to her with tea bag eyes
and wrists like scarlet fever,
gently undue your bruising ties
and unthaw your years of winter

--  --  --  --  --  --  --  --  --  --
she breathed the where
and exhaled the won't be,
if only you'd been with her there,
to slow the feverish sea
--
up, to the nearest fall
down, in the mountain mist
she falls from nothing at all
just as she had wished
--
the moments leading to a place
took shape and color like music,
and with all the grace it takes
to purposefully lose it
--  --  --  --  --  --  --  --  --  --

to her with shaking hands
and a mind like a burning temple,
remember your wish is your command,
and to always hold yourself gentle

The way you can't look at me,
'cos I'm not the little girl I used to be;
your tired recollection
of each gene in recession;
your knife heart, sad heart,
raised by a bad heart--

but I decided it’s worth battling your
droopy-eyed disapproval;
but I want to run into this fog
with my arms open wide;
but I always thought I’d rather burn in the fire
than die in my sleep.

Sometimes I scratch my skin so loose
about whether we would find where happy is hiding
if we thought much less
about these twisting logics,
quieted our overstimulated ambiance
by quieting our own processing
and essentially
not caring so much.

I know I would, would find it somewhere,
but it's funny how that doesn't make me wish
I thought less in time,
I wonder what is brewing in me
that so craves a stormy conscious
rather than what we all cry those late nights about,
because my theory of life
is that the purpose of life
is to find it,
yet part of me seems to care more about the theory
than the truth and action of itself.

Your eyes mean bees in my
throat, but the first time I
saw you it only felt like fire.
I don't think I realized that
is the only element I could
let myself go to, because
the beauty of it looks like
the burning of things better
left forgotten. Like lying
mirrors. Like blind trust.

The first time I thought you
would hold my hand, I was
wrong.  It was by my wrist
instead. I have never felt fear
like that, like razors. Sweet,
slippery red. I never thought
I'd be one to let myself fall
like that, but your skin looks
like a promise I can't keep.

You remind me of an onion.

As the layers peel away,
I struggle not to cry
'cos you're just the same inside-

and in your heartless little way
you blinded me with love,
enough to make me stay-

to cut you up in little pieces
and chew you like
"Take that, you frickin' onion"

Bristled blue feathers
Like nature's forgotten child
She chirps to no one

You ask me what it takes to have fallen from belief
that words aren't enough to know
what love is.

All it takes
is the feeling of being held to the ground by your roots,
metaphorically and literally.
Sometimes I still feel bruises
that are no longer underneath my hair
and sometimes
I think my ancestral veins are laced
and patted dry for the viewing of our friends.
I remember wishing the wood would hit my skull
just a little harder
that my memories might sink between the cracks
like a spilled cup of orange juice
and maybe then I could forgive you
for things you “didn’t” do
and forget
that I was born with poison already mixed into my veins.
Maybe then your screaming
would be aimed and pierced
into another stranger’s eyes.
Maybe,
but probably not.

We all want to believe that love
comes automatically with shared blood,

     that your parents thought twice and more
     about what they made you for.
          Maybe,
          but probably not.