chiffon and cotton tap dancing
breathable measures in plaid and plain air
i'd rather taste bluberry buttermilk pie
and not know that i'm alive
than fill my nose with burning fumes
of rising seawater and philosophies
how foolish to know anything at all

You cling to God like he will save you
But he will only tuck you in
to the bed you made of filth and sin

the stars are mangled with my breath
i inhale and exhale dizziness

In the loss
Do you grieve numbly
Or with the weight
of each day
each year
Each moment
That was ripped from your clawed hands
tight enough to spasm your muscles
tight enough to leave your forearms aching
tight enough to retract into your skin
crescents in your palms
but not tight enough to keep hold,
not tight enough to save anything beloved

do you grieve numbly

Anything you could give me,
I already found on my own.
I know you tried to call,
But I was already halfway home
Too out of touch to answer the phone

The siren sings her lullaby
Pulls me by my hair
I reach for the surface
Kicking, screaming
She drags me under
Bleeding, Dreaming

In bottles of Prada perfume,
I am with you.
In the symptoms in my body
That will only confuse my mind,
I am with you.
In a shady grove littered with stones,
I am with you.
Sugar and Cola and never growing old,
I am with you.

We're all wondering where we went wrong,
Thumbing through our files
And putting old records on.

Did we spend too much time on the road?
Are the lines we dread the ones we wrote?
Would it have been easier if we had considered
Growing old?

No love is little,
even if it was short lived.

I can still remember the smell of your hair
Juniper and cypress
I loved you to death

If I feel the dread sink any lower in my stomach,
I might shipwreck,
Still so dizzy from the mess he left

He requires less sleep than I,
Brighter Eyes
And at the very least,
I kept myself alive to meet him.

It is not to abandon reason.
It is not to rip through calloused leather;
If it is a release,
It is an exhale.
Truth, in any realm,
Is not to wrestle with my conscious.

Can we honor the life that comes
Without honoring the life from
Whence it came?
When life becomes,
Is she the widened legs of shame?
For my own mother made me
As an extension of her own pleasure
I owe my blood
To her sexuality
For hers is the life
From whence I came.
And when we hold a child with high regard;
Revere the blood that pushes it veins,
Do we give the honor to its own heart
Or do we thank the blood
From whence we came?

I heard you passing out sincere apologies
Hoping one of them would get around to me
I lie awake at night
Without you on my mind
But I have four years worth of excuses
If you would say sorry
I might find a place to store them

Breaking clocks
That's what it feels like
Even when I'm with you,
I wish it were still seven am so I could curl under blankets and feel comforted and weak
I like flying kites
I like picking wildflowers in varying shades of mustard hues
I like resting on the pavement of a church parking lot
I like being with you
But my body feels old and tired
Even wintry kisses and hot chocolate runs
Fill me with dread
I'm afraid of the changing seasons,
Sacred of old cafes giving up and becoming shimmery, glistening electric complexes
I'm afraid of Virginia,
Afraid of everything that isn't the great Tetons
Or old faithful
I'm afraid of being alone
Being without you
Being with you
Being anywhere but hiding on my bathroom floor
As the thunder shakes the ground I rest on,
I wish I were running freely under open skies
I don't know how to do anything but rest

I am made of moon shine,
Blue eyes, and mountain crests.
There is a warm, thick fog
Cleaner than stained glass,
The brilliance of an omniscient night,
An advocate for a better life.

I used to end all my prose in exclamations.

When I was a kid,
I would clench my fists
And tighten my jaw so hard,
the veins in my neck would buldge And sore by morning.
If I could close my eyes tight enough,
I could pretend I didn't hear the screams from down the hallway.

I don't want to end my prose in exclamations.
I want sprinkles of rain on my nose,
Not hail.
I want to lay in a field of grass and never once check my watch
And while were making requests,
I want to breathe in pine and lilacs,
I want to recall but not remember the bruises on my back.

You were mine, mine, mine.
I found you with hope zipping about,
Your eyes had energy,
A soar flare before departure.

I gave you the stars and hoped you knew
How to use them.

It has been eighteen months since your
Wandering eyes found change,
And your hands met electricity.

When I left you,
Your stars had disappeared.
You looked at the world with cold and bitter eyes.
Still, the moon eclipsed the sun,
And I was the only one.

If anyone is asking,
I remember being buried under bushes of leaves,
Arms outstretched,
Reaching for streams of dappled light.
I remember the glimpse of moon in his galactic eyes -

But we bend toward the light that heals us.
So when I felt the pull of a greater tide,
I gasped aloud and shifted sides,
meristems beaming for softer light.

Marry me.
I've longed for you so long,
My fingertips swell
As they reach for something
Untouchable.
Marry me.
I'm shedding dreams
Like the leaves
On my ginseng tree.
Marry me.
As the quiet months pass by,
My eyes droop;
I fall fast asleep.
Marry me.

"Its a long story."
A story that is only his and mine
Unspoken under covers,
Hiding under the lid
Of an empty bottles of pills.

"He didn't mean to",
A mantra I don't trust
But remind myself
When my eyes are closed.
He is mine, and I am his.
He tells me I am important to him,
That I mean something
So when he tells me,
Voice trembling over the phone,
"It didn't happen,"
I stay on the line.

The first of April;
The epitome of spring.
I see the life unfold around me,
I feel the dewy green below.

For a moment
There's a skip in the tape,
And I see scraggly branches
Break up the sky like cracks in the pavement;
White, twiggy claws
Scratch at the Celestial,
Begging for air.

I feel the oxygen seep out
Through my dry, wintry skin.
I become the branches,
Scratching for life.

The first of April.
A raindrop greets me at my nose.
My eyes turn up to the Celestial,
I see the life unfold around me,
I feel the dewy green below.

And oh, the leaves on the trees
And oh, the leaves on the trees
I feel myself breathe,
And oh, the leaves on the trees

I believe in keeping my eyes closed.
For when the pain is uncovered,
And starts to seep in
When the secrets are whispered
By paper and pen
When the nightmares arise
In monsters and men,
I can look at each wound
And close up the skin
I can lock up my safe,
Whisper "never again".

I wanted to show you kindness
Because nobody else did,
But you will always be
The case I couldn't solve,
The problem I couldn't fix.
In a lifetime from now
When the issues are just a list,
I won't think of the million ways
You couldn't love me.

I'll think of the million ways
You did.

Teach my nerve endings to breathe,
That it doesn't always have to be
Static shouts from one anxiety
To another.

Teach me to set my palm on my chest,
That the warmth that fills my body
Can be enough.

Teach me that it's okay to whisper,
That I shouldn't have to scream
To be noticed,
To be loved.

I hate that my pain
Is so easy for you to dig
Your hands into
I hate that I write poetry
To spread as much good
As hurt you've given me
I hate that you can preach
About forgiveness
When you know more
About my body
Than Christianity
I hate that my life
Will always be a reoccurring nightmare
I hate that I cannot silence you
Because you are still
The blood inside my mouth

Chesapeake Ocean waves thump
In my newly-beating chest.
Above the madness of my memories,
I think I can hear them swaying
To and fro,
Like my steady heartbeat.

Damp winds untangle the curls behind my ears.
My thoughts steady on September,
Where I picture brick walls,
Sitting nicely in a plaid dress,
My mousy blonde braid
The only consistent twist or turn.

I am the only one without a ticket
to the cinema.
I am a hologram;
A mirage
Thinning in and out of old reruns.
Which blank window panes
Share any foggy truth?

I'm sure leather messenger bags
And nice wool skirts have their place
Somewhere in the anatomy of the past,
But for now my wristwatch
Ticks and tocks
And waits for a time
When my skin is not the same shade
As the dates on my radio:

A new person passing anxiously through her old life.

I want to live inside your velvet dreams
I want to conquer you,
Unravel your seams
I want pillow fights and pillow talks
I want to open your eyes,
Provoke your thoughts

I want to touch the raspberry clouds
and feel cotton at my fingertips.
I reach for the sky,
and all I feel is airy nothing.

I want to breathe in
and smell cream soda
and cherry blossoms.
I step outside,
and I smell airy nothing.

Pink.
Soft pink,
Sot milky pink
All around me
Withering away
Unworthy doubts,
Uneasy minds.
Blinking soft, careful truths;
I am kind.

It's easy to romanticize vampiric love,
The kind that eats at your flesh,
The kind that drives you wild with anticipation and hunger.

But somewhere in your midnight,
Love shouldn't break your skin;
Love should walk you home.

He's my everyday love.
He meets me at the brink of Maybe
And carries me back to Certainty.
He is enlightening,
He is lightning.

He's my tomorrow.
The time evaporates,
Leaving nothing but soft yellow light -
Slow dancing, shadowy silhouettes on my skin,
Dappled warmth,
Lightning.

In hushed breaths
He tells me I am safe,
And I am.

Whispered in a still darkness:
I can always tell you love me
When you'd rather wrap me in blankets of warmth
than allow your flickering eyes to be
smothered by drizzling rain,
Sealing them closed by morning

I want to be yours.
I want to be the light that makes you bloom at the end of the day.
I want to be the sunflowers on your bed sheets I want you to know that it's easy for me to love you
Did you know that?
Did you know that the only thing grey about us is the growing roots in our hair?

My heart is our hands
Tied in a knot; intertwined
Your hand in mine

Late afternoon
Train rides
I tell myself
If I could be anything right now,
I'd be fine

You stir the oceans inside me.
We just got settled into a dream,
And we keep falling deeper,
Deeper into the sound waves
As we play telephone through the wavelengths
Of our consciousness
I want to be the one to open your insides
And make them glow with the patterns of light
In my eyes
When we wake up,
I'll tell you the dreams that I dreamt
You tell me the hopes that you've kept
We will lay motionless until dawn

I won't be any fun tonight.
I know everyone wants me to come home thrilled to see them, crying at the gate.
But the truth is, I am waiting for my delayed flight,
I gazing out at the California mountains thinking of the night I first landed in Brussels,
how the trees and grass
looked just like trees and grass
and not like anything foreign.
I am begging the mountains to take me back to Europe
where I could see all the foliage
that made me feel at home.
The desert here raised me for eighteen years but I find there's no longer any tumbleweed that satisfies my need to belong.

I want mountains I want oceans I want valleys I want canyons I want city skylines I want tropical jungles I want beaches I want the Great Wall

I don't want to settle.

Ten pm,
You're brushing your teeth
In preparation for bed
Have I said I love you yet?

Sometimes I think if we were to hug close enough,
we'd melt into rose petals
that cover the dusty ground and
await the day eternity
feels more like a memory

If I could write everything I'm feeling
On the tops of the walls in acrylic paints,
Would the words drip down the wallpaper
In silence,
Reminding me that emptiness
Is only relative,
That whatever magazine cut outs
And indie band posters I've hung over the years
Can dissolve into the vastness
Of my memory?
That somewhere in my organs,
There's pictures of you drenched in
opera house pinks,
Van Gough sunflowers,
Georgia dirt reds?
That the paint ran down the walls
As quickly as you ran to me,
A four minute mile of I Love Yous,
Paint dribbled bursts of joy
concaving over the stillness of the pavement,
Blissful evenings where the wallpaper
Was hardly a bother,
Just white noise blurring the rest of the world so I could focus
Focus on nothing but you

I'm ready
Hands shaking
Blood racing
Unmistakably steady

Does it send shivers down your spine
When I tell you I feel purpose
Bleeding from the hand you use
To cling to mine?

Do you memorize the sky's particular shade of dusty blue
The cracks in the cement beneath your high top shoes,

Do you know how much I feel when I look at you?

The words seem to light up in my brain,
Highlighted neon signs
In dense yellows and electric greens,
A million ways to say the things that roam
From place to place inside the galaxies in me

The bright lights talk about the way you move,
The things I dream of you when I'm asleep,
How you call me by my middle name,
How you're always fiddling with a deck of cards because you need something to keep you from your nerves.
How I wait for days to pass until the time when my hands replace the cards,
And our ten digits make the difference
Fifty two cards used to,
And how soon, you'll hold my hand when you're nervous,
You'll hold my hand

He's an ocean.
He gathers my worried thoughts and tosses them to the breeze;
He carries me through bumpy waves and tempest seas.
When he's near, my insides throw themselves against my skin,
Just to be closer to him,
Just to be closer to him.
And none of it is tragic,
Because when I'm with him my heart beats steady in my chest,
And none of it is sin,
For when my organs need rest,
He lulls me to sleep again.

It's the way he walks, I think:
Always on his tip toes, like a child.
I remember the first time I saw him,
Sometime in the spring
In New York City,
I remember the lights in his eyes when the curtains raised
Our first time seeing Broadway.
I remember hearing his little gasps during the show,
And throughout the rest of my life,
I spent my whole life dying to hear his sighs.

As far away as I am,
I only want him to feel definite.
So until the moments in between time blend into the crashing tide of eternity,
I'll be there -
Scratching love notes into his back on lazy Sundays

"It's eight thirty," she says,
Her feet crossed and hair falling out of a braid
A French eight thirty means glittering lights
On the Eiffel Tower,
Street venders selling champagne,
Couples on the street corner,
Wishing you were here

when nothing is certain,
he is