I left my
windows
wide open
and every-
thing dried
up, the organs
in the cabinets
the lilies on the
ribs, the weekend
was the worst and
monday is just an
empty cup.

we're down to that
point of the year where
I spend a month filled with
anxiety, wondering if I should
wish you happy birthday or leave
well enough (this really is well enough, right?)
alone. Are you well enough? is this well enough?
Are we well enough? Well enough? Well? Enough?

unruly, swarthy, dark and
full of Spaniard descent, I
never looked good on your
side, not that I was a mexican
trinket, but all your new girlfriends
are made of cotton with bluets in their
hair, slender fingers that slip through
your ribs where mine always got jam
                                                                        med
I
am

falling
into the uncategorized, the
ethnic             gap
unraveled at the end of the
stairs

i wrote in my diary:
where are you? where
are you? I click on pictures
half-expecting them to be
yours, with the full intention
of looking. Hey, how are you
doing? How many people have
you kissed? I try not to dream
about you anymore but we all
know how that goes.  I'm making
new friends, just thought you should
know. We used to tell each other everything,
why should I stop now? Both parties do not
need to be present for a vote, not for this vote.
not for this vote.

not for this vote.

your dad went grey
while I was away, you
grew the brown beard
he lost, your dad went
grey while I was away,
you grew the brown
beard he lost.

put this in your wallet
you said, and you ripped
a dollar in half, I told you
it was illegal and you shrugged
just keep it in your wallet*
how many times have I
been over you, written
a silly poem about leaving
you, talked about letting go?
well, talk about letting go,
Chris, I can't take it out.

do you
drive past
walmart three
times trying to
decide if you want
m&ms;, if only people
heard the fights that go
on inside your head, the
way you feel the weight
of your skin on your legs
you have scabs from thigh
rub from running up hills
apparently men like meat
compared to bones but will
strip you for all your worth
like a beef rib, have you seen
those rubberbands that have
sat too long in the sun? or
grapes at the bottom of the
bowl? strawberries in the
corner of the basket?
won't cut your hair
because you think it's
the only beautiful thing
about you, do you eat
bread in splendor and
pretend you're john,
peter, mark and luke
you're just trying to
be passage in the
**** bible, effortless
poetic, in red, his
words, spoken
by a prophet.

last night i heard you
speaking, as i was
waking up, you
were speaking
to me, I heard
you God, I
heard you.

I want to, so I won't
I'm not good enough,
I'm sorry,
eh, it's alright.

you always drew
your duality and
it makes me cry
even now.

i found a drawing you did
of me dated 12-22-11, three
days before Christmas, and
wouldn't you know, i wanted
to rip it out and let the rain
smudge the pencil and not
touch it at all, all at the same
time because chances are, bits
of you were still on that page
and apparently i'm not ready
to get rid of you entirely.

I still don't
like calling you my
ex, because you're
still a q-r-s-t-u anything
but v-w-x-y-z.

i thought i saw you at the
coffee shop today, it even
looked like you from behind
calves placed flatly on the
stool bars, hunched shoulders
in a faded blue t-shirt and tan
khakis, this person wouldn't
look at me, turned his head
so far left, and let his hat do
the talking, I can't be sure it
wasn't you, i'm playing it
off as a joke, but my lungs
are in my stomach, my heart
clear down in my knees, if
that was you, why wouldn't
you say anything to me?

am i still your
rose or just another,
one of the many who
blushed in lieu of the
little prince's words.

let me find a lover
in the winter, let that
lover find me, let those
cogs twist beneath the
earth and set events in
motion, light a fire beneath
his chair that sends him cross-
ways here, on a train with my
name, burning charcoal for my sake
god, i know you know me better
i'm waiting at the station,
i'm waiting at the station.

but
i'd
be
o   k  a  y
with
being
the last
girl you
had ever
loved.

well did he
love boys
when he
was with
me?

i'm glad you passed that
stage, where changing your
name could have given you
a different outlook but ultimately
let you split your personality, maybe
you've returned to your body and picked
up your bones, decided that you can only
have that skin, maybe you'll fall in love
maybe you'll fall in love,
maybe you'll fall in love

I wrote about the pinstriped girls whose elbows make you feel alive.


but I have tree sap in my veins
filled to the brim with leaves,
eaves that drip holy water
charcoal in my hair and
bluets follow where I
step, I am komorebi
the sun will always
always, always
find

me.

how long did I love you?
yesterday Chuck just said
stop,  because I told him
about that green trellis dream
and the one where I chased you
through Nepal, and he leaned in
close and smiled at me the way
he does when he's about to cry
and told me to let go, just


let



go



















so i did.

unceremoniously
breaking up with
you because I only
half meant it last
time but for my
sake I have to
use my whole
heart on this one
have to use my
whole, my whole
my whole, my whole
heart.

do you look
at her in awe
is she speckled
with the stars
the way the
blinds make
light, pinstriped,
her lips are candied
her clothes are chiffon
wrappers and her elbows
make you sing to the high, high

heavens.

i miss
your
feet
your
bad
breath
your
sweat
and
your
voice
that
shook
me
from
my
tree

i sometimes wish
we had made love
so that at least you'd
have one redeeming
thing to say about me
but maybe I'm just
that crazy one who
told you she hated
you.  

is that what you tell people?

you left
at sunrise
while I had
my head turned
and disappeared up
the mountains, I went
looking for you in Nepal
even down dark hallways
where I wouldn't normally
spend my dreamstate, I'm
spending my alone time
looking for you, but
you're always leaving
already gone, sharing
yourself in New Mexico.

that acrylic portrait you painted of
me is in the garage because it kept
falling off the wall as your ghost
moved silently through the halls
and unhinged the nails, you stood
in this room and opened the windows
blew the frames down and told me
to forget about you.

back then he would
tell me that he was
born with a specific
purpose, made for
one reason, with a
smile, with a water
color painting,

*just to love you,
brooke.

out in the
pasture I
keep my
wool and
graze in
the tall
grass
discontent
with the paths
that make no
sense, please,
find

me.

on

old oaken tables I'll love
you in dark roast coffee
and steamed milk with
honey, against quilted
beds early morning in
the loft, when the sheets
are loud and the floorboards
aren't awake, when the windows
are dewy, we won't speak about
our mistakes.

she likes older men
because Ty said boys
like *****, and he tells
me that librarians are
**** when I say I have
a full bookcase at
home, when he
says he doesn't
read, when he
ditches me on
July 4th to
get drunk
prays before
his meals but
says that he
would ****
my friends
if I broke
his heart.

we are the outliers
the ones with plain
souls, the girls they
loved before they
were found, we
are the hearts
before the
discovery
we are
not
the


discovered.

watch you find a girl
that's better at drawing
that loves to hike and
lets her leg hair grow
she's patterned all up
and down and listens
to the Doors, plays with
your record player while
the evening stripes in on
her legs the shape of the
blinds, probably smells
like patchouli or maybe
honeysuckle and her
hair makes you forget
about the fact that I
exist, makes you
forget about
they way
I was
there

sometimes describing
your face absolves me
of all the things I did
wrong, people see it
on my lips, *ask me,
ask me about Chris

Make a wish on your necklace clasp
he's thinking about you when you
sneeze I wonder if you see hallmark
cards and think of me, if you read
Monte Cristo and wish I was
Haydée, if you grow flushed
during that chapter of The
Great Gatsby where your
voice broke twice and  
you let your head fall
back, I miss the ways
I could make you
do that.

I wanted to
make this
longer but
there is no
pretty way
to ask if
you have
fallen in
love with
someone
else
yet.

if my thoughts were little girls


there would be one in particular
who knocks on doors and she tells
me that somewhere somewhere out
there (towards the north or south or
east) he is looking for you even
if he doesn't know it  and

if my thoughts were little girls

I have stopped opening my doors.

I am done
playing with
clay, with mud,
making pots
and men.

I should tell him all
about how I am 75%
of everything he does
not want, but I need
to believe that I am
made with sea foam
with pollen for blood
with coriander seeds
and pomegranates
that to someone
else I could be
all of these
things.

i am scared
he will blow
straight through
me, and i am a
fresh cut in the
wind, an open
blister under
water, I have
not felt this
vulnerable
in a while

back when I still touched you
your ankles were always caked
with dirt, you told me that
no matter how much you scrub,
you're not gonna get it off and
you'd watch me intensely as I
took your heels in my lap and
washed your feet over and over

let's be honest
sometimes I turn
towards the wall at
night and close my
eyes, I can see your
hairline, a fracture
of scoliosis in your
curved spine, I can
almost trace
the bumps of
your vertebrae
through that
thin cotton
sweater

let's be honest

you start to turn over
before I lose you in the
geometric dark, sometimes
our eyes play tricks on us and
we see colors, well, sometimes
mine play jokes and I see you.

in this dream I stood at
the gated entrance to the
way we used to be,  a
green trellis shaped like
a star and the old house
where we were so often
was boarded up. I wanted
to call and ask you to lunch
but we had just been on the
biggest journey and it occurred
to me that you needed to rest
so I stood at that entrance until
the dream
ended

no, around him I want
to feel like a peony, like
i'm sinking my fingers into
barrels of sesame seeds, like
i'm doing everything right
when I fail a test, there is
nothing about him that
i need to fix, that in the
night i can fill up the
bed and in the morning
he'll still be there.

I want to feel like I'm doing something right.
I want to feel like I'm doing something right.

i am afraid of my own
of myself, of the things
my dad dreams, of no
answers, of asking
questions to my
pillow at 2 am
out loud and
my voice
sounds
so soft
and mistaken
like it really shouldn't
be there.

i wove a flower crown
for you; how could i
forget? i want to tell
everyone how much
i love them for all
the things i cannot
say to you, i'm
still trying to
write you
down.

left you at the station
wrung out and dried
on a train to I-don't-
know-where, but I
bought the ticket
and I was ready
to lose you, I am
ready to lose you
I left you at the
station.

this charcoal is a part of me
and I believe i can erase my
mistakes with a chunk of
rubber, i can gesture draw
and not worry about the
lines, because all the lines
are me and i am all the lines

that kid phil wouldn't shut up about **** and
acid, downing a can of pabst blue ribbon, the logs
snapped and I let the moths drown him out, because
the stars are so much louder (my silence is so much
louder than it used to be) have you ever wondered
why moths are such idiots? he asks. I tell him they're
just looking for the moon and everyone goes quiet
because, what? They wanted to believe that moths
aren't just searching for the light too?

they were all crossfaded
and brendan probably
doesn't remember telling
me that everything was
*so beautiful and you look
like pocahontas

those aren't dreams, those are goals*
I stopped using that puny voice
and hiding behind the avocados
in my cobb salad. and who are
you to to define the space between
my fingers, the gaps between my
teeth? Dear Wyatt, feel honored
because for a moment you breathed
my dreams.