i was going to write a piece using the word we entirely too often. talk about the slip of your palms down my cheeks, the floaty high after you don't sleep for forty-eight hours and then skip gallantly through the albertson's parking lot. i was going to write this immense prose with weaving metaphors and phrases that begged to be spoken. a piece with a moral, about a boy and a girl, or maybe two girls, or an animal and the voice that haunts it. about a willow bride with gauze wrapped firmly around a puncture wound. describe the inner monologue of a park bench. but maybe not, because that would be deleted.

i could write you a letter, because you know who you are. or the empty waterbottle that is staring mournfully at me, or burlap sacks, or the words that i speak of constantly but never speak.

a house in your palm, roof and glass windows taken to a microscopic level
and destroyed in the name of philosophical reason.

dear sand,
today my fingernails are finally growing. nobody noticed, but i haven't bitten them in almost a week. i'm very proud of myself. last night the letters in my notebooks swam. maybe putting off writing is a good idea. the christmas lights are starting to go up on the apartment sills out of my window. mine have been up for two weeks, but it's exciting to think that the holidays have actually started. soon i'll get a tree, and breathe pine and lights every day.
love, waves.


dear sand,
i walked on my roof today. all the people scuttling on the ground gave me a headache, so i sat and swung my feet over the edge. you'd probably say it's too dangerous, but it feels alive to thump the building with my heels. my tea came in the mail. it smells really good, but i put it away until you come.
love, waves.


dear grains of rock,
my cat died. the last thing i said to her was get off the bed. i have only ever cried over you.
sincerely, wild portions of the ocean.


dear sand,
tums taste nice. they're all i've eaten today, so i thought of you. you'd feed me, wouldn't you? put a sandwich in my mouth with my hand. i poured my leftover tea into the street from the top of the building. black tea has zero calories, which is a pretty number. it almost hit a child skipping, but he dodged it and held onto his mum's hand more tightly. that made me sad, so i thought of you.
more love, waves.


dear sand,
the tea from yesterday isn't yours. the ribbon is tempting, but i shan't. shan't is another word i've learned from reading european fairy tales. especially that one about the sprite in a woman's body who falls in love with a knight. that one's pretty. i missed your voice today, more than usual. i'm tired without you, particles.
love, waves.


dear you,
be quiet.

i could not feel anything but your grassbeats under my fingertips, quicker in the anticipation of neck-snapping.

"i hope you know that we are so very sorry about the accident. there will be measures taken to ensure that nothing like it occurs again. freshly, our extremely sincere apologies."

the curve of bird spines decorated my eyelids, question marks displaying assumptions to the turnablindeye world.

"no, sir, you are the one who is incorrect. the blood you see isn't really there, look at it. look at the transparency of your hallucinations."

october grew three heads and shredded the chunks of grass it ripped from the ground, spreading you as mulch across stranger's flowerbeds.

"three hours ago, a messenger twicely found you screaming and ranting about various invisibilities on separate corners in this very city. can you explain?"

i stood on curbs and spoke for change, spoke through three woolen ideas to the desperately closing ears of people that refused to look quietly at themselves, look at their thoughts without noise.

"no. we have broken you. there are not voices, nor stars, no hexagons spelling curses onto your forehead. look at me! sir, you are undeserving of a name."

ghostings are immensely entertaining things. i hope you'll come on one with me, some time after i ***** my thoughts back into their shoulder-blade space.

i want to scream you through my mouth.
i don't have to exist any longer, as sun
shine or stretched clothing that doesn't
fit any longer, the shirts in your drawer,
the scarves fumbled with and discarded
underneath the stairs of a community c
ollege. if you want this, would you tell m
e. i don't have to step outside this door,
not once or twice without you. because,
of course, there are better things. i don
't think i make any more sense than pre
tty birds that cheep unicorn songs, and
grow shelters for their green-houses. i
could write you a song, if you'd like.

when the sun shines for the second tim
e, i'll let you know. right now the clouds
are labelled grey, and drawing islands i
n the discovering sand does not remedy
seasonal blues unaffected by the medic
ation of your smile and racing for play-g
round swings that cut up my thighs any
way. if i could put you on repeat, i woul
d, but life ain't youtube, and people ain
't paintings you can put in a frame and
hang on the wall, they ain't songs you
can listen to until you go cross-eyed wi
th giddiness. i'm not new anymore, i'm
words i've already written, places i've
already been, i am people unfamiliar b
ecause i've talked to them for so long.

stars are dying, not becoming supernovas, or hurricane eyes, just collapsing to sleep, shh, tiny bodies flickering over the outstretched palms of children with wide eyes and feet that won't stop moving, even when holding hands as nets to catch the quiet light of sprinkles, little cake sprinkles that fall from the sky.

the flowers are bending their heads to the ground, trying to hear the singing of the fauns as they dance around pre-formed groves in the forest to your left, the vibrations are travelling and amplified, if you listen carefully, so carefully, a wondering song of delight without words could reach you, stand so very still.

the rain-drops are soft, caressing the ground hesitantly, asking its permission to tread on the springy moss and look for bubbles to choreograph marches for, complete with full brass band, and pixies combing hairs into a fountain of wheat coloured spoken word.

fulmination wraps tendrils around your spine,
draws you under, into the suffocating center
of a thunderstorm painted violet and amethyst.

jewelry dripping of fear, laced around a
pretty throat and bent into the perfect
circles of soot-blackened pupils.

the air smells crackling and thick, heavy
through a thumb and index loop that
traces a life driven by weather patterns.

when the river dries, the rocks are
left slick, soaked and maybe a small
bit weightier. fog-smoke circles dilute
laughter into a painting of you.