wash me clean
let me be free
all the debts i owe
you thinkers, powers, men
gone for years
gone in silence
gone.

I'm still here
and, ****, it's loud.

it's hot and it's foul
the air is wet and it sticks
the fog rolls in relentlessly
when i look out i do not strain to see
crimes against humanity
clad in rosy words reminiscent
of ghosts and ghosts and ghosts.

helicopter heart
strikes me and tells me to look!
are you not afraid?

here we are, honey
we’re in westfield again
where the wind mercilessly
fills us with bark, with salt.

here, the ice stabs and bruises
my digging fingers unearthing
the lake’s collection of trinkets.
she’s waited since last february,
pleading that i come find them.
they’re aching to be seen.

she’d forgotten this one,
this teeny terracotta
offered up who knows when.
my indigo cutie, one of her favorites.
she’s been searching fiercely.
i throw that one back to her
for safekeeping.

i’m coming back inside to you, baby
wait for me
keep warm
i want to feel it
i know you know it, too
we’ve loved here before.

please never stop raining.
stay over me,
be around me
as I ache for water,
sweet water,
in cool droplets
on my cracked skin
then,
my sandpaper veins.
my eyes are upturned
and my lips parted for you.
please never stop raining.

the sky is gray
the clouds are blinding
until a soft crack!
of pink lightning shows me, rosily,
the plane passing overhead.

in my mind there’s a woman onboard,
wet-lipped and radiant,
savoring a medium-sweet wine,
flying through the storm.

she’ll be somewhere
in a ballroom tonight.
she is there,
I am here.
I am home.

she passes over me
deep blue sky overtakes gray
and we are elated
in streams of our own

the stubborn string of pearls
perched on my windowsill
browns and shrivels,
then drinks to drowning,
but never does it quite give up.

i have to stay,
for it will surely
be waiting for me
tomorrow.

once more around the sun,
though i'd hardly know it.

my houseplants are leafier,
my waist has swelled,
& i still cry at the sky.

still me, then.

maybe i love you.
maybe i want to know you.
i'm stumbling toward my center,
my inner child.
i wonder if she wondered
how i'd be at 21
the way i wonder about you.
tell me now,
do you still cry
to the same songs?
do you pause to breathe?
do you let the sunlight in?
do you remember me?

the look that takes you
when i have drained you dry,
again,
materializes images of anyone but me.
how stunning.

this sunless city is my home.
we move together, closer,
waving under the clouds.
they drown us in days
when we pull the covers up
& ache for light,
but once in a while
their drizzle reminds me
of new beginnings
& throwing my arms out wide.
standing on my roof,
feeling my lungs expand.
laughing at nothing,
crying at the same.
the first bite of a peach,
hopscotch on the pavement.
singing at the show,
missing my mother.
cloudy days gently carry
my life back home to me.

I’ll pull wisps of clouds
from above, droplets
to cool you down,
drizzle on your tongue,
wash the salt
from your skin.

Could be better.

the place where i don’t feel alone
sings in whistles and melodies
of sweet tangerine winds.
open up a window, let them in.
bring me a softer stare
at the tiny prisms on the glass,
shifting sunlight into bends
of pinks and pearls.

here i make no apologies.
here where i lay,
never alone within
myself,
i am free
to breathe in
& breathe out
i love you.
i love you.

it’s miles deeper than me,
this new world.
everyone, save for
earth’s new collection of bodies,
wishing this would please,
please blow over.

leaving your house, i knew
you couldn’t come with me.
thrice-dried leaves clatter
and scrape the street
between mine and yours.

out of your sight,
finally i cried.

the wind froze my dripping
face & i spat venom
at painted women
that passed by,
painted in ways
that i love to paint
myself. not unlike me
at all, really, whose crime
was only to bear the villain’s face:
unbothered.

The first snow always pleads with me,
whispering that I must not miss this. Rose,
silver, & white throb behind my dried eyes.
The concept of the cleanse, the silence,
draws me outside, wrapped,
to be reminded of your power.

Shards of the broken beer bottle
laid glittering green on my street
are hidden underneath your new blanket,
finding it easier now to slice our soles,
or for the unlucky, our skin.

I hear you.
I cannot see you.
I'd forgotten you
until now.

I must cling to the small smiles,
the warmth that blooms when I hear
I could learn from you
& whistling sheet-ghost duets.
Wind frosts my nose & sunlight
washes all the commitments
I've ignored this week. Six apology
emails balm it all, for now.
It won't stay this way,
I know,
but the small joys in my skin
are my velvet shields,
my reminders of me.

My shredded fingers find their rest
lying in the depressions of your ribs.
You used to be the insomniac,
but now you sleep through two hours
of my tracing, sliding, & finally lying
at home, my love, in you.

These are the kinder airs,
muttering of lilac & drapes
of muted green, swept
into the stream below,
dancing as if in secret.
To the few hundred famed
impressions of the past,
opaque oils that never
dreamt of dimming browns,
your muses are left untouched
by these hundred years,
still pleading
"come find me,
I am here all the same."

Now you sound more like yourself. I’m stuck in the seventh afternoon between burnt coffee & a migraine. One more heart-stopping hour before I can die by the screen & a frozen pizza. You’re curly & content with never again un-furrowing your brow. It’s trial by combat. It’s an icy collar for the sake of a takeout order. It’s hearing a melody in crashing pots & pans.

Why do you never believe me? Why do you never tell me the truth?

Listen closely, listen well, I love you.

Twenty-four hours have a padlock at their end. Yes, & one lucky keyholder will have the ground removed from beneath her toes. Just one long grip of a pillow with no case & now north is south.

Still the holes in the plaster. Still the wrappers under my bed. Still my hair in your mouth. The walls taste like jasmine & that sour is here to stay.

The moony wood & pine
sigh & bow to create our path,
evenly blank & in love.
Thoughtless as they must be
yet how must they love us
to open their frosty springs,
their fragile, newborn life,
mourning all the while the trodden
leaves & critters of late,
clasped to their muddy bodies.
Last year, the years before,
all crushed & forgotten.

Always they allow us back in,
as if to welcome us home.
We are invited back
to our fragrant roots,
their floral roots,
in love.