I didn't admit this to myself until
now but the last night I was half
asleep while we were watching
Harry Potter on my laptop, you
tried to kiss me while i recorded
the pattern in your the way your
chest rose and fell but I pushed
you away because my breath
smelled bad. I can't tell if that
simple act of self-preservation
  was really that---
preservation or self...ish.

why does it hurt so
much to be the main
character of my own
story, I once was in
yours and while
hardly static,
I couldn't
seem to
remain
there

You made your
decision and that
deal never included
me.

Queen of the fallen tree and the gneiss ridden
shore, ruling over an empire of celadon
moss and early spring waters, you stand off
to the west (of me) and i see your breath shift
over your lip and dissipate in loose tendrils against
the evening sun

I catch him staring up at the trees arced over
our heads with a strange boyish grin,
this is sorta what I imagine my life to look like he says
all this **** in the way and then beyond that it's clear.
He wipes his hand across the sky as if to illustrate the
supposed clarity beyond the tangle of branches.  I am startled,
I meet his gaze briefly and nod because
if not a mess or entanglement, what better way to
describe the way I feel than to elude to the bracken
and brushwood ?

Out across a wire fence, deer gather quietly and stand
stock-still as we pass, aloof if not for their big inquiring eyes
watching us smirk and bump shoulders because
we don't know how else to be close (I already tried my tricks).
But he surprises me now and again with his gregariousness
with a determination to get to but an equal pleasure in
idling, in stillness, in gliding across my instep, performing
quick studies on my nails or briefly succumbing to the shadow
beneath my collarbone--

Quite arbitrarily, i ask for his pocket knife
but it's him that carves our initials into the
snarl at my feet, his hood pulled close
around his neck as he sets to work
Bis now with those hands that
have been kilned and slipped
with engobe, I am stirred
stirred
stirred
and
awake
awake
and
afraid.

i was beneath the bed
listening to the in-out
thinking about how we
all take the air differently
when josh came with the cold
outside and drunkenly mistook
me for Christina, found his unusual
place and passed out  in stiff shadows,
smelling faintly of fireball cinnamon whisky--

plenty of moments reserved for sinking
or abandoning ship, receding into that quiet
place, hungry for a will and a way

when matthias finds me ransacking the
kitchen cabinets, i am rattling the underground
Seattle with a clorox induced vengeance
because i only seem to find peace in leaving
an old place clean, running my fingers through
jello shots that have disintegrated sometime in
the 3 am when for a few minutes we must
have all been asleep.

( all            the             while              Adele   )
hums in the background--a languid Hello
solemnly stitching itself into my memory
something to later hold dear, some fragment
of an adolescence that was realized on this
night, when I was removed from the place
beneath the bed, stolen from the house
dreaming that I was found inside
the mouths of strangers that
passed alongside Boylston
with their misshapen bodies
coiled in streamers and
various liquors

so when i return at 7 am
still wide awake and waiting
I examine my ******* in the
foggy mirror of the bathroom
before taking what I would
endearingly refer to as the
dirtiest shower off my life---
how could such a thing
be so? I'm curious myself.

I've spent two weeks cleaning an old place.

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

once you wrote me a letter on your
typewriter with a quote from the little
prince (which took me only an hour
to read)

because it is she that I have listened
to when she grumbled, or boasted or
even sometimes when she said nothing.
she is my rose.

perhaps then, I was thankful for all the
times when I was angry, naive or
mean in which you only smiled and
tried to hold me. Maybe we really
did love each other.

I am painfully grateful, if that is
even possible.

memories
flash out like
dead light-bulbs
brilliant fluorescent
wiring and then

nothing

brief instances when
hands meet and you
would very much like
to linger.

my hair always caught
on the beaded wooden
seat cover on the passenger
side, knees up, feet on the
dashboard, modest mouse
telling me to Float On,
back from the beach
                          back from home                  (both)
back from half price
from mcdonalds,
from fred meyer
                                92nd street park             (in the end)
will you go back
and look at what
i etched on the bench?
it was a doodle, but
it meant I  l o v e  y o u

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.

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.

your parents
gave up too
early, right
when you
needed them
the most
and only
I saw it

earlier this year I said something like


i used to drop people
which is half true, but more of a buffer
in case things fell apart and Jetsper told
me that he didn't care if I did, it was worth
getting to know me or something that sounded
that nice and I imagine he has the sort of new
car scent, or fresh laundry, something wholly
generic but pleasing.  I went about that
all wrong, i should never preface
friendships with my past
i don't drop people
i just peel their
names out of
my notebooks
afraid to confide
in any sort of
k i n d n e s s
because i know
they won't like
my secrets.

i couldn't help
but do it--
gently take
offshoots and
cry, hidden between
sanctuaries
over the lilacs
i'd forgotten
how truly sweet
i am, not cloying--
imperceptible until
close, i am tired
of forgetting who
i am i shouldn't have to
be reminded of something
that is inherently me
like the lilacs off the
road, I am angry but
that is not a stone-cold
truth, I am not going
to meet with them years
from now and say  i am still the same
because I will not
I will bloom like I have said before
and will say again, I am struggling
and lost-- I can feel it in extraordinarily
deep ways but I cannot cry over lilacs
and be
as cold
as they
say.

I remember when you
told us your dad abused
you and would lash your
bare skin on the ground
till you bled bones and
hair but he's your hero
now, I wonder if you
remember the lies
that you told, you
are so caught up
in yourself, I
can't stand it.
But they say
the things we
hate in our-
selves we
hate in
others

still too
afraid to
see the
life you
have
made

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 just as bad
as you keeping
the wounded as
they are, Chaz.
Does this mean
I am the villain
as well?

of the mountain peaks and
lofty wave crests, even in the
troughs you rest, for the stars
find  y o u  in the deepest pits
where you come to lay my parts
to bed and the pines they bend in
your  w a k e  like blades of grass
beneath my feet, so should the
salt settle in oceans deep
just so they could meet
your lips,  then would
my thoughts gather in
a heap, a group of
injury, fresh and
raw, find me
find me
find me.

a counselor once told me I had abandonment issues

so i have dreams of this guy shoving his tongue down
my throat like a dart and it makes me s c a r e d of the
things     I can't see in people,      unable to discern the
true intentions      in the  b e d r o c k  of their   heart    
because I don't excavate men anymore (at least that's
what I will tell myself) and I've only e v e r had boys
for toys, people who  give  me their strings for play
things. endearing but emasculating, the two things
i've aspired to be and I guess I'm just   terrified   of
not having control, of being the lowest block on the
totem pole with you can leave me dangled over my
head, you can leave me, you can leave me, you can

leave me.

he says things like,
don't you remember?
we saw it together
and i jump for that
last letter, he drowns
out his own intentions
with nervous laughter
trades books for minutes
lives in the instep of his
mother's shoe and rules
with tired fists,
I once saw a girl cry and
she fell into his arms but
I have no reason that he
wouldn't deem juvenile.

they say write out an sos
in the snow behind my house
got this livin' on the 411, what's
you're 20? I'm asking everyone
and i'm trying to get better at
cursive, I want to flow from
wave to wave but i'm getting
thrown round, rock to rock
it didn't matter anyway.
could have told me
to stop cursin' because i'm
dropping Jesus Christs like
no yesterday, Jesus Christ
where were you today? I'm
drowning in self-hatred, finding
grief is mashed potatoes, pinching
skin between these fingers, where's
this wealth in ****** freedom, just love
yourself, to love is to be loved, well
i insult myself to the point of no return
point fingers in the mirror, love. shaking
heads and sleeping sideways because i feel
the weight of skin i'm stuck inside of, a face
only a mother could love, barred behind words
from kids no longer in or of,
my life, god could it get much worse
i can't find solace in the things that used to work
painting pictures no longer soothes the pain, fields
of grass no longer hide your name, i'm lost in the
plains of isaiah, wandering the sand of achor, so
this is a door of hope? are you telling me to walk
onward? but this soul is distressed and these thighs
are worn, can't go a day without calling myself out
straight to the flaws i go in headfirst, lost all my
friends, self-esteem and sense of self-worth,
confidence is an concept i've only every dreamed of
so my mom keeps asking what I want for my birthday
and I say, happiness, a purpose, and a way home
happiness, a purpose, and a way home
happiness, a purpose, and a way home

i tried to fit into
that kettle corn
bag he held in
his hand, to no
avail, if he liked
pork buns I would
be a fruit ****.

anything could be home
anyone could be home
the problem is that
you can't find comfort
in people, they're
not good for that.

how do you love yourself
how do you love
how do you
how do
how

He finally said
he couldn't. No
Brooke, I can't
be that. He can
not be that.
he cannot be that

if we are all the
1% then what
are we.

were you to walk into
my life, you might smell
chai tea and sweet berry
lotion, I hope that would
be enough to comfort

you

i am so much like
the tide and sand--all
there and then not a trace
each grain pushed up and
dug in, washed away by
a smooth hand, pulled
up and dredged out,
separated by skilled
fingers from the
muck and ****
swept out of my
hiding place where
i clung to the rocks
and crevices with fervor
only to be cast upon the shore
water-logged and soaked in salt
i am each mote of feldspar and quartz
drawn and then flat, riddled with color
and grime, pulsing day in--day out to
the heartbeat of an ocean, to a master
as a servant--fighting the flux where
it doesn't go

all the bits and none at all, against the
water then all at once, all at once, all at once
out into the sea, into the furious evening
to weather the storm or weather myself


all at once
all at once
all at once.

But Stephanie,
I am different
in that aspect
I cannot hate
him for being
wounded.

heart flare,
wind burn
when I hear
about Albuquerque

the hot water only lasts about 11 minutes
which is just enough time if I don't shave
so I don't shave and for the first time in
weeks I'm idle, with exhaust streaming
out my pores, all shallow breath and
wet hair watching the water hit the
curtain behind me, thinking about
how glad I am to only pay for
electricity, thinking about
how god, i just wanted
to run tunnel drive
this morning but
could barely
muster the
energy to
talk much
less   fe   e l any thin
                                     g

i have gotten
a lot quieter
since the
end of
july
when we
stopped talking
and i tend to think
more. My taste for
theatrics has slowly
dissipated.

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.

today analeigh gave
a single fragile blink
before bursting into
tears--I've never seen
a child cry.


I've seen children cry.
but from a distance, across
the counter, in the aisle over.
I've seen hundreds of scrunched
faces and balled fists, dozens of
raised voices dismissed in popular
clutter but

when she dipped her head and fell
between the cracks, lost in between
vowels and performance orientation
before I could catch the things that
had been said and suddenly
i was aching, welling, raging
holding--tucking little strands
of wet hair behind blushing ears
and my voice was new and not
mine--soft and assuring
no, no, sweet girl

you are so smart
breaking a bit
for a baby
folded into
social constructs

she cried
and I broke
for her.

It's strange to think of you
with a straight-haired girl
as if my curls were unique
between your fingers, but
I still do not know how to
deal with these thoughts,
these scenarios I find in
every photo, wouldn't
you be happier with
a girl with birds on
her back like the
ones on your
wrist?
I'm terrified
that my beliefs are
walls to keep people
out, because people have
always been better off with-
out me, finding new pieces
of themselves in others who
share the same scars, I have
not learned to live with the
fact that my God scares
people away and while
they pacify my needs
with words, with
promises I know
I should not
believe I
believe
but their vows
are temporary, and
fleeting, it is my own
fault. I continue to suppose
that everyone will be happier
in the [         ] of someone
like me, who stays tethered
to the one thing I know to
be perennially safe.

we have
all been
that 'someone
else'