your parents
gave up too
early, right
when you
needed them
the most
and only
I saw it

Yes, That's where you
were, across a field against
a window, a bare chest with
an ungodly blue arm stretched
up your right shoulder, laying
untruthful fingers on your chest
and the light fell against your face
in blue shadows that lit when
lightening struck. I backed away
slowly because you were only a

predator.

But after that
I'm afraid I do
not know how
to love anyone

else

somebody left the gate open
and I am gone, past the fence
into the fields, in a blue filter,
naked and clothed in hair, snitched
by the call of a whippoorwill, ambushed
by tall grass and the merciless branches of
pines. Somebody left the gate open and I
am gone, yellow dogs peel from the bark
like old Cherokee tales and race my heels
with their tongues and big almond eyes



Somebody left the gate open.

I don't promise to drive away your doubts.


I don't promise to drive away your doubts as if
they were shadows and I am the sun rising up out
of your darkness, I cannot erase past lovers or touch
you the way they did because I have never loved someone
beneath the covers, in amber rooms that smell like vanilla and
chicory, I've never took hold of someone and felt there,  as
if the moment had been preluded by most everything in my life
we both and breathe and--

I would like to tell you that my love will be outspoken, but it will always be a whisper. A warm breeze that catches the hem of your
shirt and cools the sweat on your back, the soft remnants of a song--
the curious sounds that turn into music in the middle of the night
when the buzz of a hot summer sounds more like a choir, an undulating melody straying through the screen as if it never
meant to find you but it did, love did.

That I will not chase your fears to the absolute ends but approach them
slowly as wounded people, take their arthritic hands and speak softly to them, never recoiling from the faces of your past. Kiss your bruises and lay them out on the porch, every smattering of blue and moss green growing pansies in the garden--

  When you tell me  your secrets I will wrap them in lace and tell you mine, I will unbutton every layer of every girl i've ever been and show you the list of scars, the tick marks on these ribs where I once was captive in my own body,

I will not pick across your fields and uproot your flaws, I will sit beneath the trees you grew out of sheer anger and coax flowers to grow--Because your mistakes are not things to get rid of, only waxy residue I rub from the leaves with my thumbs, a better part of you that has always been there--that I'll move from the shelves and place on the dining room table, not for me to polish but for you to see--

That you are beautiful. That you refract the daylight just by shifting your head. That even when you are tearing into yourself in vicious rages, you will still be fringed in a splendid brilliance--

I will not take you by force, you are not an expedition, I am not a missionary. I will always ask, always from a distance. So hushed
and subdued,
for you.

I'm sorry I kissed your neck--
it was reckless, force of habit
and I have already hurt you

i sometimes wish
we had made love
so that at least you'd
have one redeeming
thing to say about me
but maybe I'm just
that crazy one who
told you she hated
you.  

is that what you tell people?

I
spend too long
pulling at my skin
in the mirror silently
abhorring my body with-
out which I couldn't exist, and I
wish I could see the beauty in the
way my joints fold and unfold but
all I see is the line across my stomach
and a decade of hiding at the swimming
pool.

in Nordstroms at the Cherry Creek Mall
in Denver, I tried on a gold dress that didn't
fit around my hips (but not many things do,
including your arms or your eyes or your
honesty) and the dressing room attendant
didn't bother to knock before unlocking the
door to tell me that this particular room
wasn't for me, and her eyes, particularly
her boho hat, made me feel like slime,
like a wet body bag, like a sweaty
creature that crawled out from
beneath the hot stones in canon
city and I eagerly shuffled out of
the hall with the gold dress that didn't
fit around my hips (because nothing does)
and the for the rest of the day I saw myself
fitting my skin over inanimate objects and wishing
I could be beautiful.

I don't want to make
this some unspoken battle
between who can be there first
who can see it first. Everyone
denies a game when they see
it, but even that is child's play
and I'm not a child
anymore.

Hey. Listen.


Can you hear me breathing?
my thoughts are in piano notes
I'm thinking up a symphony of
you. It snowed yesterday and
I wondered where you were---
not in any needy kind of
way, just a curious kind of
way. Can you hear me breathing?
it sounds dense and collected, my
bike spokes click in time with your
watch because there could be years
between us but there could also be
days or hours. If you would believe
it, I can feel you on windy days
when your readiness is something
to be desired. But so much of the same
can be said for me, s o  m u c h  o f  t h e  s a m e
because maybe it was never me waiting on you


but y o u waiting on me.

sometimes i
can love my
body from
t w e n t y
feet away

it's easy to stitch me up
but the truth is i'm still
popping at the seams
and this happiness is
a little makeshift, with
crafted motivation, i've
all but glued the glitter
on and i have to keep
reminding myself
that I no longer
get graded on
participation
this is all or
n o t h i n g

found my old
heart in a candle
from bath and body
works, could you
see me by the closet
hunched over with
my nose inside the
glass, because this
scent takes me
back beneath
the cold seattle
rain, a mist that
never settles and
clammy toes that
never warmed up
a cranberry room
                                         and a life so                            unreserved
without obsession,
I can hardly remember it.

i fondly recall you
as I take steps forward
and sip the new air:
an acquired taste
that I welcome.

They hung chimes in my soul
and told me not to make a sound

sometimes, when you're not
trying to save the world or
build empires out of the
mortar hatred your father
planted inside your chest
like a factory that chews
and spits and bellows
when you're not breathing
fire and dust and business
you're a little bit human
and it's nice when we
both settle into the bony
seats at the Skyline theater
when our heads fall to
the same side and
the world smells
like buttered
popcorn, fresh
laundry and
comfort.

Do you ever feel the innocence slip
away from every corner till
the last bit you knew was gone
the last bit that wasn't yours to preserve
wasn't yours to protect
wasn't yours to keep
as if the one person you tried to save
couldn't be saved
couldn't be saved
couldn't be saved

once when I was sleeping, I dreamt
that light flew from my cheeks in
golden strips streaming like lily
banners that fell upon the back of
a loved one, towards the ceiling
they shot off elsewhere into the
dark and it warmed the bones
beneath my eyes like a maraschino
blush and it made me feel as if there
was something
more to me
more to me
more to me

i have forgotten
that i am all sharp
edges with blunt
letters, that these
arrows are shot
with arcs but
s
t
i
c
k
in the ground,
sometimes I fancy
myself honey but
I am all vinegar
all salt, no soothe.

a voice said all low
and soft like a seed
not b e f o r e buried
but         found take
c o m f o r t  in  your
lowliness and when
i left  the spirit of God
stirred in the street
and moved amongst
the cottonwoods so
much like the brittle
trees that guard my
heart and shook the
leaves    from     my
branches--not at all
overdue

not at all
overdue.

I am a bit too loud
without trying, and
I promise myself I'll
stay quiet although
I never have. I keep
in mind the things
my father says to
me, that the wise
never seek chances.
If wisdom is sought
I have never had any. I am
too loud without trying, witty
around the edges, with a cornerstone
made of sand.

have you ever noticed
the way county roads
glitter, a thousand rocks
or beetle backs shimmering
not unlike stars, we've been
driving on milky ways, on
stretches of stars, maybe not
all things that shine, shine all
the time, they're there all days
all ways, maybe not all things
that shine, shine all the time.

the last time we
spoke with our
voices, i asked you
why won't you sleep
with me on skype? and
you nervously smiled, played
with something between your
fingers. i asked again, why?
I felt you aimlessly search my
face before you said, I don't
want you to see what I've done
if i accidentally roll over.

I hid beneath the covers and cried.
you said
[                          ]

i am rolled between
rocks, my everything
hurts

this girl came wanderin' in the shop
with slim hips and these summery
blue eyes, real nice, probably 23.

I've always wondered about that
study taken on by the University
of Copenhagen wherein they found
that blue-eyed people might very
well share the same ancestor--

how in the presence of this feathery girl
who looked like she might be hiding wings
beneath that brown leather jacket, I feel
like even the last man on earth would
rather dive into an inch-deep lake than five
feet of muck, only some people find pleasure
in wet earth

but lately i've felt as if even the men who
call me beautiful would much faster take
off for the sky if only just to leave the ground.

I don't want to know what you're doing

(everyone else does)
(and they like you for it too)

today someone told
me I have beautiful
eyes--and would you
believe, that's the first
time anyone has ever
said that to me?

i am on my
knees asking
all the unanswerables
how do you unwind
unkink, unthink,
have faith, have trust
in more than pixie
dust.

what does it
feel like to have
someone take you
as you are? in all
the shades of carob
that I have become,
toasted almond,
cinnamon and
umber, wet
earth and
bear pelt
the oils
released
when the rain
falls, and I am
separated from
the usual loam
I am still learning
that brown is beautiful

too.

and
as
god
is
my
witness.

I'm starting to
smile on my
own.

Saw a picture of
you today and
you still inflict
terror into the
heart of that
fifth grade
girl that
still lives
inside me,

Sierra.

and to this
day I still feel
that I need to
prove to you
that I wasn't
so
unworthy?
or so small
a cat
a mouse
a flea
stuck under your
pointer finger.

I crave the dens,
the brick caves strung
with lights where no
one is above the murmur
where girls come to leave
necklaces wrapped in lined
notebook paper (here, take
this, take this from me, please)
and the various spaces are lined
with a thick aroma of espresso
and the burberry perfume from
the woman at the table over whose
thighs could stretch across the atlantic
but ships could never sail across her
in the way you can't tread over hot
coals, climb mount everest in a day
or ask her out for coffee.

sometimes
i can see
myself
folding
in, they
say wear
your heart
on your sleeve
but I wear it in
my voice and
she so often
hides away
and gets
lost
sometimes
I even send
her away in
letters and
she takes all
the words with
her.

I see those off
gold metallic
chevy cavaliers
everywhere.

but
i'd
be
o   k  a  y
with
being
the last
girl you
had ever
loved.

i feel like the clouds reach
farther here, the sky is wider
here, the mountains are more
enduring, the earth is dry but

strong