Perhaps it is not made for me—
I’m afraid if happiness ever prevailed
to settle upon me it
might be swept away suddenly and
without warning

I have feared that my entire life;
every small joy I have gripped with
the hands of a child
it’s tendrils curled in the web of my
fingers, rare as Vigné a Farinet
fleeting,

Always

Fleeting.

We sat on the fallen tree by
the stream, behind the library guarded
by wisdom, I guess it was
a funny situation but I told you
straight faced that she was
there before me as if it were 6am
holiday shopping and she'd bought you
first

the water in
the bird feeder
is frozen.

all my photos are in his passenger's seat
these black and whites of him singing
and talking about the wars he has and hasn't
been in, navigating Penrose like he walked
these roads a thousand times before he ever
took a truck--

and he know everybody's name, date of birth
and probably their social, who died and when--
he's been livin' as 14 other people,
never gets no space and I'm no respecter of that
neither cause the way he looks at me used to
scare me and now I know he jus' scared himself.

saw it when he told me about Braun's body
in the brambles, and in the letters he gets from
past lovers full of jealous jargon-- you made me
feel terrible,  your fault, ending in a hundred
goodnights, she wants the last word and all I want
is for him to tell me what he's thinkin' when he's angry


'cause he is angry, with bitterness sunk down in his bones
and swimmin' 'round in his chest, he lost weight out at the rig
but kept all that melancholy to himself, brings it home and
drops it in a glass before taking it back in


he asks why I'm lookin' and it's just 'cause.
Just 'cause i'm looking at his eyelashes while
he sleeps or the lip of his brow hidin' eyes a lot lighter than you'd think, committing the eagle on his back to memory
with that scripture from Isaiah a ways off in my head,
scrawled on the back of my heart,
written at the crown of his spine,


I used to wonder about the integrity of his skin
if water'd seep through or run off, used to think
he was made of wood with rice paper shutters--
but he's a mountain, a snowcapped alp
you wouldn't know it from a ways off,
when he's just a soldier standing out
in the field, shoulders hunched, chin tucked
breathin' cold air, but Lord he warm, fierce as the
mistakes he runnin' from--

we both beggin' to be right
or good enough, for the sunlight
to make us into somethin' pretty
somethin' new and shined--
but for now i'm takin' pictures shotgun,
hiding my fingers in my pockets
thinking about the way his voice'd
prolly blow in on the curtains on a
summer's day, and he's singing
My love, is somewhere in that mountain....


*my love is somewhere in that mountain

should stop using
the past as artilllery
all the things you said
were alright are spent
bullets and hurling casings
doesn't do as much damage
as you'd like.

In June 2013 I made fun
of you because your beard
was scraggly and patchy, but
you smirked and told me to
wait until your birthday,
because by then it would
be there. Well, your birthday
has come and gone and I anticipate
your pictures on instagram waiting for
that cold to strike me down, but you really
do have a beard now.

that white floral perfume
by michael kors reminds
me of the day we scaled
the abandoned house
down Picnic Point Road
and I took pictures of
Kaitlin framed against
the red flowering currants

We found the beauty in careless
graffiti and marveled at the way
the sun sparkled on the charcoal
shingles. That summer we buried
ourselves in orange honeysuckle
and irrationally proclaimed our
friendship (that never lasted)
but i remember sitting
on the roof with you.


I remember that, amidst
the evergreens.

My mother said
what's in the heart comes out the mouth

it wasn't necessarily a curse
at least i don't think of it that way
but by default I hear everything
as the truth, or some form of it
those words wrapped around your lungs,
threaded up your esophagus
laid out across your tongue
every time they speak
i'm wondering why they
say the things they do

you didn't deserve my mother's
kindness, much less a grain of
salt, were she to bother with
you ever again.

truth is
i'd prolly
still pull your
coat strings, kiss
you if you showed
up but we both know
you won't,

push off your hat
tell me you don't want
to hear my heartbeat

tell me you don't
want that.

so much depends
upon

the simple school
grade

dashed with red
marks

beside my limp
fingers

the problem is i know
you so much better,
you've got a lot of
that real hurt, with a
ghost swimming around
in a shell,

with a mama you love
'cause she gave you that life
and played in the mud, gave
you the ol' one-two when it
called for it, (or when you didn't)
and a daddy who never had to
say much which is where you
got that hint of altruism,

but you still found yourself
raising a brother, lookin' out
protecting the property,
growing up too fast with
no one understanding,
taught to rely on a good
team member or a good
fight, the good fight,

but you've got more than
a pass waiting on you, more
than pretty girls at bars, crashes
on bikes, nights full of stars,
all those ways your mom didn't
pull through or pull in, and i hope
you find them, i hope you find all of them
every good and pure thing out in the day
and i hope whatever's in your heart gets a
good chance to breathe and that  no
one find you in your time of change,
just after when you're healed up
and pretty,
not that you haven't been

'cause you are kinda pretty.

He's tapping on the hardwood floor
to draw me out of the cracks, the
slender peels of sun stretched down the
hallways, arcing across the patio,
the way hard working men
rap their fingers against the walls to find
studs, stick pocket knives in the frayed wood
beneath the house--

shakes me out of the sand, viciously vibrates
me into his palms, tears me from
deep considerations
where i've already grown
where my roots have struck out
in all directions, says not in this place
not in this soil
not in this way

and I go where he pleases, kicking or
weeping, sometimes with ankles smarting,
raw from the whipping

not this place
not this soil
not this way

Indian brave, treetop advantage
apple juice lips, palm to palm on
the swings as we breathe in bold
letters and speak in a five point
font, quietly because we're older
the kids should not know about
the lemon tea ways of age and
wisdom, so we muffle our voices
in damp scarves and admire the
way we used to be

I don't have time for these water regrets
and I've troubled those seas with my weary
old nets

My dad said
there was
a hole
and the girl
was the grain of
sand
but i feel
like a canyon and
the wind hollows me
out

there is a lot on my mind
so much so that i end up
rubbing my cheeks every
second as if my thoughts
are seeping out my pores
I am caught in this place
where people do not talk
reduced to leashing me
place to place, sit here sit
there, expect me to obey
no questions asked, dog
but I have loads of questions
the questions are pouring out
soaking straight through my clothes
i'm swollen with questions, filled to the brim
If i had a hundred hands, a thousand hands, they'd all be raised
all in your face, all strained, ready, how is this for compliance, how is this for crazy?
am i crazy enough now?
am i?

Around that time is when  you told me
I prefer pale skinned women
as opposed to me, I'm a little bit too olive for
your tastes, atlas shrugged and geometric circle
tattoos
I would get a heart, right below my thumb
how juvenile, you're thinking

and you described your father's death behind your house,
how Wendy's voice broke your silence, but you
were so calm and that night you made Basil Palmiers, a little
too flaky, with a cigar amidst the coroner who spoke
hush hush

as if you couldn't take the news, a devastated son cooking dinner,
the wine,
magnificent.

could I speak wonders like you
something out of Perrault's stories
could there be diamonds?

i've never wanted to
haunt a thing less--
when you find the
house is full of
ghosts and ghouls
faceless creatures,
and you're another
cold wind or chilling
touch, much as you
don't mean to be,
sometimes you
gotta just break
chain and go,
you're not
much of the
phantom type
anyway, meant
for warmer days
or a means for
such on brisk
nights.

i keep tellin myself you don't have to
feel that way, you just gotta find the
right thing, the right song, the right man
and every time I've been on the couch
at the fair, on the floor with
an arm draped around me
and his fingers tracing bittersweet
intentions on my side--
I'm thinking of the  back of your head
of you fingers with the cuticles you never pushed back
of the birthmarks beneath your arms
and of a girl's body that i've never seen naked

because i collapse in on myself and say it's not time
and scientists say that black holes are things from which
light cannot escape but
I am going to let it matter
so when he leans in for a kiss
and i see your hands on her hips
shoulders bunched up in the cold
you're standing out in the snow
truck growling in the driveway
I say it's okay,
i am not out to
bandage the wounds
that need to breathe
I told her I am just
going to let it hurt


i am just going to let it matter.

I dream of
romances
with every
face I see

that old song by
eric church still
makes me hurt

anything that
moves, the green
grass and the trees
turnin' colors, I'm
sittin out on the porch
beggin' them leaves
not to fall,

I'm not ready
I tell them, what new
girl's soul have you settled
in, made your nest in the
rafters like I did in your ribs--
you remember,
girls like me

girls like me.