i think he was trying to say goodbye
up there.

there's always room for a last hurrah,
and I kept stealing it away
what you want doesn't always matter, princess

he tried, a little.
to soften the ground
not the fall,

show me he still cared
breaking ties was too much
so he was only trying to undo
them, set me out into
the hollow and
watch me float
away.

how positive should I
be that someday I will
turn around to see him
standing in the doorway
admiring the mess of
a kitchen i left
tracking rocks
into the living room
woke him up too early
smiled at a baby in the
supermarket
spoke to the asters
and callas in the floral
department, singing too
loud over fried eggs and
***** dishes, I am in here
waiting, unsure of why
i have never
or how i have never--

good lord, where are you?

I have so many songs,
and so many things i want to say
about how i have given up
and given in, hovered inches
from the ocean floor, a rock
bottom with my name plate
not like his or hers,
and will i come back?

i have so many songs,
so many things I want to say.

i once asked him
if he still loved her
and he said I'd hope not

i think that we
misconstrue open
wounds for old feelings,
for love,

that it is harder to let go
of the things that hurt
where we told ourselves
it was okay to stay,
to bed down and bunk
that we were safe,

the truth of the matter is
that none of us like to roam
and every country, every
campsite is as beautiful as
home, where we shared
too much and hid nothing
because what greater freedom
than to bare all,

it is safe to say i know the outside
of what love looks like, like skimming
pages or folding sheets-- not really using
the thing,

not really using the thing.

i don't think this is what it is,
all grit and open blisters,
maybe that is where it starts
before anything can begin


i'd hope so.

what a threat to be erased.

or i will erase you completely

people are strange and

the quota for that is filled--

one time is enough to be

told such an ugly thing.

i imagine she is
so much more
fair, they all are
always blonde
and delicate,
I have to
tear myself away
from this place
where my body
is just a shadowy
afterthought in
the midst of a
hundred yellow
strands, someday
i will not stomp
through the forest
someday I will
be able to linger
and be the kind
of beautiful

the kind
of
beautiful.

i read an article on the asymmetrical nature
of internal organs including, but not limited to
the nature of the heart

and how the body folds in over itself so
many times as it forms.
how outwardly being able
to sense things on both side of the body is crucial, so
we are to have two legs, two arms, two ears, two eyes--

but the heart was on the inside,
with less pressure to be two,
mattering less as to where it was
distributed--more likely to be
a mess,

would i have been better with two
hearts-- one on each sleeve?
to sense things on both sides, would i
have been more aware, more transparent, or
more dense, with the capacity for much, for
much--

or would i have been
overwhelmed with the novelty
of each person i meet, which I often feel anyway
as if i should tuck them away
and seek out promises to
keep them stolen into
the one, singular *****
that I have?

I should have been born with two--
either way, the unevenness of it all, you can't fix
the broken with the same crooked hands,
I am not at all symmetrical
I do not sense with both sides of my body
not at all with my heart
I have acted on an imbalance and hoped
the sullied appearance of such a vigorously beating thing
rough and on it's own would
speak volumes but it does not
and has not.

you said bad guy
like it was inevitable
as if the amount of
things said against
you
made an awful lie
true, as if a town with
zero know-how had
gotten inside,
you
said you had to stick
around to show it didn't phase
you, didn't want to be held
because maybe that's not what
good guys do.

maybe you're right. good men
have run further,
and if you're still falling then
wait for the ground,
but you'd be silly to
think you're
anything but a man
who wants to best
or deserves the best
and if you have to
hide it then hide it,
fake it if you have to
fake it but you're
too warm to
talk like that
there's no ice
in you yet
just a breeze
just a season