Will you say

Well done

When I stand before you?

we're such slaves to neon signs
silent buzzing 7-11's at 2 a.m.
dirtier inside, these nights are
a sort of yellow tint, variation;
high. But the avenues are not
grey graffiti anymore, the rocks
come alive, the city never sleeps
and the streets are all knowing
creatures that take the heat, take
the feet, throb and glide, glide
scuff, panel, catch the curb
the streets are the only ones
who love our
shadows.

Why do you
need so much

proof?

I have learned
to find my own
love in the things
we used to love
together, I am
cutting the
strings one
by
one

February, I'd forgotten you
but I swear I didn't mean to.

I hate his sister for
not being a better
sister, for not                                   protecting
him when it mattered
but instead enforcing
the drug induced stupor
he wallowed in for two
months.

well i would
disdain 'gainst
the McCoy name
to prove just how
much quarrel has
to do with what
you mean to me.

Each breath
kept, a warm timbre,
piano chord behind
finches.

can you imagine
God scattering stars
like marbles.

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.

I tried to hide the
way my cheeks dropped
I could feel it happening
my entire face landing in
my lap, I didn't consider
that to be losing my virginity

I considered why I felt so hurt
and decided it was because for
three years you were my first
and now you're not anything
and there was nothing and
in the middle of my web
design class, I started to
cry.

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.

here's a theory:
burn a l l of the
bridges, because
you h a v e before
you've always stayed
to take a beating
but light a match
and walk away

i notice that I sign
every diary entry
and hold my legs
in bed, like every
page is a letter
and every leg
is a hand.

my heart
blooms too
late in the
season.

the constant
u n y i e l d i n g
search for flint, for
tinder, for a breath
to keep the fire raging
at least glowing, the less--
w a r m. Not just any man
does, but several could, for
a
time
maybe.
we women
with temperamental
baggage, the thoughts
are alive, we fear ourselves
often knowing the flammable
ones-- but we burn anyway.

The light you replaced
in my room has gone

out

you came in today
and your eyes looked
a little smaller,
and my hair is
a little longer
a little of just
about everything
happened
in me just then
and I remembered
i am not made of
stone.

Slow motion against dusk
cotton skin, strawberry jaw
steeped in chamomile with
cold water, goosebumps
made of

dew

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.

I glow
without
you.

There is still a place
in my heart for you
and I hate it
I hate it
I hate it
I hate it

Do you ever
hear music
in the middle of the night

Candace said:
all it takes is
one comment
one look in the
mirror, bending
over and feeling a
fold and i thought
maybe I am her and
she is me. And why
does it take a freaking
army for me to love
my body, in all it's
states and seasons
in the minutes that
it exists. If I am really
something like star
dust, valleys and
mountains then
why can't I
love myself
why can't
I love
my     self

How many
mistakes do
I grant myself

i remember
all your scars
even the ones
on the inside
the ones you
tried to hide

I wrote a poem about a lie you told
but instead decided to commemorate
you in a better light, probably because of
Paul Harvey's God Made a Farmer,
rememberin' you hoist a bale up at least
three stacks, starin' off into the distance
as you curled baling wire together, looking
like some ****  painting
probably because I know that if you were
out in the woods up behind the hay shed,
I might've mistaken you for a  wounded buck,
all caught up in wire, struggling for whatever's
left of you, with your antlers speared
through clumps of spinney--what a sight.

that even though your heart's in a different place--
albeit a different country altogether, that you are
your own state and nationality, even when your
pride is the biggest plot of land from here to Oklahoma
City--

Your chest reminds me of the helm of a ship, and in my mind
you're still an old tree, gashed and notched with chopped roots
that cleave the earth and ripple above ground in grey knuckles
of european beech wood. You try an' grow into whatever you
can and whoever you can, marriage ain't ****, just as long as I'm happy carved into your branches that I tried to smooth over as
gentle as I could without comin' on too strong--but, darlin', you
never wanted a woman's touch anyway.

Still beautiful as ever--your smile still'd be enough to warm my hands
and I wasn't lying about the way you stand makin' me feel some sort of
way, clinging to your neck and losing feeling in my shoulder
biting your lip hard enough to make you chuckle and memorizing
the specifics of your spine--
so now at night I might be caught thinking about the way you'd feel
if I whispered your name--

but you said it yourself that actions mean more than words, that you probably wouldn't remember something you said two weeks ago so
what's the use in me callin' you a prepossessing man (see also: imposing), I could write more about just your forearms and continue
comparing you to trees and bucks but none of that really matters, I realize. To someone who wants kisses and thighs and just
the outsides, you're fascinated by my spirit sayin'
you ain't ever felt this way, and I wonder why.
Why?

You're not into that kind of thing, but I am that kind of thing.


so, say no to me again.
like you mean it.
keep sayin' it.
keep sayin' it.
you had the answer all along.

my mom tells me to
be encouraged and I
want to pry my ribs
apart and show her
my whitewashed
insides, how someone
went and took a matte
finish to my skin, I want
to show her the average
diary entry from 9:05 pm
and how I've stopped signing
my name because these letters
never get to God, I want her to
sit in on my conferences with
the empty chairs at work and
listen in on all the phone calls
I don't take, expect my showers
to be two hours long when really
i'm just filling the bathtub over
and over and      over and  
            over                  over
over



over

that acrylic portrait you painted of
me is in the garage because it kept
falling off the wall as your ghost
moved silently through the halls
and unhinged the nails, you stood
in this room and opened the windows
blew the frames down and told me
to forget about you.

You told me  
the things that
comfort you
are when your
dad brushes his
teeth in the doorway
or scratches his back
on the door post. A
simple hug for your
mom or sister, and
yes, about me?
Playing with
your hands.

I am only
trying to
write you
down.

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.

I have anchored my ship
on broken docks and rowdy
children have set fire to my
sails. The water always laps
at my letters, you know
what to do, you know
what to do.

we downplay ourselves
because the traits we love
others may not and we don't
want to find out we aren't good
enough.

But we are,
oh, we are.

i know that i tend
to over-think the new
year, as if a single day
will change my entire
life. but you know, what
if. What if, and what's wrong?
what's wrong with believing the
new year will be the start of something
wonderful? Let me tell you;
it is okay to have such hopes
and be afraid of them too.

took a sip of
Pabst Blue Ribbon on the river,
kept time with his strokes and
stared at his neck an hour down
the Arkansas, even through the
rapids where his shoulder blades
kept me in check, where his goosebumps
rose and fell in the hail

i
still
care.

does your heart
hurt when you
hear of Colorado?

like mine does about
that tv show and new
mexico