Cautious and sweet and young
Strung high from the tip of her tongue
Stone shoes laced up to her knees
Heavy and soft like the soul she’ll steal
A wind in her waist
Dust, lust in her taste
No ones marionette
No ones Juliet
Willing the words to existence
That will burn the past of least resistance
A pink young tongue
Deep
She breathes deep into her lungs
Strung now so high that she’s nauseous
Yes still so young, so soft, so cautious

I think private lives are cool
And I would like one of my own

Where do I martyr myself?
I ask
And I come up blank
I listen to my mother talk to a potential marketing team
For her political campaign
Republican
And I find me there
The little martyr
Writing poetry in her Mother’s kitchen
An artistic soul
Poor artistic soul
Being so good
So humble and just
Looking so inward
Daring to challenge herself
Against the backdrop of oppression
Religion
Shame
Republicans
You see my mom doesn’t believe anyone is gay
And I am bisexual
She thinks parents should be involved in children’s education and schooling
And as a child she abused me with her conservative ideals and punishments
And yet
I love her anyway
Here is the martyr
The brave little progressive
Here I am
In this beautiful kitchen
Cooking breakfast from groceries
I didn’t pay for
In a house I don’t pay for
And yet I find myself feeling
Utterly self righteous
In my sensitivity
In my progressive ideals
Even in my forgiveness of her slights against me
Even as the so called forgiven slights stand up and wave their flags readily and say “remember me! remember me!”
Even as my records shout that it’s not safe to forgive
Because you see her personal views make me feel
Uncomfy
The martyr runs wild in the spaces
Where I forget my privilege
I’ve never known my privilege to be so great
As I know it to be now
And my level of privilege has not evolved or dipped or lifted a hair
But I’ve been given the opportunity to be aware
And I do believe I’m brave
But my martyr live on the extremes
My martyr lives in the narrative
Around my choices
In the narratives I fabricate around other peoples beliefs and behaviors and choices
The little martyr lays down and disappears
For now
I’m sure she will reappear and pick up her flag later today or tomorrow
When I try on a pair of pants
And marvel at the way I used to suffer so
Oh, how much I have overcome
To now enjoy my body and not hate every dimple and curve
I see that my martyr thrives not only
In the blindness to my privilege
But also in the agreement to recall suffering
It gets caught somewhere between
A decision to not suffer today
And a decision to always compare todays lack of suffering to the ways I have suffered in the past
Because agreeing to forget the suffering
Takes trust
Much much trust
That in forgetting I will not
Fall back into the familiar arms of suffering and abuse
But I think those days are past
I am brave and smart
And I know a good thing when I see it
No need to hit me over the head
Maybe the martyr dies a little more today
As I sign a new agreement to
Not suffer today and to also detach from past sufferings
With blowing breeze that tickles my back
On this late spring day
When all I need to do is enjoy

Im feeling many feelings
I’m feeling sort of tense
I’m feeling pressure to better
And feeling pressure to relent
To fall into my bodies rhythm
If I don’t I fear I’ll fail
At living the life I’m supposed to live
And doing what I’m supposed to do
Supposed
What a word
A sibling of should
Both children of pressure
Far off descendant of good
of dreams
And desire and visions
Im scared of my visions I suppose
I’m scared of the knowing I know
That I’m not a go getter
That I’m happy in the home
That’s I’m a creator and a lover and a dancer
That I’m an artist in every way
That I’m happy in the kitchen
And I’m happy on the stage
I’m happy writing songs
And writing scripts
And painting with paints
Money come my way
I’d be so pleased if you would
Land in my lap
So I could frolic in the woods
And this makes me want to cry
I want to be taken care of
And I want to take care
I don’t want to run a business
I don’t want to manipulate clients
Then the thought
That maybe I’m burnt out
And if I rest I’ll understand the grind
And I’ll want to be in the workforce
No
I don’t and I won’t
I want a slow life of joy and friends
And children and love and good good food
And my cat
And long hours spent writing in the sunshine
I want a private life
And public performances
I want a small circle of wonderful friends
Who know me
I don’t want to be tired
And I’m so tired now
Is it the eclipse or my period
Is it my dads cancer
Is it the pressure
I feel the pressure and I must step to the side
And let her fall on deaf ears
I don’t hear you anymore
Pressure
But I’ll lay here in the grass beside you

I lie awake at night
Plotting revenge
Im not sure I’ll ever take
I **** the meat juice from my finger
While I cook a messy spaghetti sauce
And miss kissing someone
I delete distractions from my phone
Only to watch hours of Hulu
And also to sit for hours in the woods
I respond to a text from a week ago
For whatever reason
The stamina now in my fingers to type
I think of my sister
And cover my room in crystal protection
I feel bad about myself
And remind myself
Not to feel bad about myself
I pet my kitten
And wonder how she likes this new home
She loves my mom
Which delights me to no end
I feel my heartbeat
Pulse in my toe
And wonder what’s going on
With my circulatcion

Is there anything as sensual
As the ripe, full grapefruit tree
heavy with that orangey pink fruit?
So full of readiness to be eaten
That the grapefruit falls with a
Wet slap to the moist earth below
Moist earth that feeds the roots
That alchemizes the rot
That supports the weight
Of the tree and her grapefruit

I had a dream about two men
And one of them was you
Another was a fantasy
But he left me feeling
Note quite used
Not quite blue
Not quite safe
Two adjacent rooms
One for me
One for a man
You were in the man room at first
We chatted during the day
I showered alone
At night we watched movies
It felt like home
*** was neither in the air
Nor nowhere
With fantasy man I undressed
Playing coy seductress
In the shower he followed me in
And though I’d invited him in
Suddenly I felt something quite akin
To fear
To too much
Too uh-oh
A man is in my shower
And his ***** is touching my leg
And standing tall
With a cheeky smile on my face
Rather than showing
The cringe
And the fear
And the trembling lack of safety
Coursing through my heart
Is all I can manage
I freeze
I give up my autonomy
But it was my fault
Because I never told him
In fact I told him come in
Then after that we laid on the couch
Calves and arms and toes bare
And giggled while we watched a movie
And that part I very much liked
The movies cast us girls to ruin don’t they?
And the boys do too
And the girls do too
And we do too

The first time a man came in the shower with me
I was a teenager
And it was scary
I wouldn’t let him turn on the light
He was touching me
And I was scared
It all felt washed in blue
And I was scared to ask him to get away
Because if he says no
Uh-oh
I was scared to ask him to get away
Because I was desperate to be
A woman
And I thought that is what
Strong women do

Anyway
I liked the part of the dream with
You
Where *** was neither in the air
Nor nowhere
Best

Though a part of me balks
At the thought
This part says
No! I am a liberated woman! I am *** positive! I flaunt my curves and men bow and I am in power and they kneel and they **** and I *** and I **** and they *** and and then after that we can watch a movie
With calves and arms and toes bare
Now that elephant
In the room
Has been had

But with you
Nothing needs to be bare
To watch a movie
And I like that

Well my dad has "a cancer"
And I suppose I want to write about it

I've just been to the chiropractor and
My beloved back ******* did something weird
Or I tensed as he heaved his mass
On top of my lower back to crack it
And now something in my right lower back dimple
Hurts

He collapsed on friday
Mom and I were home
It was a caustic flood of terror and dread
As we raced up the stairs
To find him
In the tub, unaware of himself

The screaming that ensued, the drag of the
Seizing, vomiting body to the floor
The wetness from his mouth
From his crotch where his body gave up its most basic functions as he left us for a while

Later he said he could still hear us
Screaming

I couldn't find my phone to call 911
I almost slipped on the stairs as I scrambled to the house phone

She was screaming "No! Estas vivo! Dios! Jesus! Estas vivo mi amor!"
She had her fingers in his mouth again
To keep him from choking on what was coming up
Even as jaw tightened and his teeth closed down around his fingers
Later I saw blood on his lip where
His teeth had clenched down on her fingers
And caught the thin skin of his lip there
Blood and bile on the corner of his mouth

I remember one doctor we talked to
Said she shouldn't put her fingers in his mouth
I tried to pull them out
Her eyes bulged from behind her glasses
His eyes lolled, glossy and crossed
The foam across his lips, the limp body
The tightening mouth

I realized I needed to call 911
I ran for my phone but could not find it
I flew down the stairs, nearly slipping on my white socks
Screaming "No puedo encontrar mi telefono! Mi telefono! Perdón!"

I wondered if the extra seconds spent
Getting to the house phone
Would make or break his life span
As I shouted "perdón", I clocked the irrationality of that thought
Surprised that in this moment
I had the wherewithal to begin to blame myself
And to also dismiss the self-blame

I found the house phone and dialed

Sprinting back up the stairs

Her screams were even louder
I was screaming too,
Who knows if there were words in my screams

Nothing strikes horror into me
Like the sound of my mother's gritos
Terror, shrieking, demanding he live NOW
That he come back NOW
I don't properly know the words to describe how she sounded
I've never heard sounds like this
Screams like this

Ratcheting terror, acidic piercing
It was not a wail,
Something in a wail has given up
This was a plead overflowing with fear and pain
While also a demand dressed in adoration and purest love
It was the sound of a child calling to her god
To save her love
The sounds of a wife demanding to her husband's
Earthly form that he STAY
The sound of a mother demanding to the child still living in this man
Invoking each of his cells to come back to her
Calling him back from whatever ether
She could sense him disappearing to

He wasn't slipping away
He was seizing and foaming
There was no peace
It was maybe the fullest sound I've ever heard
I'm sure I'll hear it the rest of my life

Then I hear the 911 operator
Her tone condescending at the screaming
My screams were guttural
I have no idea what place those screams came from in me
I'm sure having my mother to mirror
Having her fullness to echo caused me to panic further
My body that once lived inside of her
Heard that sound and nothing could be right
Everything was wrong
So I screamed and screamed,
Crying, guttural, shaking

The 911 operator said a few things and I heard her
I knew I could not speak kneeling there on the floor,
Everything in me, energy and body going out of myself
To these two who brought me to life

I leave the room and try to explain we need an ambulance
I tell her the address
Half way through the numbers
I hear my mother screaming again
And my numbers end in screams

I lean my forehead against the wall
I breathe slowly
And I explain the situation

Please send an ambulance
He's not conscious
Or is he?

I go back to the room
He is conscious
My mom is thanking god and holding his head
He is trying to brush her away
Feeling overwhelmed

He tells us he's going to stand up
My mother tells him no
He tries
I hold his arm and tell him no, you are not getting up
He says not to call an ambulance
My mother and I incredulous at his utter
Stupidity
The 911 operator tells us that he shouldn't move
He looks in my eyes and gives me his best death stare
I tell him no again
He stays on the floor and more vomiting begins

I grab a towel for him
It's not enough
My mother tells me to grab a plastic sort of square bucket thing from beneath a rocking chair nearby
I don't like that bucket though
And I don't think he would like it either
So I go downstairs to grab a mug
The 911 operator has become more sympathetic to our plight
I suppose now that I am no longer screaming in her ear
The ambulance is on its way

I pick a large flowery mug with a funny base and a round middle
My mom says it's not big enough
I go downstairs again and grab a bowl this time
I take it up but it's not right either

My mom insists I get the square bucket thing from under the rocking chair
I do
It's right
I go back downstairs
The 911 operator says the ambulance is in the neighborhood now
I cry a bit as she soothes
I selfishly take this moment alone in the hallway by the front door
With the 911 operator on the line
Soothing tones and soft "yeah, I know, that's pretty scary stuff"'s
Wash over me and I cry again
Telling her this is the second time
She sees that on the file

Out of the porch window I see the ambulance, I let her know they are here
She wishes me a good day and hopes everything will be alright,
I hold her well wish in my heart as I open the front door for the paramedics
They go up the stairs and to the right

My parents and I are slight people, we are all under 5'6 and petite
These paramedics are so tall and large,
Equipment makes them even bulkier,
They fill the space so completely,

I don't want to go into the room,
I don't want to watch him dismiss my mother yet again
When yet again it was her who
Beseeched, demanding, begged, pleaded, created
With everything in her
For him

And he brushes her away with a swat
Of his large knuckled hand
He's an old white man
She's a youthful Latina woman

Wearing pajamas, swollen eyes,
An accent giving equal parts joy and suffering to her words
Frizzy hair in a low pony tail,

The paramedics follow his suit,
They want to dismiss her as well,
They downplay the seriousness,
He downplays,
They downplay,
And she sits beside him anyway,

I leave the room,
I pet my cat,

I go downstairs to text the family group chat from my moms phone,
I still can't find mine,

My brothers are coming into town today
For dads birthday dinner tomorrow night

I text them them a brief synopsis,
I hear the paramedics upstairs joking around,
My mom is helping my dad change into other pants
In the bedroom,

They carry him down the stairs in a chair,
They take him outside to put him in a stretcher,
I say "I love you", he waves
I go upstairs to check on mom
She will be in a frenzy trying to decide what to wear to the emergency room

I tell her to put on sneakers
And that the hoody she had on was just fine
She is beyond frazzled
She has to change her underwear and get new pants too

I stand just outside the bathroom door
She puts on the hoody
Then throws it to the bed with the dramatic flare of whatever panic attack she is stiffling
I demand she put on the hoody
Grab her purse and go downstairs now

He needs to go to the emergency room now
And she needs to go with them,

She obeys

She leaves the house

The ambulances leave the house

Mercifully, I am alone

I clean up the vomity things
I wash the dishes
I put clothes in the wash

At some point in the madness my mom told me
To turn off the grill
There was a brisket there
And it shouldn't burn
I go back to the meat
I can't turn the grill back on
I try the same useless technique for several minutes

Savoring the crisp air
I feel a bit selfish again
Wondering if there's something else vital I should doing
But I realize that no
There is nothing more to do

I let a few juicy self-pity thoughts soothe me
I'm just a child (I am 29)
I shouldn't be cleaning up my parents ***** soaked pants
Calling 911
Cleaning his bile from a square bucket thing
Then I realize of course
I am 29
My dad is 80
This is what happens
Sometimes

Later at the hospital
They did some things they needed to do for him
He fainted from low blood sugar
He had been starving for a month or more
A growth in his esophagus
Not allowing food, water, even saliva to go down to his stomach
He had lost nearly 30 pounds in three months

He refused to go to the doctor earlier
In these three months,
Refused to be urgent when he spoke to the nurses or doctors
Refused to heed us that he needed to be seen immediately
But finally even his body could not resist his ego's need
To be okay,
And his body did what it needed to do,
To get the help it needed,
His body sent his mind away,
So that we might help his body,
Because he would not.

Now 6 days later I'm sitting in a Barnes and Noble writing this out
He's been released from the hospital,
He is home and eating again thanks to a stent in his esophagus
Next week there is a meeting with
The very nice oncologist
Today there was meant to be another procedure
But it got cancelled because of the stent
I am waiting on a call from the oncologist
Apparently she called us several times to let us know that the appointment was cancelled
But no one received any calls
I wonder what number she has been calling

We got up early this morning and went to the hospital
He didn't eat anything all morning and spent unnecessary energy walking around
He needs every pound he can get
But I breathe slowly
I can smell my charcoal and lavender deodorant
It's actually really soothing

Party in the USA is playing
I'm having a pistachio late
And right now, everything is okay

He is at home, eating some soup or something
Having a protein shake
He is stable and okay
It's all okay now

But it wasn't okay then
At all

And now it is okay
Which is hard to accept right now

I am exhausted.

How generous in winter
The trees show us their bones
Each birds nest high up exposed

They show us their ridges and edges
Now barren of leaves and hedges
Show us the bony way they trend upward
Some perfectly straight
Others leaning to one side
Others with curves and dips
Some heavy yet with thousands of whisper thin branches at their ends
Others evergreen
Others choking on ivy that has also shed its dressing
Some revealing their seeds
Usually cloistered in green
Now touched by the wind
By the birds that peck

For a third of the year trees are dormant
Reminding one of a cheesy horror film
Of Halloween
Some so hunched, gnarly and comedic
Really showing their personalities
All brown and grey
Or black against the sky of a new day
Fuzzy outlines looking soft from far away
Up close so harsh and jagged
Some holding onto their dead leaves well into the winter
Their lower branches sheltered from the winds power to lay them bare
Shorter naked trees their protectors
Wooden bone after wooden bone
So comes the promise of springs revival
From the dead of winter

These barren bones seem to whisper
In the crackling wind
See me, see who I am, see who I will be, for life is me and death is me
I am a tree

I want to write a poem
And I suppose I will write it about you
Your name is still saved with the last name Romance in my phone
When I think of you I think of
You pouring sugar into your whiskey
Before we went out
I saw you through the little window of your cabinets in that dim orange light
I think of running around drunk and having so much fun
The way you lifted me up on your hip there
By the river to blubber something in French to your friends still gives me such delight
Years later and no one has managed to pick me up like that
Make me feel like that
And then she leaned in and kissed me
Did you watch?
I didn’t expect it at all
Then I left you two in bed
I was still drunk as I rushed to shove my clothes into my carry on
Nearly fell asleep and
Missed my flight to Lisbon
But we had so much fun huh?
You have this way about you
Where for a moment
You make me feel like the most special woman and girl in the world
Not just you but everything around you
The world
The tree branches
Your leather jacket
Your scruff
The breeze
Your scent
The night
The dewy grass
Your lazy lips
Your careless hands that
Suddenly become anything but
Everything wends
It’s way into giving me all of you
While you look away
And it’s divine
You made me feel
Like both a fly on the wall
And also the star of the show all in one moment
It was perfect for a classic avoidant like me
But we expired early

In another life I suppose you're my husband
And we have some French Jewish babies
And you make me cover up when
The very Jewish repair man comes
And I don’t do it
And you get angry at my disrespect
And I love it
So we have ***
But you get tired and don’t finish
I make a good dinner
But burn yours just a bit
And you slap my *** on the way to the shower
And I muss your hair
And you kiss my stomach
And bury your head between my *******
And tell me I’m a good wife
And I tell you I know it
And then I lay down with you
On the couch and we watch a documentary about bears
And I kiss your fingertips
And tell you I love you
And you tell me the same
But the marriage inevitably goes up in flames

Not when you cheat on me
But when I finally break down and cheat on you
And you can’t get over it and it makes you such a pest
And I leave you and miss you all the time

And when we’re old and
We’ve gotten fat
We finally get back together
And the kids are relieved

And we live for a long time
And you always make me feel like a fly on the wall of your life and the star of my own show that you don’t attend

And in this imaginary other life I don’t grow very much at all

You gave me childhood
You gave me silliness
And ease
You taught me how to relax
How to let go
You sat with me in my shame
You gave me grace
You never yelled
Or wanted to fight
You lay down and listened
When I wanted to rage
You gave me kindness and family
You let me in
We were not a match but we did our best
And I am so grateful to you
You gave me countless characters
You were pure play
You let me have my fantasies
You listened to me when I was cruel
You showed me the sight of your heart breaking
You were exactly as you were
You tried, maybe too hard
Because you lied too much
But in the ways that mattered the most to you I know you were honest
And I know you did you damndest
And so did I
And I am so grateful to you

Yesterday I had good news
and I know only you would understand
The way it resonated in the deepest part of my soul
The way it tickled those parts of me only you know about
And I wanted to tell you
But I thought maybe you’ve forgotten those parts of me I showed to you
Or maybe they’ve changed
And you wouldn’t know them anymore
And I thought that telling you might make me seem lonely
Since I haven’t found someone yet to bare those parts of me to yet
But I’m really not ready yet
I thought it might seem sad to you and to the unknowable ether that I haven’t let someone else in to those parts
As I know you have done with your girl
But that’s okay
And I didn’t tell you and instead I just write a poem to thank you
If I reach out
I’m still scared that you’ll get the wrong idea
I’ve had a few dreams lately that you’re having trouble in your relationship
So I don’t want to saunter in
And mess anything up
I really hope you are at peace
And I am so grateful for you

And you did text me
About 10 hours after I wrote that poem
You texted me just as I knew you would
And what do I do with that little hi you sent
Into the ether?

What am I to you? That you text at
4am on a Saturday
Were you still up from the night before?
Were you drunk?
You must have been.
Or were you just waking up?
You’re 24 I think,
So it feels guaranteed that you were drunk
You sent the text then passed out
I wonder if you even remember sending it this morning
I wonder if you’re even awake
Or make you woke up at 4am to go to the gym?
And the in the clear headedness of an early morning you texted me?

No, no I know what it was
You had just had *** with a woman
And it wasn’t what you wanted it to be
And you thought about me
And my *******
And my face and my bed
And the lamp and my apartment
And you thought that THAT was good ***
THAT is what you want
Not whatever reasonable lay you just had
So you texted me

Stupidly.

Unfortunately I feel extremely confident that this is where your text came from
Aren’t you disappointed in yourself?
Are you insane?
Well I do think you have some mental health issues
Some mania

This morning I wondered if I’m like some god you pray to
Asking for guidance
Hoping you’ll find it between my legs
Hoping I’ll give it to you at 4am

Stupid text

"Why couldn't you just meet me for lunch?"
I want to send you in a text
But instead I delete you from my phone
From my computer

Because you won't give me a real answer
You'll lie something ridiculous and believable
Or you'll just ignore the question and tell me how much you crave me
And have me wrapped around your text

Of course you texted me over thanksgiving
What happened? You were with your family
And you looked around at them
And thought
"Carolena would make a good family
Carolena is a good woman and I should text her
And try to be decent"

Is that what happened?
Or maybe it's like Sam said
That he can't respect himself
So he can't respect me

Is that what it is?

Why couldn't you be respectful
Why couldn't you
Why did you have to rip the fantasy away?

You were so delicious
Your broad shoulders
Your perfect face

I could describe more but it doesn't matter
I'll never touch you again
And I have to let the part of me that mourns that die

It was all just a lie to think that I would
A delicious lie I told myself
And you sent me those voice messages
With your voice
I like that voice so much
I like so much about you
Except for I guess whatever trauma makes you such a ****
What happened to you?

I rack my mind wondering if you
Had a terrible accident?
What the **** was the issue that kept you from just
Meeting me in the day time

What a horrible **** boy you are
So manic with those adoring texts you sent
Then so avoidant
So dismissive
So rude

And still, still I crave the husky way you felt against me
The soothing slide of your skin against mine
The ask for permission in your fingertips
The charge in your palms when I granted it
The way you breathed me in
Like I was something you desperately needed
Your scent
Your hands
Your hair
Your electric skin
God I wanted to touch you
I wanted to see what the three years we spent apart had done to change you
Would you have laugh lines?
Would you be different in bed?
Would I look different to you?
Would your mannerisms remind me of things I'd forgotten?
Would we laugh at stupid things?
Would you still look at me like I could teach you things you'd never known?
Would you still look at me like I was a goddess of *** and life and pleasure and discovery and wisdom and truth?
Would you still reveal things about yourself to me that even you didn't know yet?
Would you still charm me with your utter wonder of the world and me?
Would you still make me adore you with the simple way you lean against a door frame?
Would we stay up late with a single lamp on covered in a pillow case?Would you lay on my ribs and make circles around my *******?
Would I get your hair in my mouth and savor it?
Would we finally get to say goodbye?
Would you pick me up so easily?
Would you overwhelm me with your easy saunter towards me?

I wanted
To know you
To love you
And I never ever will now?

What a sick joke.
What is this useless melodrama for?
The drama, oh my the drama it makes me feel like I'm 22
Pining like this

Those 3 years we'd spent apart when you texted me when I was in Paris have now turned into 5
And that time will keep expanding into forever I guess

Why hold a candle to fill the space between you and I?
Why do I do it?
Why do I measure the time?
I guess in hopes I'll see you again in this life
And that in the time between now and the imaginary then you will change and be better
But I need to blow out the candle

And I have countless times.
I have deleted you countless times. But give it time and you will text.
Give it a year, 6 months, you will text.
Why? Why do you also hold out?
Do you also suffer? Is that why you reach out?

I don't understand you and I need to let it go
But I want to understand.

What did you create in me?
That night that you squeezed me so tight
What did you give to me that I don't want to give back?
I want to read you these words and look into your eyes
And know how it effects you
I want to be special to you
I want to be your best friend
I want to know your secrets
I want to be a safe space for you and good god I'd love it if you would be my safe place too
I want to love you.

Maybe I do love you,
Yes, in so many ways I do love you
Useless ways.
I am fond of you and I care for you.
I need to pull out and blow away this honey-colored blob of goo that I keep in my soul for you
This honey-colored energy I can taste
It's so sweet and it makes my mouth water and it brings tears to my eyes and it tightens my chest and you're in it and I need to let it go
You gave me something so special
You told me secret things in the sweet cave of safety and *** I lured us into
"Some people have been married 40 years and probably never feel this way" you said to me
I made you feel like that
"If every one could feel this there would be no war"
I made you feel that way
My body, my *******, my openness, my apartment, my bed, my face, my neck and mouth made you feel that way and then you told me it
That was a gift like no other I've received
And we both sort of threw it away, huh?
Maybe if you had wanted to see me more I probably would have brushed you off like you did me.

Or maybe you realized you had given me too much
Maybe you saw how badly I craved just a bit more of that from you and it was too much
Maybe I was too much
Too intense

Then later you sat at the edge of my bed and I did my favorite thing to do that I've done with so few
I sat behind you and wrapped my knees around you and caressed your back
And supported you so you could lean on me
And feel safe and still like a man as I adored you

I want that all again
But I want it with someone who respect me and themselves
Someone who is my match in so many more ways than the ways that we matched each other that night

The night we first had *** was the anniversary of my failed, traumatic marriage from the year prior. You were bright eyed and bushy tailed and made me feel really alive. And I was at the peak of my spell casting. Maybe I tricked myself and spelled you and then looked at you and spelled myself thinking you were the spell caster.

And I've given up that kind of spell work, I cast different spells now.

But still my eyes water if I think of the way your hair fell over your eyes. Every single thing I did to draw you in marked you the way I hoped it would. Maybe that's what I liked so much. That my magic really worked on you. Each flick of my hand, each little performance of mine had you doing exactly what I wanted you to do.

Each careless-looking swipe of my hand to clear the space where you would have me wasn't careless it all. It was calculated to make it look like I had thrown caution to the wind, for you. And you believed it and you believed that you really had that effect on me. And then I even began to believe that you had that effect on me. But I was the master from the beginning.

I'm still the master I guess.

I hope the undoing of this spell has begun. It feels like it has. It feels like a loosening of the vivid memory of your hair and your hands and your mouth and eyes and voice that sometimes has my heart in ribbons, my angst at an all time high. It feels like its sliding away and I hope it is. I wish this candle would melt down and blow out.

I want to smoke something
And I want to be touched
I am tired of moving and doing
I want to lay down and explore
And sway on someone
Who’s body can support mine
I want to share a laugh with a peer
I want to exist in space
With someone
Has my anxiety been high lately? I wonder
I wonder if something is wrong with me
The little scared child comes from behind the screen
Tears brim in her eyes
And she wonders if she did something wrong
“No” I tell her
As I wrap her in my arms
Put on sweet music
And dance around
“You have never done anything wrong in your life”
And everything becomes okay
And I can lay here
Touch my sternum
And breathe

I never got enough of you
I always wanted more
When I think of you
A softness comes over me
I've never known before

Maybe it's been long enough
I can admit what I didn't like so much

Sometimes you were too much the
social justice warrior for my tastes
But only 1% of the time
The rest of the time we were aligned

Will I ever know a magic like
The magic it was to know you?

It feels utterly impossible I could meet
Another woman who filled me in so many ways
As you did

For 1, I don't see how she would ever be as beautiful as you
This future she
And the history
We built
It wasn't such a beautiful history was it?
Of hurting the other and taking years in the middle to heal
Then avoiding each other
And keeping the cards close
And never saying exactly what we felt
And the values and ideals,
The laughter,
The chemistry,
The freedom,
The emotional maturity,

Ugh, here I am making myself cry over you again

How did I love you so?
It overwhelms me again

I think part of the overwhelm
Is that I still can barely wrap my head around the fact that you wanted me too,
loved me too.

Sometimes I think you could have been better to me
Could have considered me more
The way I considered you
I think you could have been kinder
Softer
Less selfish
More honest with yourself and in turn with me

but that's often how the poly people I've met tend to be
That's often how I was

Countless lovers I know felt the same about me
I could have been kinder,
softer, more considerate,

And I would be now,
If I had a lover to dole out those kinds of things on,

I wonder if you think of me still?

So I look on your instagram,
You haven't posted in a while,
You didn't post for Christmas, or New Years.

I wonder if you are still with that guy?
Is he still jealous and stifling?
Christ, I hope not.

I wonder if I'll text you. And I decide that I will.

Because I love you so very much.

I miss being seen
By someone
Intimately

My ******* haven’t made eye contact
With other ******* in a long while

Though only since October 9
And now it’s Jan 1
And that feels like too long

But I won’t go prowling in the streets like I once would have
For someone yummy
To make me feel seen

Because I’ve long exhausted
The part of me
Who’s intrigued
By a novel human
By their novel *******

No
Now I want someone worthy of the next decade of my life

Days where I'm nostalgic for poems I haven't written

For  words I haven't said

For feelings I used to have

But now I can't remember what they felt like

Anything can be sad if you look at it the right way

Anything can be glorious if you sit low enough

You came back
A Karmic kiss in my DMs
A sputtering start
Formed by my fears
Smoothed into a languid forgiveness
I never dreamed would be mine

Such a special gift
To communicate with you
To think that one day
I might again lay like a cat
Coyly atop the sheets
And read you a poem
Etched from the friction of my longing

Or that I would just get to smile
At you from across a table

Or take a bath
Or text you while I'm in the bath
Or hug your body
And let all the sweetness
I've held for you all these years
Bubble over

Will I cry when I see you face?
Will you let me hold your cheeks in my palms?
Take you in?
See how you've changed?
You became a man in my hands
In my body
I can't wait to see the man you've become
To see your new body
Tattooed and built

I hope one day we can be old friends
I hope you are a man who respects women
I hope you are still so sweet
I hope you don't notice the new depth of my laugh lines
Since you saw me last
I hope you marvel at the length of my hair
As I know I will marvel at the shortness of yours
I hope you let me touch the back of your skull
I hope you wrap me up tight

I have a vision of our meeting
I'm wearing a royal blue, loose knit sweater
Over a bra with jeans
I feel the strength of your arms
As you wrap around my lower back
I bend backward slightly and we both feel safe

And I hope there is still
A vulnerability in you
That is familiar to me
I hope you'll make me feel 23

Sweet confession
"You're the meteorite"
Sweet validation
"I like that"

Life is full of surprises
Our reconnection has taught me
That love is never lost
Good ones come back around
And my life is pure magic
I need only let longing warm the space behind my heart
Write poetry
Dream
And lost darlings will come back to me.

Nothing so soft and inviting as your skin
Your lips like little heavens
Your eyes holding thousands of celestial bodies
Electric connections in your freckles
Your glowing cheek bones
And texture of your laugh lines
The way your upper lip covers your teeth when you’re being silly
Your delicate fingers
Your forward and bold shoulders and the way you make me feel something new when you hold me
When you pull me in with desire I feel something some unexpected magic that I though died in 6th grade animate in fluttering movements
Your subtlety
Your gentleness
Your ventless embrace of life
Your ******* shaped by an artist
So round and cupped and just in between petite and full
Your *** with dimples and delicious weight
Your long legs
A retired runner
The rhythm in your shoulders
Your *** appeal
The length of your neck
The sweet wild sparse little forest of dark hairs on your abdomen conspiring to make me love you even more
Your pouting *****
Your perfect face
Your golden back
The tightness of your tummy, or the bloat when you’ve had too much coffee
The levity in your footsteps
The wisdom in your voice
The softness in your voice
The cackling child in your laugh
The vulnerability of your honesty
So careful with me and maybe me with you too
That vein on your slender but firm bicep
The way you look in my passenger seat
The many beautiful boundless expressions of your hair
The beauty mark on your *****
Your darling moans  
Your balance of masculine and feminine
Your hand on the small of my back
The way it made me feel so many new ways
Like a teenager, like a woman, important, protected, loved, important, worth protecting
Your slow love
I bet you don’t know I feel all this way
How could you know
I never told you all this
Would you like to know now?
Would it be fair to tell you now
That you’re committed to someone bolder than me
With more time to give

Strange to think
How many men have known your body
And I know in my heart of hearts
That none saw you the way I see you
I'm probably a fool
To say this

I felt that you had revealed yourself to me
And me to you
When we woke up in the morning
Sprung out of bed fresh
Clean, new, sweet
And took in each other's forms
With such splendor and delicacy
Wrapping you in my arms
While you wrapped me in yours
And a completeness I'd never known
Blew through me
As your lower belly expanded
Deep, full breaths into mine
Inviting me to release
Womb to womb
Cheeks breathing puffs of air
Beside each other
I've never known a fuller love

A shy 'wow' from your mouth
At the sight of my curves
Holds my heart in suspense

No man has ever seen me the way you did
And many men have seen me well
With eyes that see me only the way they can
But you saw me with a tenderness
Only woman can express
And I believe I saw you the same way

The secret language of women
Who love women
Know that I saw you as only my eyes can
In the caves and forests
In the soft moss of my mind
Near the bubbling creek
In the rivers and sweet leaves of fall
The bending stems of wild flowers
In summer wind
I saw you

I find romance in my body
Dreams laid in my skin
Romance in the shapes
Colors flushed or pallid
Textures, sensations of my body
Endeared to myself
As my hair touches my face
Like a lover might
That grainy golden mood of night
That escaped so long ago
Greets me as my eyes learn
About the mind they rest beside
From my own collection of books
The way I would study
The literature on a lovers nightstand
I study my own
Wonder what clues I can learn
About myself
From my bedroom
My art
The state of my bathroom sink
The temperament of my cat
The art of my feet
I am learning myself
With curiosity and tenderness
And feeling privileged to know such a woman
The way only I can know myself
No stranger's hands ***** my waist
Or feel the delicious weight of my *******
No familiar smelling human
With a nose I know
Slumbers in my bed
And finally I am not lonely without them
The sweet, warm smell of my *****
Doesn't make me wish someone was inside me
Nor does it make me want to be inside me
I just appreciate
My many states
My phases; waning and waxing
My sameness
The many updates to my mind
That allow me to experience the realness of this sensation
The realness of my stomach on my bed
The realness of my fingers as I type
The realness of the craving for chocolate on my tongue
I am content as I adore myself
No need for someone else
To come adore
I am safe in my body
In my good good body
I am safe to sense myself
My bathroom sink is clean
And my cat purrs beside me.

I'm thinking of my old lovers all the time
All the time they are on my mind
I think of texting them
Unblocking them
Looking them up on Linkedin
And I can't
Or I don't
What if I'm disappointed?
What if I would be inviting the wrong energy into myself?
What if they come and the magic is gone?
But all I want to do is smoke a ******* cigarette
On the water
While I get too tipsy off an aperol spritz
And a hot man looks at me and rubs my calf
While he thinks about how to get me into bed
Or better yet,
He already has me in his bed
And he still acts like he's working to get me there
I want to be touched
Tenderly and aggressively
I want to be lifted and throbbed
I want to feel hot, tequila breath on my neck
While a sweaty, hairy chest looms over my back
While a hard **** enters me
And one hand holds my throat and the other holds my hip
Holding me in place to **** me just right

But then the problems arise in my mind
The problems are as follows:
1) who would I select? an old lover? Probably not, they are in the past for a reason, and yet a new one I can't be sure of
2) what if the *** is bad? And I give myself some new trauma to overcome. The vessel of my newly healing ***** is so tender and I could easily disturb the climate of peace growing there, rip the tender shoots from their roots because I want so badly to get manhandled

Aren't these problems just fears?
And why shouldn't I be afraid?
After the three assaults of 2018-2019 *** wasn't the same anymore
It's less to do about the assault of 2009
But even as I type that
"2009"
I remember that I was just a sophomore in high school
The womanness in me barely beginning to grow
And those roots were brutally ripped out of the new soil
The new leaves on my sweet spring green branches
Were torn and smudged
And the soft velvet of my body was ripped
And new pollen was discarded

So of course 2009 also matters
And it's so shocking
2009 sounds like a time for babies to exist
Not a year for brutal assaults
But what can you do? Things happen as they happen.

Anyway.
After the assaults of 2018-2019
I went back to Tony
My stallion
My perfect ****
My daddy
My sweet long beach lover
And I left shaking
Unable to connect
Unable to **** or *** or play in the same way
I left reliving the rapes of the summer, fall and winter
And then no *** was the same
No *** was as free
And now I still have this overwhelming feeling
That the good years are gone
But that can't be true. I know it's not true.

My ***** just needs to heal
And it's hard to heal from ****
When I crave a good, sweaty **** down
And I am afraid to have it
Because what if I get triggered
And then I feel like a broken woman
Or what if I get triggered
And I say hey I'm triggered
And I don't beat myself up for getting triggered
And I don't get embarrassed and I don't cry
And it's okay
So many what-ifs

But I know I'm not broken
And anyway my goal in life is not to **** well
The measure of wholeness is not how well I ****
If I don't enjoy *** exactly right now
that is okay and is not a reflection of my wholeness
I am whole

And yet still
I want a ******* cigarette
and a spritz
and an espresso
and a hairy man with a big chest
wearing an open button down
who looks at me
like he'd like to ravish me any minute
and within all of that
I want never to think
never to worry
never to feel unsafe
or triggered
I want my brain to dissipate
but my brain doesn't feel safe
leaving me alone with my body
with my body where dangerous moments have left scars
and that is why I am trying to cultivate safety in my new garden

Safety in the body
Safety in the body
Safety in the body

and even better would be then to feel safety against someone else's body
safety with someone else inside my body
I feel so lame feeling scared
Feeling scared makes me feel weak
It's toxic I know
It's utterly toxic

But the point is that I am actually safe
I am utterly safe
And if I were to decided to find someone to ****
Right now
Either from my past
Or someone new
I would vet them
And then
The **** would be safe.

How did I do it back then?
At 5'2, inviting strange men to my HOME
Men all above 6'2 by the way
Muscular, fit, strong, healthy
Total strangers into my house and never ever feeling afraid
Knowing they were safe
And you know what
The ones who I knew were safe actually were always ******* safe
And if they showed me that they were less than safe
And I had my faculties in place
I left them
Or made them leave
I did.

I did my best to protect myself at every turn as best I could
And it still didn't work 100%
but I guess that's not true huh?
I could have valued my gut more
Said no earlier
Not had the shot that felt strange
Because I had many many shots
That felt great with safe men
Who wanted to have a good time
And we did have a good time
And everyone went home or to bed or to wherever happy
So it wasn't about the shot
It was about the feeling in my gut that didn't want it
And the women beside me who said go ahead
And the betrayal of my instincts.

And isn't this all just a part of the journey of life
as a woman re-learning to listen to herself
And listening to myself now
having said all this
I suppose it's fine that no man
Is laying in my bed hoping to impress me by playing guitar
Ready to lick me and squeeze me and touch me.

But I would still love a cigarette by the water
and an espresso
and a man bringing me a cool, strong drink
who wants to rub my feet
and **** me mindless
as the sun goes down
I want to forget my name
in someone else's arms
who also forgets their name
inside my perfect, precious, healed *****.

We went to a pool party
Of a friend of a friend
We had ****** before
But decided to stop
Because we were working on a documentary together
Anyway we went to some pool party
And he judged the dark hairs on my thighs
That I didn't shave
I couldn't be bothered to care
I played up my attraction to the women there
For his enjoyment
We got quite tipsy
And went back to mine to work on the doc
We smoked a joint on the balcony
We got faded and swoopy
He kissed me and we went to my bed
I was riding him and wanting his to slap me
It excited me
But he wouldn't do it
So instead I slapped him
He was confused at first
So I slapped him again, a bit harder
And then he was a bit annoyed
I slapped him again
He told me okay, stop
So I slapped him again and as I did I stuck out my tongue
I slapped him again and again and finally he got angry
And saw my game
He slapped me and I squirted all over him
He saw how much I loved it
And he did it again and again
It was all I could do to ruin my sheets
And cover us in my ***
Finally he came, we were a mess of *** and slaps
Even as we lay there haphazardly slung across the bed
Sideways and hanging off
His long, long, long arm could still extend to my face
And laying there, breathing heavy and slow
He kept tapping my cheek with his finger tips
And my **** kept throbbing

I climbed a tree
Praised it's firmness
Then judged it's dead leaves
And then it said to me:
Don't love me because of how I make you feel
Love me because I am a living thing among living things

The other morning
I hugged my favorite tree
After climbing high up in her branches
And she said to me
After a judgment slipped through my thoughts
That so many of her under branches were dead
I wondered if something was wrong with her
I wondered if something was wrong with me
For loving her so
And she said to me
"Don't love me for the way I make you feel,
Love me because I am a living thing among living things"

Slowly thinking thoughts
while cooking a late dinner in a
dimly lit kitchen,
A quiet I haven't said hello to
in a long time,
But I suppose she's always been here
Waiting for me to slowly think my thoughts

Secret thoughts,
Secret thoughts,
I have about,
Those who I adore,

Secret thoughts,
Secret thoughts,
I have wishing,
They loved me more,

Secret poems I've writ
Secret words scribbled on page slips
Wishing they would love me different than they do
And wanting to tell them the secret words
But then they wouldn't be my secret thoughts
Secret thoughts,

I guess I want everyone to puddle
In a pool of loving goo
Around me
To lay on me with the couch
Wanting nothing more
And nothing less than
The couch of rest
Together

Is this just a place where I go to feel lonely
To write my secret thoughts
Isn't it so much better
To love how they love me
To appreciate how they are able to show their love for me

So what if he doesn't love me how I wish he would
Doesn't want me how I wish he would

I feel sexually attracted to anyone I find attractive
So
I don't understand how
Him not loving me
Not wanting me sexually
Means anything other than that I am unattractive to him
I think this is something I will learn
On my own
And I don't think it's something I will ask

I am sinking deeper into the couch
Knowing I need to go put chicken in the oven
And chop up the zucchini
I thought of texting my ex this morning
To see if he would want to go get a coffee
Check in

I can picture him saying, "stop being weird! Just text me"
But it was early and he was probably sleeping
And if I'd texted him maybe he would have followed up
Later in the day
And tried to rain check
But no
I don't want a standing rain check on coffee
With someone I only want to see on random mornings
When Gotye is stuck in my head

I am dancing much more lately

I am glad the other guy left town
It was too much
He was here for too long

I am being more open
To life
To friends
To opportunity
And also to
Energies around me
They are getting in me and on me
And being big and large
And feeling larger than me
And it's hard to feel so stuck up with other people
To feel so affected
To wake up with thoughts
secret thoughts
of someone else's life

Secret thoughts, secret thoughts
The secret thoughts I have about myself
I don't want them to be secret at all.

What will I do in the absence of ***
Will I paint more
Sing more
Spend more time with my friends and the birds
Will I dance more
Maybe in the rain
Will I lean on my friends
Get to know my pen
Lift my arms when I feel afraid
Maybe I'll feel way less afraid
Actually
Will I cry more or less?
Will I get closer to my family
Will my energy still flow
I won't be a frozen bird in a cage of my body
I'll be jell-o and slime in my body
My energy will still flow
But it will all be mine
Once
Years ago
I didn't have *** for a month
I saw a friend of mine and he said
It suited me
To not have ***
Maybe I'll be even more beautiful
and for who?
Not to attract someone new
But just a result
Beautiful like a wolf when she leaps
I don't think this takes away my polyamory
At all
I will still have partners
Big and small
Short and tall
I just won't need to hear them moan
**** their *****
Press my fingers gently against their *******
Feel their wetness
Or their hardness
I will just know them in other ways
And maybe not feel shame
That *** scares me
That ****** intimacy
Is something I'm not ready for
Maybe I'll write more
About what I want
What I crave
Will I crave?
I'm sure I'll crave just the same
I'll have more energy for the healing
I will still be ****
No doubt, that will never leave me
Will the world present itself to me again as it once did
In crevices
In textures
In moods and soundscapes
I think no
It's going to be new
That's the point of this part of my life
Is that it's all new
There's no movie in my mind
Of what this is all like
What this will look like
Everyday I feel the sensation more
That this is just what life is for
That life is for the living
Sensing the world as best I can
Realizing nothing matters so very much
As connecting
Breathing
Feeling
Loving
Breathing
Leaving
Growing
Tou­ching leaves
Climbing trees
Making art
Interpreting life
Sweet privilege
a privilege to make the choice
to heed my body who has been telling me what I need
No one will praise my waist but me
Maybe I will finally understand my waist
The space where I bend
Where my body processes food
Nutrients
The space where my floating ribs float
The space where my ovaries bloat
The space where my solar plexus knows what she knows
It's a relief actually
To let loose my ***** of all foreign energy
Knowing that no new foreign energy is coming here
I never got the time
My ***** never got the time to be alone
The time a ***** needs from birth to around late adolescents
Save for some childhood musings
To be alone
She was invaded early

Now she will finally get the space she needs.
As I let this resonate in my body
This sexlessness in my future
For the first time I feel the power I hold
Or rather the power that holds me.

I'm 28
and I'm reclaiming my virginity
I've just realized in my bath
That *** is optional
Which came from the realization that ***, good or bad is amoral
***, good or bad, has no innate wrongness to it
**** is wrong
*** cannot be wrong, it can only have varying degrees of good to weird or mind blowing or awkward
Just like a sandwich
Of course it is more than a sandwich sometimes
Sometimes it deep and energetic and connected
Sometimes it has ramifications
Sometimes it makes life
A sandwich cannot make life
So the good and badness of it carry more innate weight
But in terms of morality *** is eating a sandwich
A poem from my bath
"*** is 100% apart from ****
But it happens in the same place
Here in this body
That remembers it visceraly"
I said this poem and thought
That this would make a good moment in a play
A woman in a bath sitting up tall in the tub with her arms against the wall, saying "*** is optional" then slumping and sliding down until she was submerged, breathing a long loud sigh on the way, only to muster the courage, arm gliding upward first and body trailing behind to sit up straight and again say "*** is optional" and to repeat.
And then I wondered if this part of me
The artist
that has visions and is mysterious
It felt clear to me in this moment that my creativity
Came from the confusion in my body of *** and ****
And wondered if my creativity, my artist, knew that she had come from this confusion
And then it dawned that maybe she has always been
Maybe I haven't been enjoying ***
Because I've been having the wrong type of ***
I don't know what the *** I should be having is
But I am willing to try things
And then I realized I am maybe scared of what I might like
And then I realized I was scared
Because lately my fantasies have been me naked in heels and chained, walking into a room of naked huge hard men who I have to ask for help because I'm a damsel in distress and then they touch me and **** me
And that sounds like an actually very scary fantasy to come true
And then I realized that maybe it's my fantasies
That don't match up
Maybe I want completely other stuff
Then I got worried of what I might like again
I rememered my ex-partner who one time made a sound like a baby in a tub when we were in the tub on shrooms and his **** was hard
And in that moment I thought oh god is he into adult baby stuff
And I was super icked out by it
And then just now I thought, did I only think that because maybe I am into adult baby stuff?
And then I thought am I into adult baby stuff?
I'm not but it does really upset me
In various ways
And then I was like oh right of course,
Because I was molested as a baby
And then I remembered the ****** I have when I'm alone
and how only two men have every given it to me
Out of the nearly 100 I've ******
Only two
Maybe I shouldn't be ******* men?
Maybe I'm actually really gay?
Though women haven't given me that ****** either,
The ******* fantasies I have
Leave me feeling so vulnerable
But *** that doesn't do so much of what I like in those fantasies
I don't enjoy very much
It would just be so much better if he choked me
Or held me down
That would be more exciting
It would send a thrill through my body
But afterward I'll feel exposed and
I'll want someone who loves me
To hold me
And if someone who loves me
Is there is there to hold me
I may shut down in fear of intimacy
Probably I will cry
Why can't I have that ****** with partners?
I have a fear that my squirting and the ****** I have with ******* doesn't count
Because that one ******, the best one, the one that waves me and quakes me and send my ***** into outer space, the readiness of my lips, the bloat of my *****, the viscous wetness that drips down my tingling *****
Doesn't come out with partners
Something faster comes, something hot and wide and flat, something high shine and piercing comes, white hot pleasure. Dehydrating waterfalls that spill out, calming the white heat before the next attack of pleasure
I'm exhausted by the latter
I'm exhausted by ***
I'm underwhelmed by *******
At this point
I've been ******* since I was four
I've had *** with all the hotties
In many countries
In all the seasons
In every stage and phase of romantic attraction or plutonic mistake
And I get it
I've squirted on so many people
I've *** in my own hands so many thousands of times
And I'm exhausted by it
But of course also I crave it
I think?
Or do I just WANT to be a sexually healthy woman who WANTS it
and I remind myself again,
*** is optional

I appreciate your mouth that is like a plush bow
Thoughtful words shooting from between like an arrow
I love your dove-like qualities
But you’re not like a regular dove
You’re dove who was perhaps a spy
In another time
In another life
You’re a dove who makes you think she’s shy
Until you look her in the eye
And she fluffs up her down
Pounding the air with coy wings
Sending shock waves through your things
Cooing
All the while looking so inviting
A bit naive
With soft, shiny eyes
And just below those fluffy thighs
Are talons that might clutch
You if you’re lucky enough
And the harp song and lightening storm of your mind
I think it’s really really divine
You’re as much vintage Chanel as you are a steaming bowl of organic porridge with honey and fresh berries and a bright green mint leaf on top
You’re the long red hairs on an orangutan’s elbow
And you’re the sweet way
A primate
Holds her babe
To her ******
You’re a late dinner with friends in 10 years
Wooden bowl in hand
Comfort in your hips
Power in your feet
And an expression on your mouth
I feel lucky to imagine
You’re a face I wanna watch age
You’re a place where I can misbehave
You’re a space I sometimes crave
You’re ripples in a pond
And you’re a rave
You’re a song
I’d love to keep humming
For a long
Time
You’re a natural
And you like to pretend you’re not
And I believe that sometimes you really believe that you’re not
But nevertheless you are a natural
And you make me feel like one too
I love few things the way I love being natural with you

He was a meteorite
that night.
She was a lamb.
Not innocent, but soft.

He didn't know
he was such a meteorite though.
Hurtling through her pasture,
blazing out her sky,
raining down sweet fire,
upon her winter coat.

She ate it up.

Wanting nothing more than his meteor heat on her throat.

I like my hairy legs,
They make me feel like a sunbleached cowboy.
They make me feel like a long, lean man with elegant lines and a strong forehead.
I like it when they’re blonde
And they just glisten on my skin.
Like a faux-protection or a cloak,
A delicate barrier between myself
And the world.

Or really I guess I just like the way it looks:
Textured
But smooth.

It looks wild but soft.

A landscape.

I think the hair compliments
The shape of me very well.

I’m always amazed how the hair grows everywhere,
Even on the back of my knees
There is hair

And I like my boyish pretty toes.

I guess I like the sort of genderless aspect to my legs.

From far away they shout
I AM A WOMAN!

But from near they could be anyone’s: hairy with little scars here and there, hairy toes with some dead skin in the toe nail creases. A sort of chunky pink toe there on the end.

A bit of dry callous on my heels. A strong, curved calf muscle. The hollows at my ankles, the delicate depression behind my ankle bones just before the rigid wrinkles of my Achilles tendon.

I like the bulging veins in the arch of my foot when I point my toes
How they press their purple faces against my see-thru skin
Squeezed by the muscles that bump against one another beneath the hard arched bones above
I like the little bubbles of fat that pad my heels, turning bright yellow when I stand on them
Never-smooth legs that even when freshly shaved still prickle
Like a cactus
“Don’t get too comfortable here” they say
These beautiful legs aren’t for rubbing and lounging though my calves love to be pressured

These legs are made for exploration

My therapist said we're enmeshed,
The further you get from me (just like I asked you to),
The more I want you,
I knew this would be true,
It's always when I sense you don't need me,
That I want you.

You didn't believe me but I meant it,
When I said, that I still love you,
It's all the
Other stuff
That gets in the way of the desire,

The mistakes, the stupid mistakes,
The (two) lies,
The need for me,
The weakness in your spine,
That is now getting stronger,

I look at you and I want you,
So bad,
But really I don't,
Because it's not healed yet,

It was so many things that got in the way of: in love
What was it? let's see:
1) the lie that you would work on yourself like an adult
with intention and clarity
you didn't do it until now that we're no longer sharing a bed
and I think that is good
2) the need for your mother
3) the need for me to need your mother
4) the inability to let me fly
to let me be big
to let me be strong, stronger than you
and you called it selfish when I used my strength for me
5) the need for my time
my mind
my thighs
6) the total acceptance and denial of your need for me
without ever accepting that it was too much for me
or that you shouldn't need someone else so completely
7) the boyishness
the child in you that you refused to admit was running the ship

Basically,
if you don't come correct
I can't *******
if you aren't standing proud in yourself as an autonomous adult, as a man,
I can't sexually resonate with you,
why is that so hard to understand?

Your sister said I was throwing you away,
**** that,
I'm doing anything but.
This whole time you were throwing yourself away at me,
and now I've closed my doors to you,
So that I can be alone like I need to be
So I can heal from all the dents in my walls where you've hurtled your body,
begging to be loved.
in a way that you approved of,

I'm a wild woman
A flame
And sometimes I need to burn all the way
Without fear that I'll burn that man-child underfoot
I need to run barefoot
Paint naked
Without being sexualized by the guy who needs my ***** to validate his ****** prowess
Scream
I am a woman-child too,
in the right place and the right time and I don't bring her to you,
Maybe I did, I'm sure I did,
I'm sorry that I did but she's not your responsibility,
she's mine.

I need to cry for my ancestors
Chant for my descendants
And it scares you
But you love it

and I could not hold space for both

You need your wild man
not your weak man
Your wild man does not need me.

I like to smoke
I guess
It makes me feel like a moody
Old but very important man
I have a hard time though with
the contents of the smoke
I don't like to get too high
I don't like cigarettes
I miss his stomach
And the way shirts fit him
I miss his arms that aren't here
Did I only love him so much
Because I knew that soon
I would be an ocean and a country or three away?
I hope not, I hope I'm not so fickle
Is that even fickle?
I also like the sound the embers make
When you breathe in
The little crackling sound
soothes me
It feels nostalgic
Almost like I could be inside those crackling embers
So complete
He would do this thing, I'm sure he still would
Where he would close his eyes to calm himself
And let a big slow breath from his nose
Because the sight of me was so exciting he didn't know what to do with the feeling
I ******* to his voice
Just his voice in my own head
It's so well memorized.
His upper lip I could never really know
Because it was under that beard I love so much
I love how he's never on his phone
He's just thinking and looking around and eating
The smell of his beard
The veins on his big bear hands
The warmth of his arms
The cave of his chest when he's holding me
His sensitivity

I've never loved, seen or appreciated a man in this way
I think he's beautiful the way
A magnificent beast is beautiful
Nothing about him is pretty
But he's delicious
He's like a mountain
A meadow, thick trees letting sunlight onto the ferns
A forest lake
A stag
So strong and transparent
So disarmed
So wild for me and me for him

I'm so stupid in love and there's really nothing to do about it
Especially because
I'm still more important than the way I feel for him
Anything and everything I need to do here
But let's consider that,
What do I need to do here? That I couldn't do there.
But of course there are logistics to consider.

I see it so clear is the thing
I see the yard in front of the house, the strange slanted wall up the side with the little road above
I see the goat
I see the stained glass windows
And the wooden table

I've never felt so safe and excited before in my life
I felt wild and free but held and protected and looked after in a way that did absolutely nothing to shrink my freedoms
I want to breathe him again

I want to go on about him in Spanish with a girl I just met while he stands there talking, probably understanding more than I know

I want to go to Spain with him
Live nearby
Visit his mother
Spend Christmas together
Meet his dog
Be adored in the way he adores
To be eaten the way he eats

I remember I loved so much to watch my pretty, delicate fingers with my long nails touch his hands and face
I like that he's rugged but gentle
I miss his back
Covered in runaway hairs he doesn't know about

His big, strong, hairy thighs
I still wish I'd wrapped around them in the sea
Calling his name
Casting a spell on his hands so he would massage me later
And he did

I want that romantic feeling again
Something about smoking always feels a bit romantic I guess

That you that very extra part of who you are
That extra you
That refuses to be blue
That indulges in the new
That loves things examined and profuse
That darkness in your rhythm
That glory in your spine
That faded glow
Of mornings light
Living in the dusk of your smile
That raspberry bliss
That kiss on the lips
From these tips
The little pout of skin
On the rim of my digit
Is belightful
She’s a white stone
And a blue moon
A dark morado heart
And mint ice cream in her tones
She’s tralificent
Piercing eyes like a taradactal's call
Nose as knowing as the bill of a heron
She’s green corn
And green lights on Santa Monica Blvd
Cars passing before her on parade
Wizzing ever to her aid
She’s maple syrup
And pink Helvetica
16.7 or 32 pt font in bold
She's wistful
She's perfect
She's Buster Keaton
And Jessica Rabbit
She's Chicago in Paradise
She's Arnie's Vegan Pizza Palace
She's A to Z as many ways as you like
She is passion sizzling on a stick
She is upside down and inside out and abiding in her own bowl of Magic Soup

Recently, she’s baby blue, too
A color she’d never met that she never knew
A color she’d never thought she’d be
But now,
In this new season of weeping
Cerulean and turquoise go sweeping by
She’s heard blue in her ears caught this blissful mist swirling in the corners of her spies
And now here they are together in a dance in the ether
Both surrounding each other
Neither knowing either
Strangers to the danger that must surely lie within
But deep inside there does abide a spoon big as the moon to lap up the soup she's stewed and brewed since June.

A 47 foot tall marble woman resurrected by some teenagers trying a spell in the park
Shades of white with royal blue speckles
Lilting away into the day with 1000 pound foot steps and unstoppable knees
Leaving evergreen and fresh pine leaves
In her wake.
Spring up life where I touch down with these cool marble soles
Massive and made of ancient earth not knowing anything but what she must
Forsaking the flaws of humankind that would do her harm
be her fall
Paint her speckles
Cry wolf calls
Awareness found apart from that familiar shade of jade is what she seeks now clothed in freshly spun flesh

Been lost in the dichotomy of black and white
Of dark and light
Of wrong and right
But there is a shadow and a dim and a bright
There is a disaster and a mess and a slight
Colors and shades galore; eggshell, magenta and quite a bit more I could go on
But rather I’d tell you that

She’s skirts hoisted up crossing a river at dawn
She’s the soft pectoral muscle of a sweet mare in the hot summer sun
She’s a lineback dun
She’s creamed corn
She’s soft core **** but give it a slap, a thwack
A proper ****
Again
With feeling

She’s neon nightscapes
She’s every book she’s ever read
She’s scheming tree nuts finding the perfect spot to burrow into the soil nestled by nature’s urging to sprout a root and grow into a baby leaf creeping up towards the sky and downward further downward rooting deeper ever growing always breathing never being the same never changing in any way but in all the ways she must
A 1960’s average family man’s mid-life crisis convertible
Something turquoise
Fit for the kids and the wife and the ego and the front lawn and the grocer and a hightail down the coastline
She’s cinnamon and thyme
She’s spicy
On the back of her neck in the crook of her spine where the stardust that she’s made of meets for the millionth time
She’s a wave breaking in your mouth

She’s pouring boiling water into a lukewarm bath
She’s love

Salt water spewing levitating you but not for long if you don’t carry your own weight be dragged to sea always with me don’t get lost in my motion in my ocean in my Trojan horse my gift you mistook as something you could own

I like that I still get scars on my shins
I like that I prioritize play
I like that I roughhouse and shriek in joy
I like that I’m still entranced by soil
I like seeing earth in my nail-bed
And feeling sunshine on my towhead
I like giggling in fits late at night
It makes me feel young and bright

The childhood I left so long ago has returned
Its a new home I’ve been so lucky to earn
Made of companions, pals, partners, art, pets, plants, rocks and lovers
Feeling safe but free and deep and wild
Belonging and nomadic at the same time

The glimmer and **** of youth will never fade
So long as looking silly and getting scars doesn’t make me afraid

Where is boyhood lost I wonder
And why must the sweetness there get lost
Swimming in a masculine parade
Of shades of rage
Does he know at 9 years old
That somewhere between 10 and 11
He must pretend
He doesn’t want to be held?
Looks from elders who were shoved  
Tell him to be rough
To give up girly stuff
To get big and buff
To be quiet and tough
To call girls *****
To disdain getting cuffed
To maintain
an illusion he doesn’t need love
Sameness painted across generations
Taking its toll
While sleeping giants get old

So let him be soft
Whimsical
Effervescent
Delicate

What is it like to be a man, I don’t know.
Ask him.
Does he know?
Is it cramped?
cold and hard?
Is it full and bold and large.
I hope
I hope
It’s a bit of it all of it
I hope
Every angle gets explored
And every piece gets adored
And that boyhood softens
Rough knuckles

I don't need you
But you help me
And I help you
And I like having you around

But I don't need you
And then sometimes I don't want you

Can you be okay with that?

Can you just exist with me?

Does it have to be so connected all the time?

Why do I so badly never ever want to hurt your feelings?
Why do I think you're so fragile?

I still think you're lying,
And that you did cry
Silently on my back when I pushed you away from my thighs.

Why can't I believe you?
That you're not as fragile as that?

I just think you're quivering
And that without me you'd suffer
Anxiety attacks.

Is that selfish?
Is that narcissistic of me?
To think that you need me the way your face convinces me you do?

The way you cling to my hands
Though you've stopped doing that so much
I suppose.

You leave me alone now all the time,
And that's nice.

Why do men
The sweet ones
The good ones
Still only want to say your beautiful
And daring
And smart
And an unstoppable force
They only want to say it to you
But if you say it without them
Telling it to you first
Now your selfish
Now you didn't give them enough praise
Now you're vanity with too much self-praise

What if I know I'm beautiful
And strong
And courageous
And bold
And adventurous
And resilient
What if I know that without a man ever even entering the room

What if I don't want to be saved
Or fixed
Or complimented
Or comforted

Would you know what to do?
Nice man.

If I didn't need you?

It's been a while since I've been here
Since I've done this
It is quiet and calm but still passionate in its own way
Sometimes do you ever feel like the passion you have now is just burn marks left on the wall from a flame thats gone out?
I guess I do feel like that sometimes
But probably only when I'm tired.
Being self aware is a hard thing sometimes,
You can't lie to yourself like you used to
and you realize all the lies that kept your roof up
And now theres no roof and I'm that much closer to the stars because of it but sometimes there's a breeze that blows too cool
But then the other night a new friend
Asked if we could all share some poetry
And I realized
That magic and childhood and vulnerable smiles live all around me
All the years thinking
Knowing there was no one like me
No one to call "like me"
are long gone

An old woman sits alone in a room
Counting words as they fall from her mouth
Creaking and groaning
Falling from her mouth
Crackling down like dry leaves

She is dying tree
With roots that feed the earth

She wears a cloak around her shoulders
Tassels brushing at the floor
Capturing dust from all the rooms
In which she's sat and spoke before

She is spooky
She is powerful
Within her darkness and light

Her ample hips covers the ground beneath
Wrinkled and fallen flesh
Her crossed feet have walked for miles on earth barren and dry
And in a garden lush and supple is where she learned to cry,

She is the woman
My old woman
Who's come for my nightmares
To ***** away the part of me that cries when she is scared,

She beckons me into the night
With long fingers
Wrinkled, knobby, soft, veiny, calloused,
And says:
'Child don't be afraid
Your time is nigh
Trust me for I am your old woman
and I lead only where you will go'

Thank you for everything you ever did to me
Said to me
Thought of me
Thank you for the awakening
For the clash
Thank you for letting a famished lion drink
thank you for the visions
The melodrama
The in-tents-ity of my late youth
Could have never been such a tremendous explosion
With anyone but you

He’s just a boy
Who likes his friends
And prioritizes his comforts
And that’s so lovely
I can go to bed early
And feel like myself

The more I let my future be
The more she looks like me

I have been having
Good days that I work for
And I patiently await the return of
the middle moments where you look at the wall
While you’re taking a ****
And think
Man
The wall is pleasant
And I feel good

Haven’t you heard
The howling’s on tap
Even the birds bump
uglies and love a night cap
Uglies? Why uglies
I think I disagree
With that phrase entirely
Some transparent ploy by the religious patriarchy
I guess we don’t bump uglies
But it rolls off the tongue
Either way
Thump and bump
Smush and ****
Hillbillies and heretics and hummingbirds and Haye’s
All have to howl
Then heckle the other
For doing the same  
So please for the love of
Patricia who can’t say ‘*******’ and the Preacher’s daughter down the lane
Lets just agree to oust ****** shame

Something that could have been terrible ended up not
And
That
Is
Just
Fantastic

Where you that great?
Is this pining merited?

Unfortunately I’ve realized it doesn’t even matter.

Because to me you were a meteor.
To me the pining isn’t even a choice.
So many other things I would choose.
But it just won’t soothe.
This ache I can’t shake.
It peaks and brightens and sharpens it’s teeth when I think just for an instant that I
Wish
I wish
That I wish

Only for you. And you are not.

Go into the dark to love on the pain that hides there,
But don't shine a light on that what hides,
It's not ready to be seen yet,
To scalp a pain of it's darkness before it’s ready for the light,
is like birthing a babe too young to leave the womb,
Harm done for impatience

Today in LA
It’s humid and gray
And the pigeons are flying low

The air feels like wind
From a laundromat