have you ever swam through the dark
and the lights switch haphazardly from on to off
whoever was on the shore has long since gone home
a pair of footprints sunk into the waves

and when you realized you were the villain
did the water become deeper? when he told you to be honest
did you feel every lie creep up your spine? not a shiver
but a steady climb,
each fib a hand dug into a thoracic foramen
squeezing into the spaces you hid your darkest self
a leak in the structure

you're crying give me love
from the bottom of sandy trenches
open palms that are only raging deserts
it's not a question but a statement of fact--
why love the things that still haven't learned
what they want? the weak kneed girls
that leave trails of broken bones and healed boys
slivers of metal wound in their hair
and just enough poison to really '
work it in
be honest he says

*on

when you learned to blow
on hot tea, when you realized
good love wasn't an old wivestale
when your body suddenly became the
least of things to keep a man
and your ego just a badly kept
garden full of weeds and
borers
when you became nothing
dust and bitters, people began to
ask you how you saw yourself
and where humble and quiet
used to stand in you found
an empty ship, wineless drums
everything now seemed alarmingly
true, maybe you weren't more than
the sum--and how long had that been so?
how long had you been tolerable,
how long had beauty been your stand in
for a personality, how long had your hips
spelled your name, gyrating to the
songs you only wished you could sing--


I have only now started to laugh aloud
or walk knowing what's ahead and not
every inch of gravel beneath my feet,
deep breaths are my saving grace
i have traded anxiety for faith
i started dreaming again,
I opened my mouth and
not a single word came out
but i had left port
laden with
more.

everything, ever'one and they mama
remind me of you
god******
songs you never even sang
and every western movie that doesn't
star Wayne (I kept him for myself)
people drop you in
conversation real casual like
and I still go a little cold
like someone done pour
icewater down the back of my neck
but I can't admit to how much
it still hurts to talk about you
'cause that would be some ***** ****
so I smile and let you roll off my tongue
as if there's not a single thing in the world
that tug at my heartstrings anymore but
you still do


you still do.

i spoke through a keyhole
come find me
in the middle of the night
god read a chapter out of ephesians
clear as day,
and since then i've been
hearing myself
like my heartbeat been
a tiny pulse, pyura chilensis
split apart to see i am actually
here
I've been beatin' this whole time--

and we learn too fast we made of stardust
but that was all ash and seed
before we ever came along
we've got sweet pea and
cardamom in our bones
all the surly wiles of our mothers
a mix of turpentine and
spanish flame
come find me

and i'm whisperin' back
*alright, i'm comin'

i'm finally sleeping through the night--

and for a couple days I'll wake up and
not think of you at all--
people say your name and it sounds like an old prayer
each syllable a funny amen

I've been shadowboxing myself, my old friend
i've been been relearning to to be comfortable with silence in the end
neither of us kept our promises but that's no unforgivable sin

i've considered a hundred thank yous
all lined up  on the lawn, white pickets to make a nice fence
and sometimes I've stood in my kitchen and stared at the mugs
whispered i don't know myself but that's why
i left, wasn't it?

i'll admit to being jealous of your happiness,
i've only so many faces to keep, and i only want one

it's taken a while to own the fault,
i see  every shameful thing and dust off the
way i used to hold myself

I'm finally sleeping through the night
a little bit heavy, no less able to dream
and i hear part of you like i might
the soft hurt i left in your bed
so, please forgive me
when you get the chance.


please forgive me
when you get the chance.

i asked nick
what year he
felt was the most
wasted

and he said even
one step is a step
forward--

but there could be
no better embodiment
of anger, it is there every
morning telling me that
he is home that I am
a body, that i am a bad thing
it rides in the bed of
every dodge ram
and permeates every dream
where i hear trumpets echoing
in the mountains, in valleys i stood
with my father and
God's voice thundered from higher
from clouds like a ***** through the earth
heavy rainfall across miles
and miles of unsodden land
and we were crippled
into the dirt--

I asked nick
what year
he felt was
most wasted

and he said even'
one step

is a step


forward.

when you are travelers
your conquests are
passages highlighted
in yellow
dog earred pages spoken
in pictographs
but when you are conquests
with velvet letters painted on your back
rooms filled with red thumb tacks
girls with names scrawled all across
their thighs, passport stamps carried
from country to country
milling about with scabby knees and
raw elbows
a noh mask to hide your shame
and not your face
a push pin on an unlisted county
barely within a three mile radius--
he's a photo up on the shelf and
you're just another notch in his belt.