my heart
toils at
night.

Winter stars are a bit
more dignified, but I
have always melted
underneath them.

there's this song by Fiona Apple

called Parting Gift and you looked at me the
way he looked at her with  h u n g r y  eyes
and an anxious tongue, you a l m o s t made
beer smell good, a bitter rush of   wind  and
sweet malt cologne    b    u   t     this bonfire
is too warm and something doesn't feel right
something never feels right, maybe it was
your 6th beer and noted sobriety, the 7th
before i left and whatever was left in the
truck bed in my absence.

i said my face is so round

and a little voice murmured
but so is the sun and moon
the flowers that face the sky,
all the planets that sit heavily
on starry thrones, have you
seen the earth? a l l   f  u  l  l
things inherit the land,  you
could plant gardens on your
jawline and hide n a t i o n s
under your cheekbones,why,
it wouldn't be presumptuous
to say the wounded could be
cradled in the dip of your chin


all good things are *round

we threw down
with clenches and
all I could think about
was how good you
smelled when i
hit elbows first

see,

when I listen
to the smiths I
see you instead
of Morrissey and
you are all golden
apple glow with a
crisp blue profile
a stark outline
against the
saturated
red fade
the mic
cupped in
between those
grand fingers
like a steel face.
how silly to
know you
never sang.

when you see in me
the store, outside of
public servitude and
are reminded of my
humanity; my smile,
does it stir you?

Hallowed, the boat
that brings me to

you

i stop dead in my tracks
when referring to their
house, because it doesn't
seem like mine anymore
but I'm confused as to
what really is a home
in the truest sense of
the thing because
I feel like a molecule
in a widening bubble
the farthest from claustrophobia
that I've ever been, there's nobody
that I want to see, and everywhere
I want to go, but like a machine I
seem to require the right environment
to function, so i'm canceling all my plans
ripping excuses out of the cookbook
missing the sun when it's right outside
my window, sometimes right above my
head--and this rug beneath my feet feels
more like the only safe place in Canon
everything else doesn't belong, everything
else doesn't          fit eve
                                        rything
else can't           be in the s a me room as  



me.

I'm equating my self
worth with beauty, with
how often my phone
lights up or how often
it doesn't, how smooth
my shoulders are, and
wouldn't someone care
to kiss me?

I'd rather base
myself on much
more.

the only diary entry
on the 4th of february
stating that I am a stupid
girl

he's only done
it a few times
where he holds
me in his arms,
tight like my
mother's womb
must of been.
how would he
know? But he
just does.

he just does.

he went south
I'm a little bit
north, keeping
my head above
a sea of mexico
and texas.

we're whipping through the backroads
without seat belts, kicking up the dust--
the Sangre De Cristos looming with chalky
crowns above the hills, riddled with fence
posts and battered lean-tos, homes with
green shingles and matching john deere
tractors--the mountains, the mountains.

you go around every corner like it's a straightaway
I still see you smiling at me through locked doors
cradling me like a baby bird and hoping I might
throw caution out when all around your heart
there's these warning signs on big yellow placards
glinting in the night.

there are a dozen thoughts, all equally crippling--
staggered images of you squinting up at me on
the hill above the barn in that wrinkled white t-shirt,
a gray murdoch's hat pushed high up on your forehead,
hip cocked out with your hands twitching at your sides
rubbing brake fluid between your fingers

brooke, it is pointless to you. That's so obvious to me.
they tell you to stay down when shot, play dead when
in danger, but i've been seeking solace in your neck
trying to keep myself from telling you that  I love you, feeling
it at the back of my lips ready to spill over, overcome
by your gentleness, asking God why, why can't I just
love him?


it's so obvious to you? that i've spent a  month telling myself that it's okay, that you're right, that you're harmless, that things can work
out, so pointless goes on ringing in my ears, clattering down the
airways into my heart where i love you still hangs loosely by a
thread, or maybe a rope, maybe an industrial wire ready to bring
the house down with its weight, a marble for each day, a stone, a
boulder.

county road 255 seems a whole lot shorter,
I'm preoccupied with the dry shrubs the color of verdigris, the color
of your laugh,  how i can't see through the tangle of my own emotions, how i really do want you to be the one, the one person that just happens to be right--it's so obvious, you said.

so obvious.

you are
still my
writer's
block.

unceremoniously
breaking up with
you because I only
half meant it last
time but for my
sake I have to
use my whole
heart on this one
have to use my
whole, my whole
my whole, my whole
heart.

god pulls me
prematurely

2014 started with
Brett's car breaking
down on I-25, 45 minutes
before new years, and me,
giving the bird to everyone
on the shoulder of the exit
ramp, mad that Joe ditched
us to smoke, (but we didn't
know you'd be so hurt)
(I almost kissed you)
(then told you)
and April was barely
a thought, February a
single sentence, a moment
of silence for the love I still
had for you drowned in 8oz
of milk and espresso
straight into October,
November, December
there's still no tree but
this house couldn't
feel any less empty
nobody notices but
I've tied my anchors
to the construct of
time and we're
weighed in at
6pm, stopped
the clock like
a Havisham
where do I
begin, where
do I begin?

I'm afraid I will
never do anything
quite as grand as
all the things
I imagine
you are
doing.

I am not in all
those pictures
but I am behind
the camera

does this make me present

I should tell him all
about how I am 75%
of everything he does
not want, but I need
to believe that I am
made with sea foam
with pollen for blood
with coriander seeds
and pomegranates
that to someone
else I could be
all of these
things.

he has an interesting
laugh and likes ******
contact to express his
happiness, he's a bit
lost and I don't think
he knows how much
I care for him, how
I think there's far
more to him than
dope and college
and that white
'yolo' he got
tatted across
his wrist.

No one ever told me I was nothing,

but they sure tried to sing it and write it in trees
and the dirt with their sticks and stones and my own bones
and when the words didn't hit home they used  my. body.
and. my. hair.  and wrapped each sinew of my muscle in
knots and buried me beneath sixteen inches of myself
until I could no longer hear my own screams just a
faint whisper of a melody, tell me--how do you
help yourself when you can't even hear
your own pleas?



Nobody ever said I wasn't enough, but their questions
suffused me out, and each action undid a button (or a blouse)
took out these flimsy plaster walls and flooded the gates with
sordid tastes and feelings I never knew I had, broke off parts
of me like grapes and popped me from the stems to put on
plates, and you might even say they ate
me.

in fact there be people saying I'm **** perfect, talkin' about how
there's something different 'bout me and the way I approach things
like they ain't ever seen caution, how I'm the best thing that could have
happened to them but that's all dry corn stalk and maybe it's just my fault for trying--in a completely non-piteous sort of way, maybe I spent
too much time hoping or putting faith in dime slots instead of dimes--

I've come around to notice none of my habits are inherently me, that music is just a page out of a how-to pamphlet on Being Liked and Staying That Way, how to buy boots and hope material possessions make it better, how to search out a crowd and ruin Wednesdays for yourself, the 10-minute sequence on Staring Out Windows on the 25th Brick and how No One Even Looks Attractive after kissing him.

No one ever told me I was nothing, and I never thought I was, because I am not no thing at all or not one bit--A conglomeration of others
certainly does exist, but who are they, who am i, and where do I
come in?

in the shower i stare at my fingernails
thinking that soon I will be in the plane
on my way home and the entire day will
have passed and I will never get it back.
The water is warm and I wonder if this is
how I time travel, by merely thinking of
the future. I tell myself I must appreciate
every moment or otherwise not think of
such things, but within seconds I am
hours away from that shower, then
suddenly on a plane, and soon I will be
in my bed wondering if this week even
happened or if i am just dreaming.
traveling. Only
Remembering.

What safety do we
find encased in arms
in warmth, in blankets
in sharing sleep, on beds
so close, the same to trees
who grow in bunches,
birds were kind to them.

Feeling beautiful
without the words
of another is perhaps
the hardest.

i have faith that i will
be enough, but will i
be enough for myself?

i wish i could love him
the way that I used to
I'm a yawn away but
the bridge is too high
on walls too long, I
cannot love you the
way i used to. But
at the same time
I cry out in despair
don't leave me, I'm
not ready for that.

I will
work
hard

two years ago you
kissed my cheek
and i posted it on
facebook. Your ex
asked for all her
things back.

have i tried for too long
to be a kind of graceful
i am not? delicacy with-
out the shoes, the eyes
Daaé, without the voice
so what kind of pretty
is a girl without

grace?

equate your self-worth
with nothing.

he acts like I never
saw the private bits
An Entitlement, he
is unabashed, to let
his lips hang low,to
know he could take
advantage of
me

i turned off the
fan in my room
because summer
is over and the
silence was
deafening
every click
and whir every
noise my body made
could be heard and
there you were at
11:56 in the
middle of a dream
there you were, whispering
to me

I claimed you in severity
in illegitimacy
how could I ever forget
that you were my father
before anyone else
I am lost and
you are the
only one
who can
find
me.

out in the
pasture I
keep my
wool and
graze in
the tall
grass
discontent
with the paths
that make no
sense, please,
find

me.

the leaves spin
in her wake even
when the wind does
not blow, even when
she stands

still.

I'm sorry I stopped talking to you for eight months
but If I had stayed longer I would have become the
type of person I never wanted to be, because back
then i was so malleable despite what you may have
seen otherwise. I am stronger now and i know that
is no excuse, just plain, solid, light-as-day fact, may-
be you wouldn't have done it the same way but we
all do what makes sense to us.

she likes older men
because Ty said boys
like *****, and he tells
me that librarians are
**** when I say I have
a full bookcase at
home, when he
says he doesn't
read, when he
ditches me on
July 4th to
get drunk
prays before
his meals but
says that he
would ****
my friends
if I broke
his heart.