we are in your car
and I ask to play a
song, you ask if it
is good quality and
I am on the plane
giving a little smile
to a book unsure as
to whether or not I
am still in love with you.

A room full of names
scratched from the walls
or peeled back in layers
leaving white spots on the
trim, but this vine winds
and never wavers and although
occasionally it is mislead down the
drains it finds its way up the shutters.

you gave me a list of everyone
you'd kissed, not arbitrarily--
I'd asked. The way you ask
where the bathroom is or
for a glass of water, but
you sent me a full directory
of names, a rolling file of
women I didn't know but
would rake through the
similarities and try to define
your tastes, blonde, blonde...
blonde

When I asked you how many
people you had slept with, I was
lying on the floor picking at the red
threads in my carpet while you rolled
your heavy palms into my shoulders.
you stilled for a moment, sliding down
to the base of my hips

I dunno...five? Or ten...
I laughed and you loosened.
Well, I mean...define sleeping with.


to me there are not many definitions for
one thing, there are synonyms for *** but
none of them you really need

Just four, then.

What happened to the other six? Were they only
kind-of-sort-of's? if you didn't really feel them, did they ever exist?
if a tree falls in a forest and no one is around hear it, did you really sleep with her?

Later on you would casually mention that you were worried that's how I really kissed as if a peck could dictate a whole eight years of
kissing--and I was kind of offended. But then there's that list, the list of
all the trees in the forest that fell and the six that went missing and i think about how I can count the number of people i've slept with on
my pointer finger and how perhaps that doesn't even apply, do you pump gas for twenty seconds before the girls at the counter start crying?

suddenly there are experiences that you
have stamped into your belt and none where i've pretended to be
full of lusts and talents and shortcomings
really I'm just a baby, a wisp of cotton
yellow, so yellow
and you're a full bag of burlap and wire

this is not a false
happiness, my
pores open and
drink the sun

there was a wasp
outside the coffee
shop earlier this
morning trapped
in the cold, splayed
out between some
bricks, and I nudged
him with my toe,
wondering if i should
crush him or if the sun would
bring him back to life, despite
the irregularity of his nature
and I thought of you, often
lost and trapped in the cold
how I couldn't bring the sun
it just had to rise, so I stepped
aside and went to work.

I remember we once
watched a lifetime movie
and someone slept with
someone, but it wasn't
the right person, (it was
dark) (and unrealistic)
I asked you how you
would be able to tell
it was me in a dark room
and you thought for a
moment and then said

well I'd look for the scar on your
back

and I was confused because there
was no scar on my back. But you
pulled my hand and placed it there
and there it was. No wider than a
dime.

And you smiled again and said
that's how you'd know it was me.

for new years
in 2011, we
played twister
with your family
with drew, who
suffered intense
migraines and
your parents
back then--
i danced
through
your kitchen
while you were
out, while your
parents were gone
and I watched my
reflection in the
darkened windows
twist through the couches

don't listen to the things
he says he'll never do
because circumstances
change and emotions
often run
high

i ran away today
I guess that's a cliche
but I did; got in my
car and drove two
hours to Colorado
Springs because
I couldn't stand
my own thoughts
got out amongst
the people so I
could hear
theirs instead

for the first time
I was a little scared
to go

home.

my fingers never warm up
and you joked about how
cold my heart is,
it must be so cold in there
so I asked if that's the way
you deflect--because every
time I tried to care for you,
you'd mock me.

I felt like your world
wasn't all inclusive
i wasn't a shiny stone
in your rough, just a
***** in a fenced
garden, a breeze in
your wild storm--
but I found what
usually is at the
heart of a tornado--
eery silence--and you.
stripped down and
angry, a self-made victim
shouting you made me do it.

But was I there, Peter Pan?
Did I make you do it?
did I weasel into your
head and take you
hostage? Did I rip
you away from
Neverland, shed
light on what
was never
magic?

I want to, so I won't
I'm not good enough,
I'm sorry,
eh, it's alright.

How easily
something
becomes so

foreign