i have gotten
a lot quieter
since the
end of
july
when we
stopped talking
and i tend to think
more. My taste for
theatrics has slowly
dissipated.

If all the world's a stage
and I am not an actress...

am i still your
rose or just another,
one of the many who
blushed in lieu of the
little prince's words.

put this in your wallet
you said, and you ripped
a dollar in half, I told you
it was illegal and you shrugged
just keep it in your wallet*
how many times have I
been over you, written
a silly poem about leaving
you, talked about letting go?
well, talk about letting go,
Chris, I can't take it out.

after the storm
he stroked my hair
back and told me
my pupils looked
like Tiger's Eye,
no, really
real soft like
he does best
maybe that's
why I let him
in.

how exhausting to
fall   in   love   with
e  v  e  r  y  o  n  e
to be wrenched in
fifths    and    sixths
to say you could but
know you c  a  n  '  t
and     rushout     the
way fools rush     in
your hair leaves a flick
in the door frame before
the house comes down
in your wake, and your
lungs catch the heat,
billow up on the cliff
side, giant sails that
bring you elsewhere
that take you far away
from the choices you
don't want to make.

i couldn't help
but do it--
gently take
offshoots and
cry, hidden between
sanctuaries
over the lilacs
i'd forgotten
how truly sweet
i am, not cloying--
imperceptible until
close, i am tired
of forgetting who
i am i shouldn't have to
be reminded of something
that is inherently me
like the lilacs off the
road, I am angry but
that is not a stone-cold
truth, I am not going
to meet with them years
from now and say  i am still the same
because I will not
I will bloom like I have said before
and will say again, I am struggling
and lost-- I can feel it in extraordinarily
deep ways but I cannot cry over lilacs
and be
as cold
as they
say.

coldplay reminds
me of your hands
ridged deep like
a cat tongue but
unnaturally smooth
at the same time.
And hooded lids,
that I liked to
draw, eyebrows
to rub and
stipple my
pinky with your
eyelashes.

to be is
affecting
in itself

I painted three
layers of gesso
over your sister
and drew me
how I want
to see
me

I drew today
and each line
didn't hurt as
much as I
thought or
maybe each
line hurt less
and
less

Why does a kiss
make things better?

upbeat music does
not justify bad
decisions

i am scared
he will blow
straight through
me, and i am a
fresh cut in the
wind, an open
blister under
water, I have
not felt this
vulnerable
in a while

(in the silence
he is doing the
worst of things)

(I'm afraid that
one day he will
say, I'm so sorry
so sorry, I did
what I said I
would not)

(but my fear is
unwarranted,
that would mean
that I wanted to
believe--that I
trusted in what
I should not)


so in the end
it's still my

fault.

how do we fall out of love?
as if love were a thing to
fall out of, you can't. For
being always kind, always
faithful, then what? If love
is kind and always faithful
then where in that same
sentence do I fall out? There
is no falling out, only things
that get in the way.  How
do you fall out of love, or
is it always there even after
you say it's not? Although,
I've never said It's not.
I never said it wasn't.

there are so
many people
whose pillows
see less of them
than strangers, I
would like to tell
you that things
will be okay
in the
morning.

This poem is called text her back because
I'm not sure why I reached out to befriend
you, but you taught me how to swing dance
beneath the lone concert awning in the middle
of Veteran's park at 9:00 pm.  Is that how they
do it in Texas? The niceties of i-don't-quite-know-you
and I'm avoiding telling you my age because I'm
worried I'm such a baby.

This poem is called text her back because I thought
calling you a blessing was a bit of a stretch for we've-
only-known-each-other-for-a-week, I don't know the
details, drowned out in nuances,
afraid of "I'm sorry, you
thought differently,
it was just a
dance."

tell me about the last
time he ate raspberries
off your fingertips, the
last time he stuck his
hands beneath your
bra just to keep warm
the last time he made
you apple cider in the
**** summer heat,
but it's fall and you
miss his sweat, his
bad breath, his
distaste for
sweet things
that you a l w a y s
forgot, and the kiwi
body wash that sat in
his shower, you've been
saying Jesus Christ lately
and you want to stop, but then
again, you still want to be the kind
of girl he might come back to.

So,
yes, I have waited
for you for so long.
But I will continue
to love you fiercely
just as I did before
i knew your face.

Oh,
He thinks
I am made
of stone

for about two years
all I wanted was to get
married and I wonder
at which point in time
did that change? because
all i want to do now, is
set off lanterns and see
the world.

unruly, swarthy, dark and
full of Spaniard descent, I
never looked good on your
side, not that I was a mexican
trinket, but all your new girlfriends
are made of cotton with bluets in their
hair, slender fingers that slip through
your ribs where mine always got jam
                                                                        med
I
am

falling
into the uncategorized, the
ethnic             gap
unraveled at the end of the
stairs

Letting go is
my head in my palm
something swollen inside
everyone is singing, strings in my ears
flag parade, i'm just like
wait, stop
wait, stop?
I need everyone to stop for a moment
for a moment, slow down and stop
you, over there, with the voice
be quiet
I need
to
think.

they say write out an sos
in the snow behind my house
got this livin' on the 411, what's
you're 20? I'm asking everyone
and i'm trying to get better at
cursive, I want to flow from
wave to wave but i'm getting
thrown round, rock to rock
it didn't matter anyway.
could have told me
to stop cursin' because i'm
dropping Jesus Christs like
no yesterday, Jesus Christ
where were you today? I'm
drowning in self-hatred, finding
grief is mashed potatoes, pinching
skin between these fingers, where's
this wealth in ****** freedom, just love
yourself, to love is to be loved, well
i insult myself to the point of no return
point fingers in the mirror, love. shaking
heads and sleeping sideways because i feel
the weight of skin i'm stuck inside of, a face
only a mother could love, barred behind words
from kids no longer in or of,
my life, god could it get much worse
i can't find solace in the things that used to work
painting pictures no longer soothes the pain, fields
of grass no longer hide your name, i'm lost in the
plains of isaiah, wandering the sand of achor, so
this is a door of hope? are you telling me to walk
onward? but this soul is distressed and these thighs
are worn, can't go a day without calling myself out
straight to the flaws i go in headfirst, lost all my
friends, self-esteem and sense of self-worth,
confidence is an concept i've only every dreamed of
so my mom keeps asking what I want for my birthday
and I say, happiness, a purpose, and a way home
happiness, a purpose, and a way home
happiness, a purpose, and a way home

I remembered the name,
one morning in the frost
after Neighbours where
fibrils of wet snow made
dewy gossamer templates
on my gloves, but I could
not turn to the next person
and tell them that, because
who would believe that I
had never met the Winter
until then?
who?

still too
afraid to
see the
life you
have
made

I've spent two
days trying to
wake up only
to realize this
was actually
real

were you to walk into
my life, you might smell
chai tea and sweet berry
lotion, I hope that would
be enough to comfort

you

I stepped on a plug
it left a **** in the
middle of my foot
and I saw your tattoo
for the first time but
kissed it, because I
thought that maybe
forgiveness should come
from the heart, where you
kiss scratches to make them
better then you shakily told
me you had another, on your
leg. I cannot kiss there, I thought
to myself but i started to cry
anyway because it feels as if
everyone has lied to me, as if
no one has ever told the truth
so I lament the things I have
believed

I am buried
beneath a child's voice
who s h a k e s when people
sigh, No, I understand
she tells them
I really do
Understand

I so often yearn for the brilliant freedom
children exude at the public pool--
in their Tahitian orange board shorts
swinging like mudflaps against youthful
legs covered in fine, blonde wisps,
girls in lemon sorbet one pieces
standing triumphantly akimbo
at the water's edge with small
protruding bellies for no other
reason than to be, beauties
much like wildflowers, lone columbines
or other pale fauna--

evenly evertan or milky white,
beet sunburns that creep down the sharp points
of shoulder blades, barely held in place by sheets of taut canvas
leaking water and blinking rapidly
beneath oily fingers smeared with sunscreen and diluted
peach creamsicle--fresh glass blades pressed and dried to
little feet as if they were pages out of a wriggling book--

slapping wetly against pavement so hot you could
swear the children sizzle , leaping over bathers--teenage
girls that flinch and scoff--as if they can fly and we are ants,
them, giants who we cannot touch. Whose droplets barely
graze us, whose enveloping warm wind we ignore or
reproach.

If we grow dim and colder as we age then these are still boiling, still
utterly reactive to any and every substance
every limb a curious proboscis, mercurial temperaments and
tiny hearts that flash like switchboards and wallop against
caverns heavy with discovery.

i put traffic
cones around
my body, pull
my own rug
out from
                                         under
me,
ten pounds
like an anvil
on a string,
153.43