i feel that in some places
physical apologies only
make things worse, and
for all the times I tried you
always dismissively waved
your hand and shook your
head, pacifying me with a
simple smile, no, Brooke,
this was my fault.

But the truth is, I'm at fault
too, so one day I hope you
don't look back on me
in dismay, somehow find it in
your heart to forgive me for the
way I am or was. Because love
does not boast the way I did or
refuse an embrace from someone
so confused.

(And although this
wheat field is grand and seemingly
endless I'm thankful to run through
again and again if it meant learning
more from you)

Through the twigs and savory green,
dry yellow sun bits. A wet vanilla perfume
lingering in sweat droplets, staining
that white tank-top too busy being
baked in, dead grass fastened to your
thighs a bit like tassels. I am sometimes
positive that you grew from the thirsty
dirt like a

cactus

i had this dream that they
had thrown me into a hole,
and by a feat of bravery I
had managed to escape,
out the window and through
the azalea bushes--

but I returned with a raging
hatred, an unquenchable vengeance
that manifested in red clay that
settled over the creases in my palms
and poured south in waves shaped
like old angers and great mountains
giant bison that snorted and plowed
forth--

but I was the bison and I was the clay,
greeting visitors with crushed eggs, yolk
weeping through my knuckles, the voice
of a hundred i'm sorrys creaking through
the speakers in the living room,

and i'm wiping blood from the meat in the kitchen
on my dress with the yellow fade near the hem
telling visitors yes, come in
yes, come in
when they shouldn't
and I shouldn't

but I could shake the earth, father, I'm so angry.

I could shake the earth.

do not feel the need to change your works/pieces because people on this site don't think you're up to par. I encourage all of you to keep writing
in whatever forms the words come to you. This is not high school or college. You are not being graded. Criticisms are welcome and considered but don't have to apply to your work if they don't fit in with how you think your poetry should be written.

All of you
turning into devils
honey-tongued demons
swinging from trees
proclaiming their indecency to the world
irreverence clouding a sense of modesty
because if you say it out loud,
it makes it
not
as
bad...


right?

snagged on wheat stalks, no
shoes, a sheet of hair in the sun
everybody can hear me and no
one can hear me, crashing through
the tall grass on a wolf trail, slapped
by ears of corn, the tall grass relents
against me





shush, shush, shush,






but my feet
have never left the ground and the
durum sticks to my sweat, out here
in the wilderness.

Where do i begin? At

The first kiss, the first smile, No

When your hand like a snake slid up my side, It's

'Only one life that we have, '  Tu m'as dit

But what if i didn't want to try those things the, What

If i wasn't ready, But

By now it doesn't matter, it's all in the

Past.

It's one of those carnival-silly-things now
you and me, It's
'All fun, ' Tu m'as dit

It's all fun and games
like Lord of the Flies and Jack
Jack
Jack.

I am desperate to be clean
yearning to be a kind of remarkable
that never goes unnoticed
frequently reminding myself
that I am no different kind of special
but these lights in my room
say other things, there is a
decorated grace I hope
to find in my fingers,
a warmth I want someone else to see
laying across my shoulder
to touch my neck and tell
me things about myself

yesterday a seventy year old man
named Stan slid a crumpled receipt
across the teller counter and asked
me out--and James from Faricy had
his manager give me his number
on the back of a deposit slip

and I told Ryan that I was positive
he had caught me off guard, that anything
more than friends is not doable so he
thanked me for my honesty and
stopped responding.

and a whole slew of other men,
other apologies, other dancers
and sweaty palms, all lengthy,
wordy paragraphs ending in
too quiet or christ, just take
a break but -

i am falling asleep. upright, at
the bank, to the sound of cashiers
checks sliding out of the printer
an angry little girl knocking at
my door, a child from too long
ago who's never been in love
slipping in and out of a
subdued conciousness
I give up my idea of
the perfect man,
I give it up


i give it up.

I see
angry people
everywhere

I have always thought of home to be a place
have described myself within a myriad of
different protagonists, herbs and flaccid analogies
i have been birds nesting in rafters, wolves
and nothing more than a willowy spirit without a
body--

and i thought for a moment that people could be homes
too, the way you walk into hugs or are metaphorically
gathered, i watched him in the mirror sliding around
my waist, resting on my hips, smelling my hair, picking
me up to put in a vase, ridiculously pretty, you know that?

and it's not that I longed for more,  
that I have longed for where, for a here that
i am acutely aware of how i vacillate between empty
and overflowing, of my own thoughts, i have heard
you think too much and maybe I do-- maybe too much
of me lingers

In dreams I unzip and turn myself inside out
like a dress, fold my shoulders down and the mountains
reappear, i am all the grass of a former self, before the tides and winds and men, before my choices bent me back
and took a swiss army knife to whittle me away

i think i am longing to be clean
to be over to breathe and not feel the strings
the way my voice splits into a rank of pipes swelling into a hundred  voices and he only hears a few, i am many
longing to be one, he cannot twist the drawknob
because I am already filling the cathedral in the words of
Stravinsky, the
                                m onster never b r e a t h e s


and I feel like i never have
i am earnest to fill my lungs with air instead of water
join the present, but the Welsh knew me too well,
the portuguese, saudade and the Germans, sehnsucht
put a letter to the things that can only be described in paragraphs or tears or indeterminate intervals of time sitting on his bed while he showered, all the doors slammed, empty coffee cups,
clogged sinks, unswept floors, long drives,
shots of whiskey, withering glances held on tension and
te amo mouthed across the room--

we wonder, can we be reached?  wrought? touched.  found.
in our deepest hearts, wounded mysticism, an untapped sense of joy that can be lanced and spilled, I am wistful, anxiously waiting to be siphoned,

Hiraeth.

i once wrote about
men in California
weathered men, crust of the
earth, salt-soaked docks off the shore
with leather sewn into their backs and
hip bones made of steel and exhaust pipes
that smell of chicory, sweat and cayenne
who dip women by their neck, never sleep
never eat, only feast and when the wind
blows they
leave.

I think it was the spring
before sophomore year in
high school, a prelude to the
best and worst but I missed
that footnote. The previous
night was nice where romance
had intervened if at all possible
for 14 year olds. I should have
understood that devils come
at all ages in all seasons but
the stars beckoned summer
and your parents didn't know
and this was the first time I'd
ever been so secretive. Wasn't
until now I'd realized you have
always been a limit pusher, I
didn't understand then, when
you asked to stick your hand
down my shirt. I cannot call
myself stupid for being young,
but let's call it a lapse in morality.
you frowned, pulled back and
told me there was nothing there.
It has always been the smallest
things said that have injured me
the greatest.

so much depends
upon

the simple school
grade

dashed with red
marks

beside my limp
fingers

I would like to
go to that place
where you are
in the sun, where
we are maybe like souls
without bodies
stolen in the wind

I can't stand not knowing
when you don't speak and
i am unsure what you are
thinking when you're quiet
when you don't answer my
questions directly you wait
till later and at that point I
do not even remember what
i had asked in the first place
you make this funny face at
things I say so i rephrase and
stutter because i assume that
I sound stupid or naive or any
other kind of adolescent feeling
then i have this instant urge
to spill all these thoughts at
once let the floodgates break
and dump all my psychological
waste on you but i have to
remember that that is what
drove everyone away in the
first place so instead...


So instead, I remain silent.
I watch your fingers and watch the movie.
With all these thoughts rampaging through my mind in a single sentence.
Whichever relationship made me afraid of talking, I'll never know.

if you've ever been heartbroken or
any kind of broken over the small things
the things people tell you in their car
or on the couch, or the words they speak
in their silence when they listen, in the dim lights of
the city when you say nothing
and hurt over what has been said
because it's like somehow,
some way, everything in your life manages to
become a soppy convoluted bucket mess
and your happiness ebbs away in thick drumbeats
so it's all you can do to play with your  hair
wait till he drops you off,
although you won't cry, you don't know where to cry
the solitary atmosphere of your room is too familiar
you're starting to associate the lack of comfort with
an empty space, to a drop or two of salt
after the door closes you'll sit and wonder
what to do,
what to do
you don't know what to do.

I wish someone
would sketch
me in, a sienna
thought with
cornflower blue
edges, during
coffee, chai tea
and bagels.

I've always been nervous
not loud enough to say how I really
feel about this or that. OCD about strange
things like sugar packets and cups on the table
and gradients of tea. I could stand up for other
people but never for me. Always been quiet about
the things that matter and the things tattooed on
my heart like that bird on your arm.  The things that
speak to me in the middle of the night like knocks on a
door, Knock, Knock.  Wake up at three am because God
is yelling at me, but I can't tell any of YOU that because
of the bitterness locked in your chest and there's bitterness
locked in mine. For all this anxiety that I feel up in front of
this crowd, You all make me want to not say things out loud
Because as much as any one of you say you accept all things
you have never once accepted me. And I'm slapping pavement
with bare hands in the middle of the night, red callouses from
holding on too tight, begging for a way in when I'm only ever
gonna be left out because you've water-hosed me from your bathroom
tile like old chunks of grout. I've always been too nervous to say how
I really feel, because my God scares people away.

So here I am too afraid to look off this piece of paper because my voice has never been
above a whisper, and I'm too afraid to see any of you up close and personal,
a shake that no public speaking class could ever fix, because these tremors
are more like heart quakes, and all your demons are hitting my st-stutter
buttons, who ever said you weren't terrifying was a freaking liar

you
are.

Do you remember the apple cider?
Your house was always cold, every-
thing was always apples. I never
did get the matching triforce tattoo
with you and that is okay because I
don't like tattoos anyway. You didn't
ruin the Legend of Zelda for me, I
just said that. Remember to drink water.
Remember that everyone you ever meet
is responsible for their own feelings and
their own problems. Remember that lots
of things provide temporary fixes but
never solace.  

How about those frogs? Never a silent moment
until I yelled out your window and you lamented
over the amphibious life you stole with the lawn
mower. (I noted that I had caught frogs at my
grandfather's funeral).

Here's to your earliest memory. Standing in a hamper looking out
the window until your mom picked you up. Was there a bucket
involved? Here's to your scars, your split finger, right next to your pinky the red
on your cheeks, the rough texture of your triceps. That other chris in
kindergarten, Mercer? Did he steal your first love? Haven't smelled
your stomach for a year but I am pretty sure it still smells like
leather. Your hair, soft in the middle, rough around the edges.

Will I ever have enough documentation?

You taught me that tap water doesn't **** and that
all you have to do to make anything perfect is add
an egg or two.

Deep breath
Deep breath
Deep breath
Deep breath
Deep Breath

what you used to do with those fingers
i look for them in pictures
and wonder if it's you sitting in the background
is it you behind the jenga tower
is it you behind that camera lens
yes, I used to say your name in
many intonations, many lungfuls not wasted
but they are wasted now, every time
is it you behind those blocks in that
black sweater, yes I remember you
from so long ago when
you used to say
i love you brooke