If you see her again before I do, tell her the way she left left me shaking like a winter windchime;
the song too frozen to melt on her tongue.
I am scared of all her moving on.
The only serious love poems I write are about the same person who hides God in her hair and shows me the lingerie she bought while I try to unfog my glasses to look at her straight.
I am too convinced that she is made up of lines that lead straight to my firework skin. There has been too many explosions here.
The only way to deal with missing you is to tell you and wait and see if you feel the same. Or novacane.
I imagine you taste like an acid trip... all conspiracy theories and sugary words too sober to ever speak.
If you see her again before I do, tell her that I am a mess without her.  That my mind only settles with her tear-stained cheeks and the only way I can see the ocean in the winter in Canada is to look into her eyes.
I am scared that I am being overdramatic.
I want to rub our wrists together so we can trade scars.
Tell me the story of how you met your best friend and I'll tell you the story of how I fell out of loving my mother.
I would rather listen to you ramble than check the time.
If you see her again before I do, tell her that on the way home from her arms I counted 1200 streetlamps, 13 lovers, 3 liquor stores and 72 shakes of my knees.
Tell her I miss her like Frances misses Kurt.  Like dive bars miss blues music.
When I see you again, lover, I'll tell you that when you told me your name two years ago, I was surprised that it wasn't Love.

the day I fell in love for the first time was the second time
it was meeting you first, all halo handcuffs and hallelujah
I'm no playwright honey, but we were one act
scene 1 you should have kissed her
scene 2 you should have kissed her
scene 3 you should have kissed her
scene 4 when you meet, it isn't always magic
scene 5 when you walk, fall behind on purpose just incase she falls
scene 6 stumble on purpose just to grab a hold of her
scene 7 wear her arm like a chokechain and pretend you won't let go
scene 8 she has a bad memory and I am easy to forget
scene 9 it's been days and elvis songs are still making me hide my face,
I call myself lover and remind myself it's been days.  it's been days.
I let her hold me, let her make me honest; honestly, her tears are hymns
waiting to be sung through the right teeth.
and those sparkling lights that we did a push and pull dance beneath
we both wanted to hold eachother's hands.
I was made for the leaving,
I was made for the breaking, my bones are braced.
But honey you have god in your palms and you don't want to let him
see you crack me.
Open, like my heart when you whispered thank you for your poems.
Thank you for loving me.
But this is not a performance, this is a recollection of memories.
Tapping on my tongue saying stop stuttering, idiot.
Tell her you love her.
Tell her two years ago you fell in love with an artist.
And now you'll never die.
scene 10 she's watching you stumble over your words about her
scene 11 I still love you
scene 12 I always will
end scene.

Everyone you have lost is gone forever.  
If you try to call the dead, the phone won’t ring.
You won’t hear their voices.
The ground will shake like your wrists.
You will realize this sometime, when you’re in the bath and every nerve in your body is screaming at you to put your head under and count to a thousand.
You are more than a suicide note.
You are more than a suicide attempt.
You are more than cuts and bruises, and friends that abandon you and don’t even say hello in the hallways anymore.
People will leave you, daughter. People will leave you alone and shaking.
You’ll find solace in the most unexpected places, in the boys that look like they belong in the 1970s and in the vinyl that whispers to you while the sun is going down.
Eventually you will find the people that will bend the sky down to you so that you can touch the clouds.
They will become your motivation, they will become the glow in the dark stars on your bedroom ceiling.
You will forget that they are plastic, and often mistake them for the night’s sky.
Memories do not always hurt, it’s okay to be nostalgic but do not drown in it.
Do not drown in anything but love, daughter.
Love every leaf, every lover’s vein.
And every single time you think you’re going insane.
You’re not.
Remember that the door is always closed, but always easily opened.
Remember that you can leave.
Remember that you can take the next flight out, start a new life.
Remember that the world is in your piano hands.
You’ll meet someone and call them love because they don’t know the difference between the dull and sharp edge of a knife.
You’ll write poems.
Lots of them.
You’ll write enough poems to fill the walls in all of the rooms in all of the houses you have ever lived in.
You’ll scrawl them on the tree stumps you find temporary homes in while walking in the forest.
You’ll engrave them on someone’s bones after they tell you that they would rather die a thousand deaths than go a second without your energy warming their cheeks.
For every accomplishment, erase five shortcomings from your mind.
Be yourself before you forget who that is.
Be, daughter, be who you want to be;
Be who you know yourself to be.
When the world is sleeping on your shoulders at 4 in the morning, don’t wake it up.  
Take a deep breath, rock the earth into a deeper sleep.
Tell the walls your secrets because they don’t whisper.
Don’t tell anyone with a tongue something you wouldn’t want to end up floating back out of their mouths like a catchy song.
When you’re standing up on stage, waiting to start your poem, do not avoid eye contact.
Make everyone nervous with your metaphors.
Make everyone nervous with your passion.
You are the strongest soul you’ll ever be.
And when I die, shall we not meet again,
Remember that I am your mother, daughter.
And mothers, *always know best.

I give up posing and addressing
the wrong muses

said the king

But how -
how on earth should we proceed?

asks the Consultant exhausted

begin, the king begins to speak,
begin to bleed what you are feeling
and they will see

but my king, my-

Bring it on, my friend!* Assures the king,
makes him stand up,
start,

and begin with his tale
as if it was also theirs

and as the mighty audience glares at him
he feels a heavy hand
that seeks his shoulder

looks at his king, his friend, remembers
how the two got older

how in the milky light of dawn their faces
have grown and changed
and still have kept their basis

behind some shades and shapes
and shadows of the times -

He looks up now, relieved,
he gazes at his king and speaks
free now

and seeks no more for words
but finds.