i said my face is so round

and a little voice murmured
but so is the sun and moon
the flowers that face the sky,
all the planets that sit heavily
on starry thrones, have you
seen the earth? a l l   f  u  l  l
things inherit the land,  you
could plant gardens on your
jawline and hide n a t i o n s
under your cheekbones,why,
it wouldn't be presumptuous
to say the wounded could be
cradled in the dip of your chin


all good things are *round

no, I'm not
l o o k i n g
not a single
peep, eye or
                                                     o u t s t r e t c h e d
hand, but I
do imagine
the crook of
your elbow
and a dozen
steel lanterns
hung from your
branches, strings
of cream colored
Christmas lights
framing your
shoulders
swung
around
your feet
and each
step you
take that
brings
you

clo        ser
to
me

88 by Lo-Fang is on repeat
the live version at WFUV
and I'm not listening as
much as I am wondering
how much water my body
d    i    s   p   l    a    c    e    s
displaces? a couple weeks
ago I tried to tell my mom
she was not her body and
that there was not a single
thing more beautiful than
a soul in waiting or a soul
on pause, a soul like hers
but don't source me
i can't even believe
myself let alone
that something
so beautiful
could be
me.

i don't
k n o w
how to
rely on
anyone
b   u   t
myself.

this should
f e e l  l e s s
f  o  r  c  e  d*
you should
feel more
right
.

between psalm 1 & 2
I asked you what it was
like to confess without
a proper priest because
confessing to yourself
was more like admitting
and admitting was usually
an internal affair, something
that could be done without
much shame, after all, you
                                     could hear my thoughts,                          right?
well, I'm not entirely
sure that's all true
but I got down on
all fours with my arms
stretched as far as they
could go, head practically
between my knees and would
you believe, (You Would) that
I started to cry? Because, would
you believe, (You Would) that
for a moment you were there
with your toes at my finger-
tips.

people are not
to be saved and
they say girls are
best wild and free
or wild and reckless
but I was always the
cabin with an open
door, an inviting
bed, a warm
hearth, I
stayed
put and
did my life
by the books
still wanted to
s a v e y o u f r o m
something, yourself?
other people? the world?
I see pictures of you and
feel a sense of failure,
or loss or grief or
frustration but
you were
never mine to
save, never a thing
to be saved, never wanted
to be saved, never asked to be
saved and letting you go was akin
to releasing the leash on wild, wild beast.

i turned off the
fan in my room
because summer
is over and the
silence was
deafening
every click
and whir every
noise my body made
could be heard and
there you were at
11:56 in the
middle of a dream
there you were, whispering
to me

I claimed you in severity
in illegitimacy
how could I ever forget
that you were my father
before anyone else
I am lost and
you are the
only one
who can
find
me.

telling you I loved you
was with each hair on
my head, one at a time
when your hands picked
them up on edge with all
of your static electricity
and saying it sounded
like a rush of water from
the creeks below Snoqualmie
or the heavy winds through
the pines, so I traced the
sounds out on your
shoulders and ate
each letter so I
could press them
to your ears, spelled
out the shapes and made
a home for you in between
my collar bones, a cabin on
top of my lungs with the
lights always on, from
out on the plains you
could see it, the books
on the shelves read


I love you.

there is an aimless sense of
wandering, a trip on an empty
train, floor awash with foot prints
streaked under the seats and here
I am clinging to the handrails, but
like a dream the corners of my vision
are fuzzy and I fight to be unaware
and somewhere from the end of
the car, horses stamp their
hooves, all lined up
behind red stanchions
they aren't bulls but they
breathe like I am red, and
somehow this is all curiously
distant, sauf pour the speed of
the train, the only thing that is
unnerving is the ways in which
I move and blink and how i am
made up of seven billion billion
billion atoms but this number
seems so inconsequential and
small compared to how lost
I feel and how many times
a day I ask myself what
I am doing.


What am I doing?

Hey. Listen.


Can you hear me breathing?
my thoughts are in piano notes
I'm thinking up a symphony of
you. It snowed yesterday and
I wondered where you were---
not in any needy kind of
way, just a curious kind of
way. Can you hear me breathing?
it sounds dense and collected, my
bike spokes click in time with your
watch because there could be years
between us but there could also be
days or hours. If you would believe
it, I can feel you on windy days
when your readiness is something
to be desired. But so much of the same
can be said for me, s o  m u c h  o f  t h e  s a m e
because maybe it was never me waiting on you


but y o u waiting on me.

you eat a lot of cucumbers.


at first you only slice them,
but then you're cutting them
in half, in quarters. You eat
them with carrots, no carrots,
with lemon pepper and salt.
You eat them in your room
with hot tea boiled to 150
degrees, in the kitchen
at the counter staring
out the window, at
the dining table
at the patterns
on the hard-
wood floor.
Is that real wood?
It could be. That doesn't
really matter. You put too
much salt on these. And
sometimes in the tub
you crouch down
and study the
curtains with
an unbridled
amount of curiosity
because you need to be
deep about at least something
but mostly you just realize that
your legs are bruised and your
cuticles sting because you bite
them so often. This water could be hotter.



This water could be hotter.

the cold came
upon us gently
a hand to sweep
away the summer
and we cleared the
table willingly so
the wood could
reach mahogany
we are all lit up
in candlelight
with lips as
soft and red
as cherries
so smooth
you want
to kiss the
first person
who calls you



beautiful.

sleep against my thigh
my skin is made of steel
so you melt the edges
with your breath,
draw figures in the grey
like windows in the cold,
you huff, puff and the frost
is gone, your hands burn
imprints on my waist and
crack my hips that are made
of glass, a fracture line that
carries up my chest, an
earthquake that shifts
through my bones, that
haunts me when you're not
at home, so come home,
come home,

come home.

like a
w h i s p e r
I'm sinking
into my shoes
because my
footsteps are
deeper than
they look
my heels
burrow
into ocean
trenches
I am my
own fissure
bubbling between
the volcanic rock
an orange scar
at the edge of
the Nazca plate
I can't decide if
I want to close
my jaws or
reach for
the surface.

in the empty hallway where
the wood falls in line with my
heels and the sunbeams are warm
across the grain, full-steam into
my toes, that sink beneath the
floorboards and root into
the foundation where
plant muck takes
residence between
my veins, it's chilly
in this house but
most of me is still on
top and the dust bends
lights off the windows
is stained on the wall
and somewhere from
the kitchen the smell
of cider wraps around
my calves.

I think of you
and cigarette
smoke fills
my room
through
the carpet
the painting of
me is burning in
the garage and seeps
through the floors, you
wander the hallways and
knock on doors, you were
the biggest liar I didn't ever
know, ever didn't know, liar
biggest liar I ever knew but
didn't know was standing
right in front of me.

let me
be kind
to myself
because
this has
been a
year of
hating
myself.

robert slept in the back
enveloped in fresh cigarette
with his green sweater hung
over his face and in the front
where we smelled like lotion
and pumpkin hand sanitizer
we tried the lullabies that
were soaked in old lovers
and you invited me over
for dinner, it's so easy
to say that God has
sent me no one
so even if you
do move back
to New York, I
will be able to say
that yes, I made a friend
all on my own and found
that it is so easy to laugh, that
I can be easy to love.

you're the first honest
thing I've had in a while
and I'm keeping myself
at bay because i've been
known to swim too fast
or never get cold, i'm
calling you Michigan
in my head because
I like the way it
comes off my
heart, my apologies
are real, I just don't know
how to act, I've gotten too
good at having tact, because
my silence goes up as walls and
I'm sure we could be friends, but

but

I've been known for swimming too
fast or never getting cold, never getting
cold, never getting

cold.

I've asked so
many times for
you to put a godsend
on a train, ignited with
a passion for discovery
on wheels that sing my
name, you remember,
don't you? Instead,
should I have requested
a send God? Is it not
enough to act under the
assumption that I don't
even need the train,
that sometimes I hear
your voice in my sleep
but people always say
it's the thought that
counts, right?

my dad took to the yard
with a vengeance, tearing
into the bramble, imbued
with a great autumn anger
schhhtt, schhhhtt, schhting
across the sidewalk in a fury
not unlike Samuel hacking
Agag to pieces in the 6 pm
blush, still 70 out, too warm
for fall, I watched with a
heaviness, the pungent
smell of unearthed pine
and wet leaves leaving
a starchiness to the
air as he continued
to gather the brush in
bags, with my thoughts,
with my thoughts,
with my thoughts.

I've always been
afraid to say I'm
not in love as if
without it I am less
as if I am missing
something crucial
and I have often
been weary of
saying it aloud
in hopes that
you might
come back
but we aren't
ever going to
be together,
are we, Chris?
that is why



I don't love you anymore.

in Nordstroms at the Cherry Creek Mall
in Denver, I tried on a gold dress that didn't
fit around my hips (but not many things do,
including your arms or your eyes or your
honesty) and the dressing room attendant
didn't bother to knock before unlocking the
door to tell me that this particular room
wasn't for me, and her eyes, particularly
her boho hat, made me feel like slime,
like a wet body bag, like a sweaty
creature that crawled out from
beneath the hot stones in canon
city and I eagerly shuffled out of
the hall with the gold dress that didn't
fit around my hips (because nothing does)
and the for the rest of the day I saw myself
fitting my skin over inanimate objects and wishing
I could be beautiful.

I haven't been honest.


Chaz only sends me snaps of
bunched rosettas, I want to tell
him, move your pitcher back
as the stacks form so that you
get a more elongated pour
but I don't want to deter him
from correlating steamed milk
and espresso with my name, so
I don't. And he has a new girlfriend
now with slim fingers and defined nostrils
that make me think of Audrey Hepburn, so
at first I tried to insert myself into their bubble
to be a part of their happiness or maybe just
Audrey's beautifully sculpted features. But
to be honest I stopped talking to him
back in May or March because we had
this sort of thing that I didn't know
how to handle and so many girls
had handled his **** since then,
since me, that nothing felt like
it held any concrete significance,
pursuing whatever it was that I
was pursuing, would not make
me feel any more whole, which
was what I was aiming for.

i get lost in the
valleys but You
always bring me
to a clearing

I have always
kissed first,
unzipped first
nuzzled into
your hip bone
first, while you
hid your face
beneath my pillow, first.
the nervousness evades
me with it's wispy fingers
too afraid to be afraid I
live by first come first



serve.

over the summer
I had a brief romance
with a boy named Ty
whose tennis shoes
were six years into
a can of Grizzly
Wintergreen
on the Kansas
plains. I thought
about kissing him
a couple times when
he told me about wanting
to go to college but his
interest only went
as far as my arms
could reach, the
length of my
hair down my back
and the 5 minute drive
up Skyline that I never took
with him because he only wanted
to hotbox in my car to breathe his
past down my throat. And after
that, he told everyone I was too
much of a good girl and



left.

oh but I'm
searching for
Cat down the
street alleys
without a
Paul Varjak to
tell me I am my
own cage, *Cat?
Cat. Cat!

you bled your blues and
greens, outstretched on my
bed, you backstroked through
the stars and the planets fell in
line with your vertebrae, swept
the centauri beneath your elbows
and comets swam thigh-high like
sharks or pistols, armed by your
disgrace, I think, you always
expected me to shoot first.

w h e n  w a s the
last time you drew
me I can almost swear
I'm the first thing you
see because your pencil
always wants to draw
my nose, you know
exactly how it feels
with the ridge on
the end, and
your charcoal
sticks will always
find my eyebrows
because they're the
blackest things you've
ever had , So you've
fo r g o t t e n what
my lips feel like
but not how I
kiss always
trying to
grab your tongue
to absorb the words
you never said. So.

tell me, when was the last
time your portraits sped off
for her but turned into me?

we threw down
with clenches and
all I could think about
was how good you
smelled when i
hit elbows first

I miss the things I never
did, the ferry ride I never
took, the brittle cold that
sunk to the depths of my
toes and the sushi place
down the street from my
house. You can whisper
that I'm doing the same
thing but I miss the leaves
at EDCC and the rain,
quality frozen yogurt
and the front row at
Loews Theater, I miss
the sound of my wheels
privy to the Boeing freeway

You can whisper that I'm feeling
the same way but I miss things I
don't recognize, the drive past
the lighthouse and the neighbor
who had music too loud, the
shy cashier at Fred Meyer
and also their apple
display that was
aesthetically
pleasing.

I crave the dens,
the brick caves strung
with lights where no
one is above the murmur
where girls come to leave
necklaces wrapped in lined
notebook paper (here, take
this, take this from me, please)
and the various spaces are lined
with a thick aroma of espresso
and the burberry perfume from
the woman at the table over whose
thighs could stretch across the atlantic
but ships could never sail across her
in the way you can't tread over hot
coals, climb mount everest in a day
or ask her out for coffee.

i had a dream I
was loving you
but it was not
that           simple            for
you
and i left
wearing a hospital
gown

La Liberté Guidant le Peuple, or,
Liberty Guiding the People is a
painting by Eugène Delacroix
used as cover art for Coldplay's
Viva La Vida and Liberty seems
to guarantee life above her head
with ample ******* that seem to
tell me everything is going to be
alright.

You used to tell me that the first
half of *Death and All his Friends
reminded you of me, so, when I
hear it, I am you, listening to me
with Chris Martin telling me to
come over, just be patient, don't worry
and I am seventeen again, beneath your
dim desk light, in those acid wash shorts
knowing you for the first time, knowing
all winter we got carried, oh, let's get
married, all through summer we
hurried, so come over, just be
patient...don't worry.

So come over, just be patient, don't worry.

be slow
be heavy
be gentle.

in Urdhva Dhanurasana
you can see your heels if
turn your head, also called
the upward bow, or, the
wheel pose.

Yesterday, the wind
blew me uphill when
I was trying to go down,
I've been trying to get
closer to myself, to
my heels, and too
often do I ask
the wrong
questions.

In a devotional by Oswald
Chambers he goes on to say
that god is unimpressed by
earnestness, so then what?

I reach for my heels.

they say you should
fear flowers for they
grow in adversity,
adapt, and face
the sun, and
when we
were little
we ****** on
the stems of gardenias
like honeybees with our
nimble, sticky fingers. And
today I learned to ride a bike
with no hands and a sweat
plastered shirt clinging to
my spine, so, instead,

shouldn't you be afraid of me?

Moby ***** was a humongous
mess of religious garble that threw
everyone for a loop in the shadow of
Typee and Melville was publicly shamed
for writing such a flop so outside his genre,
supposed.

But bound by blue canvas, inscribed in
gold, would you find failure to be subjective?
oh, don't be scared to reach beyond your known
talents, beyond what is said of you,

beyond your genre.

swing out your lanterns
I'm no longer afraid
out on the river I've
learned how to
navigate and
this paddle
is a weapon
bring me to
the rapids.

Kendra posted a
faded picture of
you with the blurred
swatch of evergreen
at your shoulders,
I'm a universe and
a half, more pigmented
than I could ever be
at your side, at that
window, would we
have lasted? It's not
for me to tell.


Happy Birthday, Chris.

(but will you) love me
in pigeon's pose when
my tummy rolls over
like rice paddies and
the dimples in my
thighs are as moon
craters on that 27th
spoonful of peanut
butter, orbit on my hips
squeeze the fat beneath
my arms to relieve all
your stress, when I'm
singing zee avi in the
shower and you realize
I once told you a choir
teacher said I was a high
soprano but my voice is
so low on that ceiling
mingling with the steam
in the silver vents, don't you
know that

heat

rises?

It might be your birthday today,
honestly, I never remembered and
I had to sneak your license out of
your wallet to check, something
I always felt infinitely bad about
and I hope you don't read this
because the conglomerate of
poems I've written about
you seems a little bit
obsessive. I had to
talk myself down out
of calling and the neighbors
continue to be weary of me behind
their little peach windows with the cream
lampshades because I regularly shake my
head at myself and my lips move in quick
stripped, phrases. Do you think, that maybe,
I should stop feeling guilty?

Maybe.

you are
still my
writer's
block.

it's been eight months.

I pulled the clouds straight
out of the sky with that one,
brought my fist down on your
sternum, with my face buried
into your ribs, a shirt draped
over your face. For the first
time you sounded mad, your
voice was a thick alarm,

I ask you why it took so
**** long and your guitar
falls to the side of where you
never play for me like this
again and you say you're
sorry. And those clouds
that I tied down have
finally wrung off,
and I tell everyone
that I still love you.

i have forgotten
that i am all sharp
edges with blunt
letters, that these
arrows are shot
with arcs but
s
t
i
c
k
in the ground,
sometimes I fancy
myself honey but
I am all vinegar
all salt, no soothe.

see,

when I listen
to the smiths I
see you instead
of Morrissey and
you are all golden
apple glow with a
crisp blue profile
a stark outline
against the
saturated
red fade
the mic
cupped in
between those
grand fingers
like a steel face.
how silly to
know you
never sang.

oh but we are all
divine in that we
have souls, the
way that fills
my mouth
is stupendous
they say that
your fingertips
can feel nano-scale
wrinkles on a smooth
surface, a new level of
sensitivity not previously
recorded and I think that is



beautiful.

tell me about the last
time he ate raspberries
off your fingertips, the
last time he stuck his
hands beneath your
bra just to keep warm
the last time he made
you apple cider in the
**** summer heat,
but it's fall and you
miss his sweat, his
bad breath, his
distaste for
sweet things
that you a l w a y s
forgot, and the kiwi
body wash that sat in
his shower, you've been
saying Jesus Christ lately
and you want to stop, but then
again, you still want to be the kind
of girl he might come back to.