before you came here and before I came here


he must have sat us down, two children, or two souls
two lights or two bodies and we looked down at winding
roads and our mothers or fathers and he probably said a lot
of things or a few, but in it he must have said we would meet
and part and we probably just smiled and said okay just


okay.

cody said;
*to be completely honest, you
seem guarded at the idea of letting
a guy get close to you again. It's not
a bad thing at all, it's just once you do
let a guy in for real you're going to be
ridiculously committed to him

It's 10:36 Pm.




I had a dream two days ago and if it were a photo
it'd be a snapshot of browned notebook paper, all
the things I've ever written about you beside a vase
of flowers

You came out of an anger so deep and hugged me, I
said
i k n o w  t h i s  i s  j u s t  a  d r e a m but I miss you
and I felt my nose brush the bottom of your earlobe
you held me by the shoulders and told me you didn't
know.

I hope she has my hair
I hope she has my hair
that when her curls fall
across your face you hear
my voice, my sigh, a laugh
that when her curls fall
across your face you hear
my voice, my sigh, a laugh

but it doesn't last long.

I've pried every finger
from the tail-end of your
shirt, but my eyes are the
only thing left. To be sure,
hands aren't the only thing
that can grip, that can hold on.

if you've ever done
3 sets of lat pulldowns
your hands cramp up
by the end and are freckled
red. You flex them awkwardly,
all ten fingers bent into little
claws around the bar, and the
skin feels tight as if you were
slipping your bones into a glove
too small.

but it doesn't last long.

I sometimes wonder
if the reason I can't
love myself is because
I only loved myself through
your eyes and you never saw
a single flaw.

The ice in her latte melts
slowly and I chew the rhubarb
pie thoughtfully, wondering if I
care for a response. Nothing good
has really happened to them since I
started there, I say, stealing a sip.

I'd say you bring out the worst in
people, she replies, and I glance up from the bowl,

She smiles and takes the cold cup back.

*I mean to say that you draw the poison out.

filled with salt
my cuticles sting
my lungs compressed
between tatami mats
and I slosh in bed,
back and forth in
a warm, viscous mud
my skin tingles with
dewy sweat.

I glow
without
you.

I'll stop loving
you if you ask
me to.

Happy Thanksgiving,
and that's when you
started losing grammar
as if you had no time to
use punctuation for me,
I wasn't worth the finality
of a period or a comma.

In this dream I
couldn't get my
running shoes on
and I could see you
driving away, I chased
you through the alderwood
mall parking lot and got lost
in the brush trail that doesn't
exist, knew that if I took this
shortcut, my dream would lose
you so I aimlessly searched
between the cars, pulling
shoulders belonging to
blank faces, the sun
was setting and it
was getting dark
I woke up in the
light and wondered
why I'm still looking
for
you
chris.

it's been a year
since I saw you
last.

he went south
I'm a little bit
north, keeping
my head above
a sea of mexico
and texas.

i don't
want
you
the
way
you
are.

on the county road
123, horizontal to my
window pane, it runs
along the dry grass
and some teenage
boy rolls down it
his bass a hushed
thump in the night
he's the bump in the
night, and his taillights
leave red streaks in the
black.

up here the wind blows with fists
never felt it this heavy, so heavy
the car tips and I jostle in my seat
sounds like thick palms slamming
against the windows and I look out
towards the mountains where a line
of thin grey cloud settles across the hills.
we are in a valley and the wind hurls
itself down the crests and heaves into
the middle of town with it's fat belly,
rushing in plumes up my skirt and
lifting my hair in tendrils, all tendrils
always tendrils.

it blows me away.

the wife at the
house over, you
can hear her laugh
over her baby radishes
and the sound of water
on wet soil, soft talking
two stories up, i hear her
and she tells her husband
look, look what we have
look, look what we have.
look, look what we have.
I want to be as happy
as she is
someday

for once I choose
to dip us (then) in
honey, steep us in
jasmine, I am not
sugar-coating, just
preserving, just for
once forgetting that
bad happens, that
good can stay if you
let
it.

the flint
and the
fire, all
together

"well if he's god he
already knows my
tricks, and I'm always
playing tricks, I can't
ask for something without
and ulterior motive, so I don't
ask at all.

I didn't bother with it anymore"

at one point he
told me he was
born to love me
never having heard

that song by secondhand serenade

I don't know the
truth about most
things anymore.

born runner

born runner

born runner

maybe I was the
biggest *****, but
you were the biggest


liar.

queen of your backseat
in overalls and grey skippies
mom said just ask him out
and risk getting rejected? please,
i'm hardly in any state of mind.

I said;*
let me
take my
hair down
for you, let
me slip my
sweater off,
let me leave the
doors all open
and leave the
lights all on

i am so mad at men
and I don't know why
is what I want to say
I'm almost positive it
is the redirected frustration
over what I couldn't control
gone rabid, but I am taking
it out on everyone and I don't
know how to

stop.

there is not
much to being
twenty, you
spend months
still calling yourself
nineteen in attempts
to get a firm grasp
on reality.

sometimes
the smallest
things can
shoot me
out of the








sky.

attached by heartstrings
my mom documented every
millisecond of my life which
ultimately included you, every
photo a timid look, loving glances
our hands permanently floating
gently draped legs, I hid behind
your glasses with you, i hid behind
your glasses with you, were we one
and is this why I
why i
why
i

I don't like cocky guys
I tell my mom, across the
counter. There is ink all
over my hands and the
bleach has dried out my
pointer finger. *So i don't
want to be near him. and
the espresso machine hums
in the background, Sammy's
cup stained lipstick red, my mom
gives me a look and she knows,
she knows I'm cocky too. So
I'll wait for him to come to
me.

(because I'm allowed to be by you in dreams)
we watched a movie
at my childhood elementary
school and unlike most dreams
where I spend the entirety trying
to tell you how sorry I am, I laid
my cheek on your shoulder and
answered simple questions and
for the most part we watched
the movie in silence
before I woke up
you turned and
said
*now that wasn't so hard, was it?

up above the city
I am encouragingly
alone and a shutter
of bodies share the
passenger seat, a
deck of faces shuffled
in defining moments
motion blurred, framing
me,
here.

at night I reach
out and scoop
the lights from
the rolling black
plain, all jewels
and boysenberry
syrup.

the red plaid shirt
you gave me hung
around my drivers seat for
10 months and the collar
bleached pink from the sun
I finally took it off a while
back and the left sleeve
was still fastened so that
it didn't slide up and show
your tattoo, and this morning
I stared at the little red button
that held the corners together
and undid it as if it meant something

maybe it did.

i hope on
a good day
you find a
strand of
my hair
still woven
into your
books.

there was a rising
from something
inside my body
that wasn't quite
inside my body
and echoed out
your standards are too high
and no. one. will. ever. meet. them.

so strange
to be jealous
so strange

for a while I've been confused---
lots of hours spent detangling
my hair in the shower, wondering
if I should sit down or stand up or
lean, wondering how it is possible
to be sort of sad or kind of not really
sad. I've always had problems with
letting go and I told my mom I haven't
tried with anyone because I don't like
feeling that way I don't like the strange
jealousies that come with falling for a face
but the truth is, it's all about chris and it
has been for months now.  Because loving
him is loving an old-self, because loving him
is loving an old-self, because who I love isn't
there? And who he loved isn't here (maybe I'm
just saying that) but there have been lots of hours
spent detangling my hair in the shower wondering
if I should sit down or stand up. Lots of hours.

have you ever loved
an old-self, a husk of
person no longer there?
maybe I am an old-self
too.

the song faded and
the crowd hushed
scott spillane played
a soft horn lullaby
and I watched Koster
love us, love us soft
so soft because we
were good listeners
without knowing
one another.

These Hefe filter sunglasses
only got me so far, kept them
only because I saw the mountains
the way you would have, I've had
this jacket long enough for it to be
mine, what's yours was mine, is
mine. Maybe you grew out of
me long ago but  I am
intent on leaving
naturally so when
the time comes, all
I have to do is stand
up and leave the

stage.

it's almost nine
and for a moment
I was at Ye Olde
Curiosity Shop down
by the bay, buying
grape pop rocks,
and you kept
asking for kisses
just to feel the spark
but your eyes said so
much more.

i hope that most
of your memories
of me are awash in
sunlight, too bright
to see anything else