it has been storming so often

in the evenings he rolls over the city

so come down and meet me;
in the rain if you must--

I am too raw to do much else

most things ***** and push

but if this is the dust of your feet
then I'd lie in your wake

this must be the place


my father put bread inside
the ceramic jar filled with
muscovado in the kitchen,
where my tiny hands splayed
out and stuck to the counters

it'll soften it, he says

for his lack of affection
I took what I could get
i must have soaked in
Darjeeling for years
an unrefined sugar cube
too bonded to dissolve
like all children that
want from their fathers--

I suppose.

a little girl peeking
over the tile, wondering
what other types of things
bread could make soft--
her
maybe.

i asked nick
what year he
felt was the most
wasted

and he said even
one step is a step
forward--

but there could be
no better embodiment
of anger, it is there every
morning telling me that
he is home that I am
a body, that i am a bad thing
it rides in the bed of
every dodge ram
and permeates every dream
where i hear trumpets echoing
in the mountains, in valleys i stood
with my father and
God's voice thundered from higher
from clouds like a ***** through the earth
heavy rainfall across miles
and miles of unsodden land
and we were crippled
into the dirt--

I asked nick
what year
he felt was
most wasted

and he said even'
one step

is a step


forward.

My face is
a common
misconception

(to be honest, I'm afraid
of your sister, (or
i could be mad) but I am
drawn away from things
(or people) that pull at
my skin and plant their
words that never bloom)

Do you always
see the moon
as a whole?

i think it's time i start breathing--
this roof, i've shot a hundred holes
to accommodate the rain-fall,
i'm catching the run-off on purpose
chalk it up to sentimentality,
I have three yellow roses pressed
between pages of the first book i read to
him, conversation hearts from a superbowl
party, a pair of movie photos tucked away--

I've been growing new lungs,
exercising the right to expand, i cannot
hold my breath for others, cannot decrease  and
hope for new foliage, shrink back and hope for
the steps to be taken, i cannot stop reading the
dictionary or using words  as if they aren't a
saving grace,

i can't deny the things i've done, the smoke i've
inhaled, the past month is set in stone, but I
can't close myself off like i've done before
I can't go back to hopin' someone will crack
me like a safe, venture to know the things I
want discovered, that's been done and proven

we've heard the sayings about Rome,
about walking before running,
was in such a hurry to be there
wherever there was,
but i've got to be here
I stopped documenting
and tried for experiencing
figured if it needed to be
remembered, it just
would.

so these new lungs need
good practice and I'll
breathe my best.

I love you but I
don't

I lost myself in march, in
the bar, in a tailspin that
looked like a two-step, like
a man, in myself at the edge
of the water with my toes
dug into the reef wondering
why the ocean seems so vast
because i've only ever swam in
ponds--

and I cut my lifelines because I
still believe that i won't find myself
in the arms of someone else, but I
still feel the pinch of every rock
and string that snaps, and I love
a boy who can't love me back
broke his heart and he's back
to his old plays, the ones
he executes on his own
and I can't run the ball
as fast as he can--
I've noticed the trend
the way I take a heart and knead
but men aren't things to bend and need

every turn I take is a 360, standing
where I was before, and I don't know
how to move, how to take the first step
how to have the faith in faith, how to believe
in the immaterial

We stood in my front door and he said
she's still in there, you wouldn't be
crying if she wasn't. the last sober
thing you said to me out of love
in a voice I won't forget because
you haven't used it since,
and If I ruin good things
then i ruin good things
and if I ruin good things
then I ruin good things

well i've had my toes dug
into the edge of the reef
and I guess I just needed
a good cry, the ol' one-two
to the gut, I've been tryin'
to be perfect for the sake
of everyone else's fairy tales
holdin' on to the tailgate of
your truck because you're
the first person to care
in a longwhile, that's a
longwhile, but you don't
care no more,
he don't, no more.

your birthday
is this month
i remember
telling you
about how
my ex always
texted me on
my birthday
(we usually
laughed)


but now what
do I do when
we're so close
to that wound
do I just not
say anything
at all?

you'd think i'd take corners a little slower
rub rouge across my cheeks with less vigor
i've exhausted my efforts with others because
they don't know a thing

they ask questions but I'm tired of tellin'
enough people have known me and
i'm done chasin'. i've run these bones
as far as they'll go and rubbed away
the worst parts with salt and a firm word

enough people have known, enough people
have seen, I gave myself after all that mad ****
talkin', didn't feel as bad as I thought I would
with mother's shadow off in the kitchen,
kept tellin you to go slower
i still don't know
i still don't
i still
were we both there?
drove myself into a 6 minute
mile the other day runnin'
from speculations, 'cause
I feel like i gave you something
huge, some part of me i'll never
get back and i guess
that's my fault too.

you speak of places as if they were
gifts, objects as if they had souls,
regarded them defensively
when I am there without you
like their permanence only
touched you--
but I have shared rooms,
empty spaces, i have stripped
the shutters from my soul
and cut open scars to show
you where I've been, maybe
i have a lack of material things
to present in lieu of everything that
has happened, maybe my wounds
were the sacred things I shared
and I won't close them off
from you as if you don't
deserve to know, because
you showed me that
you do.

when mama left california--

when mama's leave with
their children, does a part
of him go with us,

I've spent a lot of time
looking for Leonard in
the kindred spirits of
other men,

men with bodies like the
damp forest, mulch and
peat moss,

what is a father and what is
a man, do they yell, do they
scream,  should he have when
she left, but

                 I was born a *******, left a *******
                  asking for someone to convince me
                  that girls like me can be whole--that
                  they don't need any help because i've
                  never had it anyway.

                  when mama left california, she said so.
                
                  don't need no help, she whispered.
                  don't need no help, I mimick.