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I don't know if you love me anymore.
you fell from me
when the leaves fell.
I held onto you and cried,
waiting for the spring
to grant our revival,
yawning and stretching
after our long rest,
weaving new roots,
nourished by the heavy rains,
but spring is not your season.
.
.
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 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.
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.
22
22
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.
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.
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.
I am sixteen & the slide
of my holed shoes,
wet, made not for this,
carries me down the silvery ice
into the snow-dusted shrubs,
powdering my hair & shocking
my chest, exposed
by the missing one of the black
buttons on my mother’s
thin coat, sewn for September,
not this jagged-toothed
January. My eyes are glacial,
& snow, now melted, creeps
toward the button of my jeans.
The news at six o'clock
reports the dissolve of everything
I know. They report it to my father,
who aptly listens & shakes his head
at everything, everything, everything.
I, having hardened to the frigid,
I close my eyes, I grind my teeth,
& I go on, for this is what I know
of fear.
(Note: last 4 lines inspired by Aracelis Girmay's "The Woodlice, Fourth Estrangement")
tell me of your son
whose lover you loathe.
the worst of any he's charmed,
you say, because she eats
nothing but pastries.
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.
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 feels a betrayal to the natural world,
this helicopter heartbeat of mine.
As if my matter, my physiology
rejects this non-human nature,
this artificiality.
Please, I'm so sorry, sir.

My heart chops & cuts at me, white-hot,
letting me know I wasn't supposed to be this way.
Had I been prized with living my life
under the sun, perhaps my shaking
hands would know stillness.
june nights end in peace
think of me when the sun comes
oh, be around me
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.
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.
the sky is gray, and I see nothing
through the veil of clouds
until a crack of pink lightning
shows me the plane passing overhead.
my mind sees a woman onboard,
red-lipped and immaculate,
sipping wine as she flies through the storm.
she has a date somewhere in a ballroom tonight,
while a deep blue overtakes the gray.
she passes over me, and we are elated
in streams of our own.
one line inspired by "somewhere tonight" by beach house.
the look that takes you
when i have drained you dry,
again,
materializes images of anyone but me.
how stunning.
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?
I hear three people who want no more of me
pulling at my strings, unmaking me,
though one of them might get over it by noon.
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 first time i saw you drive
was in york the christmas before last.
i forgot my sunglasses & squinted
at the little circles your thumb
painted on my wrist with your
free hand. you apologized
for the cheap date: tacos and a matinee,
for the stale-smelling red roof room,
for your family home.

there was no need.
i still miss this little weekend of ours,
when we were raw,
before you knew me
too well.
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 End —