in a room looking through
an online blog of poetry?

The worst part of poetry is getting stuck.
Writing a really good line and waiting...
for the next... ...good line.

The worst part of poetry is metaphors.
******* it, how many times can I liken your smile to a sunrise,
say your presence is an ice cream cone and a warm fire all at once on a mid-summer night,
or describe how many different kinds of scars
your absence leaves?

The worst part of poetry
is how it makes ideas out of people,
makes them so much bigger and so much thinner than they are,
fits their hearts into simple charts saying,
"This is her mark. This is his work. I have put it into a poem. I have made them art."
But the worst part of art is it can only get at parts -
all we can do is one point of view.
You will never paint me and I will never paint you
completely.

Reality is not poetry.
The worst part of poetry is it's just like us:
Trying
line by line
to get at least something right.

I'm afraid I told you not to trust anyone. My bad.

I went to visit her. I think I'd like to date her.

Gross.

I love your body. But I'm not sure I want to be with you.

The love has died.

You know, you're fun to hang out with.

Are you a lesbian?

I still look for your mom's car in the parking lot.

If you can't take care of me, I need to find someone else who will.

She's brainwashing the kids.

It's just going to drag on.

I only want you to help me.

Some day, you won't miss him.

You're just like your father.

You weren't there.

This is really important to me. I really want you to.

Take care.

Do you know how much you're asking of me?

**I don't.

they say there are two kinds of love.
the passionate kind,
like a fire unwinding your coiled up sighs
small butterflies in your gut
work their way up, down, around
into corners of emptiness you didn't think you could fill.
but the thrill of it grows still and it
becomes a bond
a post to lean on
companionate. you say,
abandon it
true love consists of
the flame that constitutes us, there's
no absolutes so base your life on
feeling
the next rush

i don't know what i'm feeling
when i look at you,
i am scared.
if you ask me my biggest fear,
it's people.
if you ask me my biggest hope,
it's people.
if you ask me what i hate the most,
it's me.
so understand
that when i look at you and you smile,
i'm not sure if my heart is glowing
or breaking.

i am always taking.
always looking for more
never sure
if one kind is enough.

And these boys, they have their stories
and they paint them on their foreheads
to try to show us that they're growing
when they're really only throwing off their clothes.
These girls, they have their memories
and they tie them to their ankles
so not matter how they grieve him,
they can never really leave him like they chose.
Momma, will I be just as scattered
as the life you drew before me
will the salt congeal in this wound?
will my healing always feel this far away?
Father, help me understand why
I choke on our own anger
feel it burning underneath me
feel it fighting just to keep me in my grave.
Can my hands become my own hands?
can this skin become my own skin?
if I can conquer what's in my chest,
maybe I can be the best that I can be.
Is my best enough to be, though?
something pleasant, something changing
I am frightened to be happy,
words that terrify and trap me in a plea:
A call for help is all I ask for
a simple reason to keep living
maybe meaning can be found here
if I ever come around here in the light.

do not spend your precious time
on people who do not want you
if she does not love the way your
mind turns into movement,
how your body turns at the exact places,
do not worry, because someone will.
The very proof of this sits in the fact
that when you see her, your chest
spouts off rocket fuel,
your head isn't sure where to land
so you end up smiling -
the kind of smile that could turn into tears
if you weren't so ******* sure she didn't hear
even a single bird when your eyes met.
she didn't feel even a single flutter from your
legs, grazing underneath the table.
but you feel this, flutter and bird.
Which means, someone else feels for someone
what you feel for her.
And you better bet that someone else will feel this for you.
Do not spend time on men and women who don't not want everything that you are.
People will not all want you.
Not in the way you need them to -
people will not want all of you.
Do not waste time when they want one bit of you -
waste time when they want all the bits and sticks and stones
that make up your lopsided human home and then,
it won't be wasted.

I was worried that if I kissed you,
You might become a real person
and I'm terrified of anything but ideas
Ideas I'm only frightened by
But I can put them into poems
working on them wistful words
Winding roads of imagery
Paint you into symmetry, easily
no contradictions unless they fit nicely
Onto a page.
But if I kissed you,
Suddenly your lips would be chapped.
You'd probably be breathing, and I probably would taste
Something other than sweet cider on your lips.
Lips are skin, after all, and we all have skin.
Skin isn't porcelain or poetry -
Your skin can't make me cry because
I have skin just like it -
Cells on cells on matter,
Blood. *****. ***. Spit. Ingrown hairs.
I was worried if i kissed you you'd stop being my savior,
and id start being the confused college girl I chastised in my sleep.
In dreams, you taste like apples, peaches, wet but warm and soft
What if in real life, you find bits of food in your teeth, too?
I was worried if I kissed you so I never kissed you.
Instead, I started thinking about the bumps on your thighs
The scabs on your chin,
Wrinkles on your hands,
I found out there was a lot I hadn't painted yet,
There was so much more to work with
now that you are real.

I am reaching.
So many of my poems
begin with reaching.
I feel like I am always reaching,
without ever breaching any of the
walls I crawl to.
I just can't get past you.
You trespass and then scatter,
even when I want you to matter.
There's no way to start a poem
without reaching. My poems
are all about grasping at thin air
with words that are my arms,
my hands trying to grab
anything to keep me grounded.
I've found its only a matter of time
before my crime is punished -
I have empty hands,
swollen arms,
and a useless throat.
I am reaching. Squeaking,
because maybe noise
will draw you in.
Call you into your place
in me. Emptiness
doesn't sit well
with me.
It boils into anger
my friends who won't fill me,
my mother who instilled in me
a fear of getting close; too,
my brother that won't know me,
my father who won't show me
the only thing I need.
I am angry
at them for existing
without me,
Because without them,
I do not remember
if my hands are really reaching
or just floating;
empty space
in a world with too many
walls
and not enough.

somedays being myself
feels like reaching for the baseball lost behind the thorn bush
needles ready and willing to ***** on my arm
or like untangling hair that's been soaked through with honey
every well-meant movement only doing more harm

what's worse is I don't know what i'm reaching for -
whether the ball is really mine
or how my hair's supposed to look
i wrote the book of my own life
about someone else.

somedays I look in the mirror and I wonder,
"How did you get here?"
as if someone else can give me that answer when
I know it's sitting in my stomach
turning when I hear an old song
or I smell a new scent
one that's meant to remind me
things can still be good
even if some things stay bad.

I try to tell people that I'm sad
and they try to tell me what I can do.
I just wonder whether you still think
I really could've helped you, too.

Somedays I try to look myself in the mirror and I tell her,
"We are going to be friends."
Even if I can't make me real,
I'll make me mine.

Dear future,

When you roll your head over to me in the morning, my whole world starts.
They say we can't feel the earth turn,
as it constantly rotates at a speed of some unfathomable number,
But looking at your tired face,
hairs curled in the shapes of bedsheets,
eyes swirled with just-ended dreams,
I know we have reached a just-ended spin.
The earth stands still for you to switch from lying on your side to your back.

You are that big of a deal
to me.

I am scared to make someone a planet.
I am scared that people are just signs to lead the way,
each a day in the past, built to leave - not to last.
But I want to believe
that you can be the sign that never leaves -
sharing a sense of direction
meaning,
affection,
and always.

So when you roll your head and ask me
what I'm thinking, I'm thinking this:
I am so grateful
for how still
and moving
we can be.

Some days you are on my mind so much
That my stomach turns its way up to my throat
So I can choke on my own insides
trying to keep me alive
other days, the sky is blue. I watch clouds go by and you cross my mind
Like a fly who buzzes but doesn't bite.
When I go to sleep at night,
I am in the dark whether the next morning
will mean bleeding or breathing.
so I just go on sleeping
and waking
and again.

The push and pull of ocean waves
stretching hands out too far
your feet are dangling from my bedside
drinking, tangling the inside of our
heads. Underneath my hair
is more hair.
I wish I could dig deeper
find Atlantis. Find reasons
to let salt sting my wounds
still healing, still open enough
to keep me closed.
are those your memories
spilled across your stomach now?
the tissues are next to the lamp
It's my turn to make a mess next
let the seafoam roam my skin
and forget my carefulness
building walls I call foundations
crawling in throats we call recovery.
I want someone to discover me
buried in piles of laundry
at the bottom of the ocean -
the tide is pulling
and I am pushing
fighting my own arms,
dangling nothing more than toes.

we write about mothers because we know
they know pain. they held us so tightly
they must’ve known what it’s like to let go.
i write about fathers because i know
mine knows pain. his eyes dart so quickly
he must know how hard it is to hold on.
i write about my parents because i carry
all of their flaws in me. their wicked ways of
wishing the worst on each other, of loving
until they forgot what love even was.
you cannot teach what you never preached
or practiced. I do not know how to forgive.
No one has ever shown me.
i try watching the birds. the clouds. the ocean
maybe these are the things most skilled at
moving. at becoming and re-becoming
each day. i write about mothers because
one day i might be one. one day i might meet
a father who needs me to hold tightly,
and i might need him to forgive.
if i am blessed enough to hold you,
i want to be strong enough to show you how
to live. so maybe you won’t have to write
about mothers or fathers, and you can write
about birds. clouds. salt water that doesn’t sting.
if i can’t - if i still fail to love enough,
know that even though you're born of my struggles,
your victories are yours to build.
i hope that even if you can’t write about something,
you can listen. winds don’t change
on their own. they all have mothers, too.

eating big meals always
makes me think of Us.

we always ate too much
slept too much
talked too much
kissed too much
knew too much
grew too much
loved too much
and never enough.

sometimes,
if i breathe hard enough,
i can feel my feet sink into the ground
plant themselves in the earth, as if
they were two trees growing out of my hips.
i can feel them feeding me - anytime
i put my hand to my stomach,
i feel the muscles at work, fueled by
cell bodies that all call my body
their home. at least i shelter them,
even when i feel like a broken window
in a rotting, red-oak shack that creaks and cracks
in all of my once safe places.
the dirt tries to bring me back to life,
but I have to let it.
let my soles take root in the mess I have made,
and the mess no one can avoid.
**** is the best fertilizer, anyway.

sometimes, if i sit hard enough,
i can recognize my own body as
the perfect function that it is:
branches and growing, planted and going.
then, i can feel myself move again.

I thought  I'd never run out of things to tell you,
but I don't have words for how little time I have left to tell you
that you are my favorite problem -
what has kept me smiling on so many days when I forget what my face feels like without tears on it,
or how to breathe without my entire body aching,
or what the point of conversation is.

The point of these words is to tell you
I don't know how to put words to what I know will change.
I have watched distance and difference hurt too many people
to think a postcard promise will be enough.
It's not nothing, but it is change, and I'm not ready.
If there's one thing I believe it's that timing will never feel right
but it always is, it has to be. That is what we do -
make meaning, make sense, take care to wear our growth like capes
and our pain underneath our jackets.
I hope we can fight the myth of the strength of stone
even as we build new homes in ourselves.
I hope I still get to see you in your pajamas, making breakfast, brushing your teeth. But I won't.
I don't know how to tell you that
in any other way than this.
Thank you for changing me even if
you'll never really get from me how.
You have.
Simply by helping me be a bit more alive,
a bit more human each day.
Sometimes that means laughing at a cat picture;
sometimes that means crying silently on the couch,
trying not to let you see me but maybe you did anyway -
either way
Both give me a little bit more of me to work with.

I know I said I don't have words but I guess I had a few.
I hope they sound like an "I love you" to you because
that's all I really have to say.

the door opens and shuts faster than i can wash my hands
hopes pinned to a cork board, viciously stick around for 3 to 5 days
and enter my body; enter my lungs
am i dying or is the world my world just collapsing around me?
“stay away from me” posted to my forehead
but my stomach craves attention, certainty
be gentle with me. nature is healing
but humans are dying from this
as well as other diseases, as well as other afflictions,
as well as other tragedies building on each other
instead of staying 6 feet away
how will i tell my children, robbed of normalcy
that things are even worse
that now it’s airborne, that now being stuck at home
means being stuck in a cold war zone
if they don’t wear masks they might get hit
if i don’t wear a mask i might get sick in front of them
droplets hang in the air a little too long
i wait to tell them a little too long
by then we’ve already got the dry cough
fever burning up our house and it’s walls
and we must stay
stay home stay in an abandoned wreckage until it’s safe again
to go outside