I hope on nights
like this when you
are alone

You think of my long
black hair in wet tendrils
sheets drenched in vanilla

Lightning, the shape of my lips
(If you can remember)
and when the thunder comes,
followed by the soft static rain
your ears strain
for the sound of
my voice,
(If you can remember)

On nights like this

i used to wish the thunder
scared me.


but it never has,
always wanted to
catch bolts in my
hair, whip through
the rain, yell my
middle name
into the hollow
or up the crags
near Rockvale,
i will never
claim a wild
streak but I have
a such a loud
voice inside
me.

At the beginning he was
worried about what people might
say, as if there were mountains of
secrets at his front door--

People talk, I think.

And maybe some of it was true,
I'm not sure now,
the wounded climb
and reach, bring out
the potential for weakness
or subconsciously expect you
to be the same as the firsts
Or lasts,

I dunno, I'm crying in
Chucks office, trying desperately
to say that I feel *****,  
it all comes out,
I tell him about your note
to God buried in your wallet--

im not good enough for a good man
I say, and I cannot look at him.

People talk, I think.
maybe some of it is true,
i'm not sure,
but I will not go there again
or share myself so unabashedly

good enough, for a good man.

you might realize that
not everyone is bad
but that you are so
different--

and that is not at all
a selfish thing to say
nor is it arrogant,

you are not any
more special than
the next or
deserving of
better treatment

but there are
varying roads
and signs, as
the analogy goes
and you are
miles down
a thin backroad
a world away

from his.

maybe i used it as an excuse
the way children try their parents
by dangling or taunting

once at Louies when Sherry asked
me how much I drank, I told her I didn't--
before then it had never occurred to me
to do so, I had never had
a faulty plan to fall back on
it had always just been me
facing the consequences
rain or shine

Back then, she told me oh, well that'll change.
like some sort of ill-will, black words spoken
over me, you'd say she meant no harm
but why speak that out
over the softer things?

maybe it was now or never,
a lesson that had to be had
and this was the only way--
Kelsie said it just sort of happens
and I wanted to tell her, no, it doesn't.
it doesn't just sort of happen.
I wanted to tell her that he probably didn't
regret ******* her but he regretted me
as a whole, holding him down
and whimpering that I loved him

no, it doesn't just sort of happen
I remember everything,
and drunkenness is not an excuse.

good walls make good neighbors
do they make better you and I's?
something about you blinded
me,

i will tell you what peace and
strength are, without the
nights out and one too many

they used to say you were whipped
but you said you just liked my skin
the way i breathed, staying in and falling
asleep but

i don't think you did.

he is all pine and I am apple orchard

so maybe I do not belong, here nor
there, maybe I was never meant to
have roots for how often I was
meant to move,

I realize more and more  how
people will say *anything
or the right amount of nothing

good walls make good neighbors
and i tore all mine down, i shared myself
and he shared all them
we are not children anymore
and i am grateful for a few
drunken months if it meant
that's all it took--

i cannot be mad about the
girls you slept with
but I can about their
kisses spread across my
thighs, how I opened
up all the way thinking
it would solve something--

so I am shedding this skin
scrubbing away, I am not forgetting
just forgiving because I can't keep
reliving the conversation with a
silly little girl at chiles detailing
the morning after
with
you.