we have
all been
that 'someone
else'

i feel like the clouds reach
farther here, the sky is wider
here, the mountains are more
enduring, the earth is dry but

strong

Winter stars are a bit
more dignified, but I
have always melted
underneath them.

chatter downwind fills
up the glass baubles strung
from the ceiling and Zak
shifts back and forth
older and yellower,
still angry as ever
but Kynlee softens
him with her wide
eyes and inquiring
gaze, one leg to the
next, a sudden raucous
behind the white paned
doors, but the crickets
find their way back
into the hum--
Sometimes it just gets to be too much
he says, and we both look across the
way where a sliver of his wife can be
seen in the evening glow--
and I don't answer him
because we are no longer
children with a response
for everything, or teenagers
with an affinity for bragging
two adults with financed metabolisms
and organized problems

more chatter, a bit of song.
I am the last unmarried sibling.
I loll back on my heels and press
in to the quick air between us
yeah, I say.    


*yeah.

she was quiet
without a single breath and then

but when I
leave they do all
the bad things

and all the breath escaped
and she was very much
like a child on her bed
wet fingers curled
around her face

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.

If all the world's a stage
and I am not an actress...

for once I want to
dream of me in your
head get trapped in
your nets, see you
pull me from the
seas with your hands
your eyes, your mind
see me, see me, am I
a siren in your thoughts
a beautiful thing in your eyes
caught in your hands, your
mind , see me,
see me.

I'm so lost
and I love
him, but I
but I, but,
i
i
i

i still find it strange
(like most others) that
someone so fam
                                         iliar can
suddenly, without much thou   ght
become entirely foreign within an
hour          or
two and then as a couple weeks
go by there is nothing more than
footprints where we used to
                      stand  

side     by     side
and then not
even  
       that

I have never changed
willingly for anyone,
(not that I wouldn't, if
the right person came
along) and I've never
asked anyone to change
for me, they usually just
do. Each time I am filled
with hope--what if he is
the one? I am continually
let down. As a reminder,
those who say they will
change for you, never
really want to. of course
they would prefer if you just
acted like them. Because that
is so much easier.

i am rolled between
rocks, my everything
hurts

he swore to
try and love
God for me
dragged his
knuckles on
my driveway
and said he
was planning
on giving up
some of those
things anyway
but I know
better, I know
it's not that
easy and that
he still talks
to those faces
because these
people are only
bad to me, and
not to him, never
to him, because he
only ever tried to
recognize the bad
for me, but every
thing was just an
act. Why is every
thing just an act
just silly promises
that no one ever
really means.

two years ago you
kissed my cheek
and i posted it on
facebook. Your ex
asked for all her
things back.

I'd like to
think that
my smile
unbuttons
your pride
because you
sure unzip
mine.

Black ink, northern sky
I am always searching
for the stars, remember
wishes, and my thoughts
are spilled milk for the cat
everyone eats the best parts
of me, but I won't drop my
sheets. May the wind catch
my sail

i can't remember
the last time some
one said my name
the way that people
do.
that way
that people
do.

Take your knives and
graters, peel my onion
layers, get me pure
down to my core.

i have this romantic notion
that I will fall in love each
autumn that rolls around
and cools the sidewalks
every time I find the wool
socks in my closet and
let the snow in through
the screen-- like a cat to
milk the winter finds
me but

never

him.

there is a lot you
don't understand
but there is a lot
we still don't, so
don't take it to
heart, honey,
don't take it
to heart

I like your skin, the rough parts and the soft parts. The moles, bumps and other miscellaneous textures omitted to living on your arms like aliens. I like your back and how different it is, thin and lean with no fat, sometimes I can feel your bones under my fingers, and I’m afraid that during moments of various passions I will peel away what’s left.
I like your legs and how pale they are, how you sweat and recoil from my touch when you’ve napped and soaked my blankets.  I like the way you fumble for your glasses and fix your hair when it’s not even messy, the way your stomach heaves when you need to cough but won’t.  Just cough.
I like the way your earlobes connect and how sparse your beard is, how you threaten to shave it as if my compliments burn.  All my compliments burn you, in some shape or form.  But I give them out freely because they are true, and I want them to live in your heart forever.  In some cases you will not believe a bit of what I say, and I appreciate this as well.  However, I would like to know why, and how and when you came to these conclusions and why you settle there.    
I enjoy hearing you play guitar, when it’s not Zee Avi and you’re not gushing about how you saw her in concert.  I like that I am jealous of you, and you are never jealous of me. A trait that could pass over, but won’t. I like your capacity for apologies, sorry before, sorry after.  You are most sorry for everything that you do, and I am the one that put you there.   Should you ever become entirely mad at me some day, I shouldn’t be able to retaliate because you will have had good reason to be so.
When you speak, I like your voice. Deep and solid as if something inside you churns warmly.  A heavy bellied mammal, a trumpet of some sort. I can hear its footsteps when my head is on your chest, beneath your arm, under the blankets.  I like the gestures you used to describe things, and the high pitched sounds you make when I tickle you.  
I like the way you hide behind your arms when you’re naked, your knees, like magnets stuck together and your lips pulled thin in shame. As if I don’t like your body, you shield yourself.  But your defenses are weak and I love the parts you dare not to show. The red on your cheeks, a permanent stain, like your teeth kaleidoscoped white and the scars registered on your stomach.

I like the way you don’t let me love you, because I do.

i am afraid i have wounded
him in a remarkable sort
of way, in a way no person
could fix

it took me two years and a second boyfriend
to fully get over you, but your photos no longer
bother me and you even have a new girlfriend
which didn't faze me at all, all the silly things
i said still make me cringe, but for the most
part I'm glad it has been proven that people
who loved can talk like normal
again.

oxygen
tank
says
zero

I don't necessarily
feel like you came
too fast but if you
could help me step
out that door

on the way to wetmore, I find myself
watching his hands, whose movements appear
sheltered but warm, tortoise-shelled and dipped
in metallic sod; look like the surface of a leather-hard
***,  mottled with molasses spots and inlaid with
the rivulets of earthen gold and chalk--


i can't find my heart here, on the truck bed
where my eyelashes cast too big of a shadow
on his face but i'm still savoring the fine lines,
the heat that builds where plates meet or craters
settle--we've collected here as though on slopes
(inclined to meet one another)

slid shoulder to shoulder, wound up in icy whispers
put under consideration by the stars, up for debate in
the heavens, already settled before the dawn of time
just waiting on the answers, holding reins on hearts
taking it slow


taking it slow






taking it slow

I once saw a photo
entitled

find someone
whose demons
are compatible
with yours,

and I thought to
myself, you never
have to live with
the bad things
if you work
them out.

don't listen to the things
he says he'll never do
because circumstances
change and emotions
often run
high

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.

whatever is
planned, let
it happen
gracefully.

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 once wrote something in his
diary for my birthday, but I
actually read a page or two
of his life. A particular story
in which he wrote, all I
want to do is wake up
and make her breakfast,
that is my dream and at
the time all I could do was
smile. I wish I had written
more, but don't we all?

find the potential
for love
in everyone

my mom began a disconnect
and stopped entertaining my
depressed notions,  I want to
tear the newspaper in front
of her and tell her she will
never understand, buffer
this thought by receding,
folding myself into 1,000
paper cranes for a wish
finding a new life under
the duvet, searching the
skies for shooting stars
but it's been cloudy all
year
long.

t h i s  i s  n o t  
p o i n t l e s s
meetingisnot
meaningless
t h i s  is  n o t
regret.

I am tired of not understanding
because the concepts rip me
apart, my thoughts all filter
through the knowledge and
I'm left where I was at the

start