when i was seventeen
after you kissed me you
asked if I wanted ramen.
In those days you were
always cooking for me
and it makes me wonder
if I am no longer young
anymore. I desperately
wish to relive that at
least once.

at least once.

there are places i
want to                               go
and places I want to
see oh please god won't
you grant at least some of
this wishes                  for

  me

I like (and do not)  listening to music that reminds me of you
for
one
two reasons

because it often leaves me ***-stranded on the blacktop in
the kamiak parking lot or dropping from heaven, hitting
the ground running without sneakers in a cold sweat on
top of Lake 22, trying to get you to sing and carving
my name into ashy wood while pine needles rain
down on top of my head. But also because of
cold apples--McIntosh candles that were
always lit in your room with windows
that were never closed, never closed on Weekends
on weekdays, in seasons. I've rolled in fake grass and
timed your 100 meter dash, of all the simple things I might
wish that the naivety could have been expanded upon so that
we might have enjoyed the trivial things for a while longer but
I can't beat the clock anymore, sneakers or not. There's no more
hartford in this soul, just chubby cheeked memories and the scent
of ramen and your mom's borderline vegan cooking.

Sure, coins won't leave you
but are they fleeting in their
beauty, will they occasionally
whisper things before leaving
I'm positive beds can be cold
sometimes, but isn't that what
we live for,

the possibilities?

out of no where this morning,
I remembered the scars on your
stomach and wondered how on
earth you made it through your
earlier years when they tied the
tubes up in your chest.

Chaz said something like, "she said
he had this weird thing about that."

and I still felt the inherent need to
defend you. No, he never did
You were much softer around
me, a closed wardrobe that
slowly creaked open, maybe
I pried at first, but you
did.

it took everything

to not call you in Albuquerque, let
you know I'm here, just know I was
there just know I was driving the roads
breathing the same air, that this was the
closest we'd been since april of last year, that
you could see me, that you could see me but
I was too afraid of you not wanting to see me
too afraid of the commas you wouldn't use
the perpetual boredom sounding through
your replies, the I don't want anything to
do with you and I told brett that you
were probably one of those people
who never speaks to an ex once
you're done and I was both
surprised and hurt by my
lack of knowledge by the
sheer amount of things
that i didn't know
about you but
you never ask
these things
because they
never
matter



not until later.

my dad speaks to the
birds in the evenings
while he trims the
grass--if you stand
in the doorway
hidden by the
cabinets, you
can hear
them
speak
back.

She's inside that house
stripping paper off the
walls, standing in shreds
telling me she cannot be
perfect for everyone

I cannot be perfect for everyone

I will take the caps off all the markers in the house just to see you mad.


but I also want to brush the
oils out of your hair and take
take pictures of your forearms
in the early morning light when
your veins look like streaks of
minerals in granite, I cannot
promise I won't watch your
shadow behind the shower
curtain, or roll the windows
up and down in your car
is this what he sees
is this what he sees?
I'll ask myself,
I can't promise
I won't put your
shoes on to walk
around the house
all over your clean
carpets and change
your spice cabinet
so that you can't
ever find the oregano
but what's worse is
i'll never let you
cook in peace,
is this what
you do?
I'll ask.
is this
what
you
do?

i want to be found;
a chest vase full of
forget-me-nots, trying
to be different in all but
my skin and bones that
are no different from the
others

i feel raw


i feel raw and hinged
dry and soaked in
oil, stretching through
day-old honey-left-in-the-
sun-part-of-the-earth-type
feel, closed in protest, open
for only some business, that
only some kisses business,
only this company business
with some Iron & Wine echoing
like they full'a cotton caught
in the dense brush, far off
in the night or in a body
that isn't my own

(for the record)
i only said no labels
'cause I thought that's
what he wanted--
he said
what's gonna change?
and I wanted to say
me
cause i was ready for the
title, the label, the documents
the deeds, whatever we wanted
to call it, with garrett hedlund
lyrics on repeat

*my heart is set on you
i don't want no one else
and if you don't want me
i guess i'll be
all by myself

His smile
reached
through
my hair

once in colorado
the stars looked
like cracked glass
and I still want to
share that with
someone.

He was like the thunder
8 miles, 7 miles, 9 miles,
suddenly, three. Suddenly
gone. Suddenly,
rain, suddenly
none.

I've asked so
many times for
you to put a godsend
on a train, ignited with
a passion for discovery
on wheels that sing my
name, you remember,
don't you? Instead,
should I have requested
a send God? Is it not
enough to act under the
assumption that I don't
even need the train,
that sometimes I hear
your voice in my sleep
but people always say
it's the thought that
counts, right?

let's go back, you   &    I
for a momentwhetherwe
are who we are or who
we were then, with your
scotch bones and my hair
in the wind like a hundred
p a g e s out of the bible,
you               &                 i
and the parts of you that
loved me then come out
to play, to feel my two
years on your two years
as thin as breath, thick as
all the words we left
unsaid, that fall like
spoons in empty cups
lost in the chatter of
apology after apology
in smiles dropping like
warheads, but our silence
overcomes the ancient fights,
strings and tangled veins
all my lies are in order
all the things I only
sort of
told
you


i have dreams about confessing.

i hope that most
of your memories
of me are awash in
sunlight, too bright
to see anything else

they say you should
fear flowers for they
grow in adversity,
adapt, and face
the sun, and
when we
were little
we ****** on
the stems of gardenias
like honeybees with our
nimble, sticky fingers. And
today I learned to ride a bike
with no hands and a sweat
plastered shirt clinging to
my spine, so, instead,

shouldn't you be afraid of me?

mom played dave matthews
on the way home and sister, sister
hummed softly while i considered the
things I never thought would
happen this year and the sky was
green and orange and blue
green and orange and blue
till it reached the mountains

This year, I actually feel older.

And furthermore, why do
I have to be so mean? why
do I have to be so selfish? why
do I have to say such awful
things? I really am horrible
and not even the worst
person deserves my
company.

over the summer
I had a brief romance
with a boy named Ty
whose tennis shoes
were six years into
a can of Grizzly
Wintergreen
on the Kansas
plains. I thought
about kissing him
a couple times when
he told me about wanting
to go to college but his
interest only went
as far as my arms
could reach, the
length of my
hair down my back
and the 5 minute drive
up Skyline that I never took
with him because he only wanted
to hotbox in my car to breathe his
past down my throat. And after
that, he told everyone I was too
much of a good girl and



left.

You are a vase half
full up to your thighs
so don't be ashamed of
the way your hips swing
full of wine, up to your waist
you're not a waste, only you
could bear the leaves that
you do.

I've heard that to be lost
is to be found, but I have
been lost for a while now

can you see
the candles
f  l  i c k e r
through my
sidelights, I
am trying to
let that light
shine before
them.

it's almost nine
and for a moment
I was at Ye Olde
Curiosity Shop down
by the bay, buying
grape pop rocks,
and you kept
asking for kisses
just to feel the spark
but your eyes said so
much more.

there are a lot
of flesh memories
(one that makes
me feel like a sea
anemone) but in
particular, the last
night we were together
and you told me to make
a video of myself to take
with you, but instead I
downloaded songs to
your itunes and just
now, secretly, I hoped
that you still had them
especially that one
by My Brightest Diamond
singing about how she has
never loved someone they
way I loved you.

I remember a
hundred nights
in your apple room
beneath ramen kisses

in this dream I stood at
the gated entrance to the
way we used to be,  a
green trellis shaped like
a star and the old house
where we were so often
was boarded up. I wanted
to call and ask you to lunch
but we had just been on the
biggest journey and it occurred
to me that you needed to rest
so I stood at that entrance until
the dream
ended

your old habits
die hard within
me.

your dad went grey
while I was away, you
grew the brown beard
he lost, your dad went
grey while I was away,
you grew the brown
beard he lost.

i have mistaken
too many things
for sin, and I
shoved them
blatantly in
your face,
my lack
of knowledge
led me astray

if you've ever done
3 sets of lat pulldowns
your hands cramp up
by the end and are freckled
red. You flex them awkwardly,
all ten fingers bent into little
claws around the bar, and the
skin feels tight as if you were
slipping your bones into a glove
too small.

but it doesn't last long.

each perfume
reminds me of
a time passed.
truly, i just want
to live in the present.

i drove an hour and thirty minutes
to drop a loaf of banana bread off at
your house and I walked up to the
door talking to myself like a mad-man
it's a  m i r a c l e  you didn't hear me--
saw your truck in the lot but didn't think
much of it, (you were supposed to be at work)

but then you were there--
with those eyes that can get so
wide as if I am the darkest thing
in the room and you need  a l l
the light you can get to take me in,
filling up the doorway with those
b  r  o  a  d  shoulders that sometimes
remind me of the horizon, like the whole
sky has settled across the slopes
of your body and branches
off to the sides, everything
goes on for miles like i'm seeing
something so far off--with that frame of yours
that always seems to pour itself into empty spaces--
you could be standing in the middle
of a whitewashed prairie and the fields
would still gently wrap around your
hands, fold you up in the dirt and
you'd still be the arrowhead i'd find--
and I just mutter jesus christ because you've made
me jump, but still. We haven't seen each other in two
weeks and all I can manage is a jesus christ, you scared me.

you disappear into your room and i'm thinking;
  "do     I     set     this     here     and     go?"  
so I take my time unwrapping the bread, crinkling the
bag between my fingers and stuffing the note beneath  
the sweet tea that I brought because it's been sitting in my fridge waiting for you--but you still haven't come back out so I head for the door, breathing slowly and chewing a hole through my lip.

you're already leaving? You've materialized on the couch with a rifle jammed between your knees, staring out at me past the rod you've got
poised at the muzzle.  I have the door open with the wind blowing in
these soft flakes that have started on a lazy drift, skittering in and collecting around my boots--I have one hand on the door **** and I can hear you running that tiny square of fabric through the chamber, fixated
on the barrel and briefly meeting my eyes.
Waiting for me to say something,
it's a split second--barely any time at all--
I think about how that navy blue shirt looks good on you,
looks like those cloudy ocean waves and you are the sand
riddled sea foam pulsing in and out--

I didn't know if you'd want me to stay, I whisper sheepishly. But I close the door and step back inside.