Funny thing about the cold,
it’s always sure to make us aware of when
our hands are empty.
Leaves us searching for
a warmth that doesn't want us back.

It gets to know us best when we’re undressed.
It tracks our naked bodies between
idle bed space and the holes in our sweaters.

We’re left no choice but to
pencil in the details
between the real and imaginary,
as it nips our ears with frigid whispers—
plants its frostbitten doubts
in the warmest corners of our minds.

The only traces it leaves behind
are a lonely shiver, a ghostly breath,
and the notion that we can never
solely keep ourselves warm.

I’m not religious,
but you've got a tongue that can
make me see Jesus.

In this state of mind,
I swallow my pride like I’m born to do it.
**** it back and let its bitter bite
coat my tongue and slide down
sides of my pretty pale throat,
caressing each of the guilty lumps
on its way to the below.

When it’s been stomached,
I thread my golden needle
on the first try.
I press my lips together
to pierce and sew them shut.
Crisscrossing over, under,
around, and through.
The tinny blood tastes
much less bitter than my pride.
I pull tight, ending the job
with its little uniform knots.

But certainty is key.
So I break each and every finger
on my small, able hands.
Once the most amazing
and interesting of instruments,
now hang crooked and limp;
however, as I watch them bruise and swell,
a deep pink to a fresh blue-violet,
I am wholly relieved.

None will be spoken,
None will be written.
Here, safe in my man-made silence.

I don’t much care how “ridiculous” it sounds.
The Oreo Cookie is the perfect metaphor for life.
We’re born alone—cookie.
We die alone—cookie.
But no one can argue
that the sweet in-between
is the most cherished part
of this confection’s anatomy.

It’s your responsibility
to enjoy it while you can,
and lick
that ****
clean.

I’m going to live life until it bursts—
softly place it between my teeth
and bite down until it pops
so its juices flood and trickle
out the corners of my mouth.

I’ll revel in my sweet, sticky mess—
stained cheeks, glazed chin—
leaving my mark on everything I touch.
Others will insist I clean up,
keep my hands to myself,
act
act like
act like a
act like a lady.

But as long as
there is life to taste,
I refuse to chew
with my mouth closed.

{I can live life unfiltered.

I preen and uncover the riotous feathers
I always felt I had to tuck away.

When I cause those laughs,
or at the very least, those grins,
it seems suddenly, I have swallowed
something much like the sun—
all of the lit space in its seams,
and I become bright,
unchallenged, and with purpose.

I live life proudly and profoundly undressed.

To feel comfortable in my own skin
will never be this natural in any other context.

I am rarely a creature of grace, but
when I feel those fingers
run down the length of my bare back,
I become a word so treacherously beautiful,
writers are too hesitant to pen it.

Wrapped up in those arms,
I find that I fit; I’m home; I’m safe.

I get an unmatched pleasure out of
watching such a mind work—
in awe of how it knows when things fit together,
the way it peels, layers, creates, and stimulates.

No, seriously though, the mind thing?
[Nothing turns me on more.]

The same fears are shared—
of living a cliché and settling,
of pain and disfigurement,
but mostly of
endings.

I find contentment
in simply being held in the
silent repose of the morning
before my small world is awake,
and the street lamps are still
competing with the dawn.

It’s occurred to me that this has
made me into something marvelous
I didn’t know existed. }

Just know,
why I keep you around can’t be explained
johnny-on-the-spot.
See, when asked,
my little heart crescendos, and all of the words
rush to tangle on the back of my tongue.
I pull the phrases out, word by word,
and string them the way
they were meant to be read.

Don't be discouraged
by an answer of “I don’t know.”
It sometimes buys
the necessary time
for one to display the whole truth—
one that that lovely, whiskey-soaked head
can’t fully comprehend in that moment.

But maybe,
I keep you around
simply
*because.

Does it take you the entirety of a slow summer day to fall in love?
Starting with sipping coffee in the company of the chickadees
and ending with conversation sizable enough to fill the Big Dipper.

Or does the feeling crash down on you like a tsunami?
Not quite knowing the cause and not quite caring.
You know, that inability to feel reality during an aftermath.

Maybe you like to resist the inevitable instead.
Pushing love away with bursts of gut air exploding through your teeth.
Coming from the need to control all things, including every motion of your breath.

But I don’t know.
that’s your thing.

My thing?
See, I’ve been trying to figure that out.

At times I crawl towards love like a starving alligator would towards a deer.
Think about how they drink unsuspectingly from the river. I know it sounds impulsive.
We’re all just trying to survive though.

Like when my head is on your chest and your arms are wrapped around me.
Sometimes I feel so close, yet so far away.
It makes me want to dive into your brain-but then I think you might not like that.

Then I slow down.
And the love I’m feeling reminds me of a *** of water just before its boiling point.
Bubbles full of compassion and trust and admiration coming up to join the little piece of the universe I’m blessed to be a part of.

Like when we’re talking and the words just spew from my mouth.
There’s not a negative feeling in the atmosphere and I feel on top of the world.
Because I’m thankful to have found a friend within love.

There are other times when my heart feels like it’s going to explode.
The emotions are just sitting on the edge of my soul waiting to jump.
You know when the only thing and the last thing you want to do is cry?

Like when you wake up in the middle of the night and I feel you kiss my shoulder.
That’s the feeling of wading in the ocean, and watching fireworks, and cuddling children all rolled into one. A feeling in-between desire and fear.
Then, against my better judgment, I think, “maybe everything does happen for a reason.”