When loved by an addict
you may run the risk of them finding another addiction in the softest touch of your skin
or the happiest gazes of your eyes
or the way your mouth curves into a smile

Maybe just your voice

When I think of my grandma, Bettie,
I want to know how she felt when the doctors plucked
one of her husband’s lungs from his chest like it was the petal of a flower
I wonder if she whispered
“he loves me not”
like we did as school children

When I think about the day he died
I imagine Bettie holding rib cutters over his body
cutting through his chest
pulling him open,
Plucking the right lung from his chest
saying “He loves me”

Before my grandfather’s death
I never saw Bettie smile the way she does now
I wonder if she walks with Marvin’s lung in her right pocket
whispering
“He loves me.”
“He loves me.”
“He loves me.”

To know you are loved by an addict,
You must see they have the ability to pull away from the substance they have come to love as much as the oxygen they need to survive-
But without asking them to.

I wonder if there will come a day
when I find a woman
that I would keep myself
on this planet longer for
try to save myself from the family tradition of dying due to substance abuse
Some nights
I drink shots of gin
1. “I’ll find her.”
2. “I won’t.”
3. “I’ll find her.”
4. “I won’t”
At noon,
I wake to an empty bottle,
But I don’t remember what phrase I ended on.

I am plucking away at these flowers
trying to find the petal that could draw me away:
It goes:
“Not this one.”
“Maybe it’s her.”
“Not this one.”
“Not this one.”
“Not this one.”

At dawn,
the flowers stand
with petals outstretched like they are getting ready to fly
every one of them is shining due to the glistening dew
I ask myself
staring out the window at this floral covered plain
what life was for my grandfather
wish I had taken the time to know how he knew
my tiny, brunette, curly haired grandmother
was the right woman for him
and how he found her petal
in this field
of flowers.

I don’t like how
hot
cold
empty
reminiscent
final
full
starting
this morning is
too easy
hard
open up an old book
it is never the same
she-
this is full and empty
I cannot find the in-between
just darting to and from
gluttonous and starving
I once found the in-between
held it closer than she holds hair
I straddle quest
I straddle settled
the only time we find the answers
is when we empty bottles
empty is just the other side of full
we crack bottles
over tombstones
they shatter
not full
nor empty
I am trying not to mourn destruction
birth
smiles
cigarettes
kisses
teardrops
I don’t want to capture
just earn
not full
nor empty
just be
I don’t like how
the last time we kissed
we were not cataclysm
nor inertia
I am trying to get back to her
without asking her to find me
not knowing how full our contents might be later
I know we’re empty,
pretending we are sailboats
filling out linens with as much misery as we can
calling it moving forward
in the corner of this body of water
I feel the breeze run through my hair
her fingers used to run through my hair
When the breeze comes
I tie the jib so I might reach somewhere else.
When I reach somewhere else it is
not different
from what had been left.

after you touched me
my confidence lasted
a full day

softly...
your hand was warm

it was just a brush by, really

and it wasn't even a soft spot

just exposed.


I want to mix with you still
leave cool spots on your cheeks
softly...
drip down your legs.

the air would be yellow sun around our heads

holed inside, cornered, focused
paper pops into my eyes
lines on lines

headphones in, beats in time

turn my head:
windows
and grays
and rains
//contrast with fake-warm lighting:

is the most beautiful awakening


.


((I'd love to go dance in the
rain, will you join me? Stare straight up
and get that freshly-drizzled feeling
in my fingertips and
weight my eyelids
closed, happily--
motions: feet moving of
their own accord
            stomp
                      in
                         puddles
                   laughing
            into
      childhood memories --
I'd love to bring you back
with me))


a happy interlude
cues:
plug out
remember there's a whole world out there
grin
plug in

ex's and oh's
hugs and kisses
happy smiles
dreadful horrible
cheerful winks
subtle gestures
telling of
desire and passion
barely contained
restrained
then released
at which point
like butterflies
or their less
attractive friends
moths, they
scatter and disperse
and are gone
leaving only
bleeding hearts
chapped, winter-kissed
lips, peeling and
stinging as they
frown pretty.

i feel a certain sense of
exhaustion and tired and dead and dull and dread and
i wish i could explain
why its cutting and twisting and irking and twitching and
it's really not easy
to just write it off as
a thing
that we
all do
because
why not
our bodies like it
i'm not you and you don't feel me
you don't understand
this thing is a twisting writhing turning
and it is mine not yours never yours
so shush.

I'll explode and fan outward, touch
everything in the whole world because

desperate laughter is the worst kind

walked barefoot
thought you'd cut your foot
on the gravel
with a glass

saw the trees move
felt the earth's chill
warmed our body
my body
with yours

seeped and indented
the sheets beneath
sweat.
covers.
sleep.

but now its disappeared
all but a faint memory
is it even real anymore?
have I imagined it?

I knew the scar
on your neck
the wrinkle
on your face

where's it gone?
I dreamt it
you're gone
I want you to
dream of me.

Everything here is yellow and green.
Listen to its throat, its earthskin,
the bone dry voices of the peepers
as they throb like advertisements.
The small animals of the woods
are carrying their deathmasks
into a narrow winter cave.
The scarecrow has plucked out
his two eyes like diamonds
and walked into the village.
The general and the postman
have taken off their packs.
This has all happened before
but nothing here is obsolete.
Everything here is possible.

Because of this
perhaps a young girl has laid down
her winter clothes and has casually
placed herself upon a tree limb
that hangs over a pool in the river.
She has been poured out onto the limb,
low above the houses of the fishes
as they swim in and out of her reflection
and up and down the stairs of her legs.
Her body carries clouds all the way home.
She is overlooking her watery face
in the river where blind men
come to bathe at midday.

Because of this
the ground, that winter nightmare,
has cured its sores and burst
with green birds and vitamins.
Because of this
the trees turn in their trenches
and hold up little rain cups
by their slender fingers.
Because of this
a woman stands by her stove
singing and cooking flowers.
Everything here is yellow and green.

Surely spring will allow
a girl without a stitch on
to turn softly in her sunlight
and not be afraid of her bed.
She has already counted seven
blossoms in her green green mirror.
Two rivers combine beneath her.
The face of the child wrinkles.
in the water and is gone forever.
The woman is all that can be seen
in her animal loveliness.
Her cherished and obstinate skin
lies deeply under the watery tree.
Everything is altogether possible
and the blind men can also see.

If writing was a drug
I'd have a frequent-flyer card
at the rehab clinic.

The nurses would all know my street address
my middle name
and the way I take my tea.

I would have scribbles on the inside of my elbows
ink stains in my lungs,
and little letters hanging from my nose hairs

I would bribe the nurses
to sneak me pens and paper in the middle of the night,
My thoughts would be sewn in ink across my body,
and I'd have pre-ordered my tombstone to read:
"Here lies an addict"

But thank god writing isn't a drug.
Because if it was
I'd have died a long time ago.